In music, any such “leaning” grace be aware clashes with the melody simply sufficient to create dissonance, then candy decision. It’s well-known for its capability to present you goosebumps: Think about Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, or the opening of Adele’s “Somebody Like You.”
The phrase is derived from “appoggiare,” an Italian verb which means “to lean,” which in flip comes from the Greek root “pod,” which means “ft,” together with “podium,” “pedestal” and “podiatrist” — suppliers of help.
A whole bunch of Italian loanwords exist in English, particularly in fields like classical music or haute delicacies.
This time period was the Scripps Bee’s successful phrase in 2005, clinched by the 13-year-old Anurag Kashyap, who reported feeling “pure happiness” when he recited that victorious last “a” — rigidity, then launch.
Within the early Nineteen Nineties, the British psychologist John Sloboda requested music aficionados to consider their favourite tear-jerking musical moments. Out of the 20 recognized phrases, 18 featured an appoggiatura.
This whimsical adjective which means “utopian” is derived from a nonsense noun that’s an anagram of “nowhere.”
The noun is the title of an 1872 novel by Samuel Butler. Satirizing Victorian society, the British creator concocted the phrase to explain a fantasyland that deifies bodily well being and treats sickness as a felony offense.
The phrase trickled from literary obscurity into the favored lexicon thanks largely to a Southern California grocery chain whose identify additionally comes from the Butler ebook. That retailer has developed an nearly cultlike following for its $22 almond butter and its smoothie collab with Hailey Bieber.
How does a distinct segment fictional reference develop into a “actual” phrase? Steadily, it’s when the time period “speaks to a pocket of expertise that folks had been beforehand lacking from the language,” mentioned Yee-Lum Mak, a rhetoric scholar and the creator of “Different-Wordly.”
Not each nook of American tradition thirsts for an expression which means “wellness utopia,” however for a sure dialect of Los Angeles English, “erewhonian” satisfies a lexical hole.
This adjective denotes foxiness. It emerged within the early seventeenth century by method of some Latin variations, all referring to foxes or their crafty qualities.
When the Swedish botanist (and homo sapien) Carl Linnaeus invented the binomial nomenclature system for classifying organisms in 1735, he used this phrase’s Latin root “vulpes” because the genus for “true foxes.”
Many early books about biology and drugs had been written in Latin. A lot of that terminology has been preserved (assume “larva” or “rhinoplasty”), which is why scientists typically sound like they’re talking a international language: They’re.
This phrase shares its cunning root with the identify of the Pokémon character Vulpix, a squash-hued fox with a bushy tail and fiery superpowers.
And in the event you’re a fan of The Instances’s personal Spelling Bee recreation, it’s possible you’ll keep in mind “vulpine” because the pangram from April 23, 2023.
In astronomy, it’s when three or extra celestial our bodies configure in an ideal line (the Earth, solar and moon throughout a photo voltaic eclipse, for instance). However in poetry, it describes a type of consonant repetition — like alliteration, however not restricted to the beginnings of phrases — or a fusion of phrases for rhythmic impact.
The shortest English phrase to function three y’s, it’s most certainly a compound of the Greek prefix “syn-,” which means “along with,” and “zygon,” which means “yoke.”
Additionally descending from “zygon” are “zygote,” the product of two reproductive cells coming collectively, and “zygomatic bone,” a.ok.a. the cheekbone.
However amongst prime spellers, “syzygy” is beloved for its particularity: It’s a kind of singular English phrases that’s nearly inconceivable to spell in the event you don’t already understand it.
Outlined by Merriam-Webster as “careless handwriting: a crude or illegible scrawl,” this phrase is a semantic cousin of “graffiti.”
Coming into English through the French verb “griffonner,” which means “to scrawl,” its Center French ancestors included “grifouner” (to scribble), “griffon” (stylus) and the suffix “-age” (which means “the act of,” as in “tutelage” or “sabotage”).
“This phrase makes me consider a griffin attempting to carry a pen and having a tough time,” mentioned Ms. Mak, the rhetoric scholar, referring to the Greek mythological creature with an eagle’s head and wings and the physique of a lion. The 2 phrases is probably not completely unrelated: “Griffe” is the French phrase for “claw,” and writing with talons does sound difficult.
Nonetheless, charming because the phrase itself could appear, griffonage might have lethal penalties.
A 2016 Johns Hopkins College research discovered that medical errors had been the third-leading reason for demise in america, and each physicians and ethics researchers have prompt that docs’ notoriously illegible handwriting might contribute.
“It is a enjoyable instance of a phrase that precisely describes itself,” mentioned Evan O’Dorney, the 2007 Scripps champion. It’s a chunk of zany made-up language whose definition is “zany made-up language” — a nonsense phrase meaning “nonsense phrases.”
Lewis Carroll invented the time period for his 1871 novel “Via the Trying-Glass”; it seems in a poem filled with polysyllabic whimsy a couple of fearsome, serpentine beast.
That is technically a nonce phrase: a lexical merchandise invented for one-time, special-occasion use (and which can or might not ultimately sit down on the desk of on a regular basis English).
Carroll’s nonce legacy is illustrious. Along with this phrase, we even have him to thank for coining the noun “snark” and the verb “chortle.”
“Jabberwocky” loved a pop-culture renaissance within the mid-2000s due to Jabbawockeez, a San Diego hip-hop dance group that gained the primary season of “America’s Greatest Dance Crew” in 2008.
There’s one thing about this playful time period that appears to recommend its definition: a jumbled combination. Synonyms embody “ragbag” and “mishmash.”
Its earlier variations referred particularly to meals: a stew consisting of meat, greens and different miscellaneous substances. One Medieval recipe referred to as for chopped goose, wine, water, onions and herbs.
In Center English, the phrase was spelled “hochepoche,” derived from the basis “hotch” which means “to shake.”
“Hodgepodge” can also be carefully associated to a authorized time period, which dates again to the thirteenth century and continuously comes up when dealing with wills, trusts and divorces.
In property regulation, that linguistic cousin, “hotchpot,” means “combination of property” and refers back to the course of of mixing and redistributing properties so all of the beneficiaries obtain their fair proportion — very similar to allotting a stew, however with much more paperwork.
A flamboyant model of artwork and ornament, born of the seventeenth century’s French Baroque motion (the Palace of Versailles is a primary instance), however incorporating extra asymmetry and a softer, pastel-leaning palette.
The phrase may look Italian, however it really comes from the French “rocaille,” which suggests “rock” or “shell” and describes the lavish botanical ornament that was used (to extra, some may argue) in elements of Europe within the 1700s.
For the reason that nineteenth century, English conversationalists have used the time period to imply “dated” or “out of style,” its humorous phonetic bounce poking enjoyable on the bygone aesthetic’s gaudiness.
It seems within the title and refrain of a 2010 Arcade Hearth tune, which begins, “Let’s go downtown and watch the trendy youngsters,” and continues “Utilizing nice massive phrases that they don’t perceive.”
A verb which means to provide a protracted, oscillating cry that may sign a spread of highly effective feelings, from grief to ecstasy.
Very like an onomatopoeia, this can be a phrase whose sound displays its content material. “It’s a kind of nice imitative phrases in English, like ‘tintinnabulation,’ a tinkling sound, and ‘borborygmus,’ an intestinal gurgle,” mentioned the lexicographer Kory Stamper.
The vocalization options in cultural celebrations the world over, together with Mizrahi Jewish henna ceremonies, Hindu temple rituals and weddings within the Center East and North Africa, the place it’s usually produced by girls within the type of a high-pitched, joyous “Lililili!”
It additionally seems as a looking sign within the 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies” and as a spine-chilling conflict cry within the 1962 movie “Lawrence of Arabia.”
And in 2022, when Morocco’s males’s soccer staff made it to the World Cup semifinals, you can hear folks rapturously ululate across the globe, from the streets of Casablanca to the stadium in Qatar.
From the Yiddish time period for “wood block,” this phrase was dropped at the U.S. by Jap European Jewish immigrants, and by the mid-Twentieth century it had develop into mainstream American slang, together with different pleasant loanwords together with “schmuck,” “schlep,” “mensch” and “oy vey.”
The Heart for Utilized Linguistics estimates that, earlier than the Holocaust, about 11 million folks spoke Yiddish worldwide. Now, fewer than one million folks do, a tiny fraction of them as their native tongue.
Percussive and monosyllabic, this time period is phonetically as enjoyable to say as a curse phrase. And although it’s technically an insult for a careless particular person (a type of “blockhead”), it’s extra endearing than vulgar.
Youngsters of the Nineteen Nineties might recall the publishing firm named after this phrase, which paired colourful crafts with how-to books on matters as assorted as cat’s cradle, magic and blues harmonica.
As bee phrases go, “klutz” is fairly mainstream. However generally, Ok-words are among the hardest to spell, in keeping with rivals. “In our expertise, the G’s, Ok’s and M’s have the very best focus of zingers,” mentioned Evan O’Dorney, the one-time Scripps champ.
