MW Alacrity in Joyce and Burton. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drown’d a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ th’ litter; and you may know by my size that I have…
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Diffident
MW Solitariness. Most part they are, as Plater notes, desides, taciturni, aegre impulsi, nec nisi coacti procedunt, &c. they will scarce be compelled to do that which concerns them, though it be for their good, so diffident, so dull, of…
Exodus
MW The trees are white with dust, that o’er their sleepWave their broad curtains in the south-wind’s breath,While underneath such leafy tents they keepThe long, mysterious Exodus of Death. Author and Text In a psychological point of view, it is…
Words of the day: March 18 – March 26, 2021 Fiscal, Prevaricate, Equinox, Inimitable, Quash, Sesquipedalian
Fiscal Why, Excellency, we and his Highness hereWould settle the matter as sufficientlyAs ever will Advocate This and Fiscal ThatAnd Judge the Other, with even–a word and a wink–We well know who for ultimate arbiter.Let us beware o’ the basset-table–lestWe…
Blarney
MW All the better. He could have kicked himself for wanting to help mankind, join in revolutions or reforms or any of that stuff. And he kicked himself still harder thinking of his frantic struggles with the “soul” and the…
Replete
MW Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,Each secret fishy hope or fear.Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear,For how…
Circumlocution and Circumlucency
MW Circumlucency — not recorded in the OED or Merriam-Webster: The lagoon was calm, as we landed; not a breath stirred the plumes of the trees; and as we entered the voiceless shades, lifting his hand, Babbalanja whispered:–“This silence is…
Attitudinize
MW An unusual word: for each of the two main senses of the word (of striking an attitude and of practising affected and self-conscious deportment) the OED cites only three examples. Interestingly, this word was “frequently” used–on three occasions–by Henry…
Ungainly
MW Now the relation subsisting between the Pilot fish above mentioned and their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in nature. At any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a monster soferocious, should suffer…
Zamyatin and Huxley through Orwell’s eyes
In Freedom and Happiness (The Orwell Foundation), Orwell writes about Zamyatin‘s We and Huxley’s Brave New World. Orwell finds that Huxley’s novel must have been “derived” from Zamyatin’s and that Zamyatin’s view is more pertinent to our times. We is…