Definition (Noun) Swiftness, speed. Now chiefly (as distinguished from velocity) with reference to the movements or actions of living beings. In Context "The new arrangements were more masterly, men less obnoxious were nominated to situations of trust, and business was dispatched with greater celerity." Willem Lodewyk Van Ess, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte: Volume 3, 1810.
Definition (Noun) A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis. In Context "Pianoforte (or sometimes fortepiano) – the original name of the musical instrument now called simply a piano – is also a one-word oxymoron because in music the Italian piano means soft and forte (pronounced FOR-tay) means loud." Charles Harrington Elster, Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps, 2014.
Definition (Adjective) Of things, qualities, conditions, etc.: that once was or existed; former, erstwhile. In Context "For over a century, the formerly Portuguese colony of Macao has been much overshadowed by its neighbor, the quondam British colony of Hong Kong, always far larger in both area and population." Michael Share, Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao, 2007.
Critical Assessment "Mr. Amis has successfully accomplished at first shot the rare feat of creating a genuinely comic yet credible character. Dixon is a young lecturer at a northern university, determined to stand on his own feet, who finds that in so doing he is unable to avoid treading on the toes of many of the people around him. Mr. Amis shows him off sympathetically as well as humorously, and his account of the various incidents that cause Dixon's academic career to be a short but not glorious one makes most enjoyable reading. . . . "The style of Lucky Jim [...]
Definition (Adjective) Of little value; paltry, petty, trifling; unimportant, trivial; mean; contemptible. In Context "Although Wardall recovered well over $4,000,000 in his campaign for restitution, the sum was a picayune contribution to the company's solvency." Charles Keats, Magnificent Masquerade: The Strange Case of Dr. Coster and Mr. Musica, 1964. This word was suggested by Jeff Bergman in the Office of Human Resources.
Definition (Adjective) Of or relating to the open sea, as distinguished from the shallow water near the coast; dwelling on or near the surface of the open sea or ocean; oceanic. In Context "The tiny red pelagic crabs came ashore with the high tide this week, scampering across the sands, bobbing in the shallow waters and adding a splash of color to the beachfront." Hannah Fry, "Thousands of Fiery Red Crabs Wash Ashore in Newport Beach," Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2015.
On a sunny afternoon in June, in the gracious setting of Maclean House, Princeton Writes honored the contestants in its inaugural staff essay contest, which attracted submissions from across our campus. While four employees, Marianna Bogucki, Ruth McGuire, Jamie Saxon, and Dana Sheridan, received special recognition, program director John S. Weeren paid tribute to all who exercised their creativity, thanking them for embracing the "challenge that every word presents – to be as true as possible to what we see and hear and touch and taste and smell and feel; to capture, in this case, the character of our remarkable University." [...]
Definition (Verb) To win the attention or interest of (any one) by wiling means; to charm, divert, amuse; to wile (one) on, or into any course. In Context "Even though Washington and Beijing want Mr. Hu's visit to be 'successful,' no positive words can disguise the fact that China is unlikely ever to beguile the U.S. quite as she did from the 1970s through to the '90s." Arthur Waldron, "Guess Hu's Coming to the White House," The Jerusalem Post, May 2, 2002.
Ammon Shea on Books Reading any dictionary from cover to cover, let alone the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, is not for the faint of heart, but, as Ammon Shea attests in Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, the feat can be accomplished, and not without delight. In addition to sharing some of his discoveries – from abluvion to zyxt – he reflects on his experience and the love of words and books that underpins it. Here is an excerpt: "One of the questions I hear most often regarding my plan to read the OED from cover to cover [...]
Definition (Noun) A confused group; a medley, mixture, hotchpotch. In Context "Between these two dates an obscure man of letters, Edouard Drumont, had published La France Juive (1886), a farrago of nonsense that purported to demonstrate the Jewish hold on France and its destructive effects." Eugen Weber, France: Fin de Siècle, 1986.
