12 posts tagged “words”

ass·ac·er·bate
Pronunciation: \as-ˈa-sər-ˌbāt\
Function: transitive verb

collude  \kə-ˈlüd\

acting in unison to conspire or plot, secret cooperation between people in order to do something illegal or underhanded

Daily Writing Tips missed a big one in their list of 50 Incorrect Pronunciations That Make You Look Dumb.  perhaps they could have listed irregardless/regardless only one time instead of two to fit this in.

sandwich - Note the NDW residing in the middle of this word.  Say /SAND-WICH/, not /sam-wich/, or even worse, /sam-ich/

thinkmap visual thesaurus is a fun toy for looking up words.  unfortunately, it is a toy that they want you to pay for after looking up a certain number of words.  i had fun playing around with it anyway.  one of the random words it generated was "sharpy"

Main Entry: quid pro crow

kerfuffle

Pronunciation: \kər-ˈfə-fəl\

Function: noun

:a commotion or fuss

In those cases, the initial ker– adds emphasis, as it does in other words, perhaps onomatopoeic but perhaps also borrowing the first syllable of crash. But we know kerfuffle was originally Scots and it’s thought that its first part came from Scots Gaelic car, to twist or bend. The second bit is more of a puzzle: there is a Scots verb fuffle (now known only in local dialect), to throw into disorder, dishevel, or ruffle. No obvious origin for it is known and experts suspect it was an imitative word. It is probably linked with Scots fuff, to emit puffs of smoke or steam, definitely imitative, which in the late eighteenth century also had a sense of going off in a huff or flying into a temper.

: a person who is professionally unscrupulous especially in the practice of law or politics
: pettifogger

...but what is a pettifogger....

: a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable
: one given to quibbling over trifles

1. the ringing or sounding of bells
2. a jingling or tinkling sound as if of bells
   

piss-up, noun

1. a vulgar expression for a bout of heaving drinking
2. a party where people consume alcohol
   

"festooned"

no matter how something is decorated, if you can say that it has been festooned, you immediately make it silly.  i recently came across an excellent usage of this word here:

To this day it's unclear whether Eric had recommended the font with or without irony — he's tight-lipped on the subject — but a few months later appeared a "Technology Issue" of Rolling Stone, its entire feature well brilliantly festooned with the font's nightmarish tentacles.