A Word a Day

365 Words to Augment Your Vocabulary

Joseph Piercy

• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781789293647
• eBook ISBN: 9781789291674
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

A Word a Day contains 365 carefully selected words that will enhance and expand your vocabulary, along with their meanings, origins and sample usage and fascinating word-related facts and trivia. It is estimated that on average an English-speaking adult has acquired a functioning vocabulary of 25, 000 words by the time they reach middle age. That sounds like a lot – and more than enough for the daily purposes of communicating with each other in speech and writing. However, it is hard to feel quite so sanguine about our word power when considering those 25, 000 words account for less than fifteen per cent of the total words in current usage in the English language. Furthermore, new words are created all the time and, as the word pool flourishes, can we afford to allow our vocabulary to stagnate?Logophile Joseph Piercy has the answer: a simple challenge to learn A Word a Day from this user-friendly onomasticon (that's a word list designed for a specific purpose – in case you were wondering …). Each of the 365 words have been carefully selected for their elegance and pertinence in everyday situations and every entry contains a clear and concise outline of meaning, origin and sample usage in context, alongside fascinating word related facts and trivia. A Word a Day is a treasure trove of fascination and fun for all language lovers – delve in and enhance your vocabulary.

1 Imbroglio

NOUN

A curious word that is closely linked to the transitive verb embroil, meaning to involve someone (or oneself) in a dispute or conflict. Imbroglio as a noun is slightly more sinister and suggests something underhand is going on, such as a public scandal or social faux pas that the participants would rather not be embroiled in.

The imbroglio in which he found himself entwined was wholly of his own making.

2 Petard

NOUN

A petard is a small bomb in the form of a metal receptacle filled with compacted gunpowder and a fuse. Dating from the sixteenth-century Middle French, petards were traditionally used to blow open doors and gateways to fortifications during battles. Some etymologists, perhaps with their tongues in their cheeks, have noted that petard has links to the Latin word pedere, meaning ‘to break wind’, which is the base for the French word peter, to fart. The word is best known in English for the phrase ‘hoist with his own petard’ from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the play, Hamlet is to be sent to England with his two hapless companions, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who carry a letter requesting Hamlet’s execution. Shakespeare scholars have debated how exactly Hamlet knew the content of the ‘sealed’ letter, with some suggesting it is a plot hole (narrative error). However, other critics point out that a lot of action occurs offstage in Hamlet (Ophelia’s descent into madness and suicide being a prime example). The phrase has come to be applied to someone undone by their own actions and follies.

There’s letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet
When in one line two crafts directly meet.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4 (c. 1599)

3 Cumulate

VERB

To cumulate is to heap something into a pile, such as a sheaf of papers in an in-tray or a pile of rusting waste at a municipal tip. Accumulate is more commonly used in a variety of contexts but cumulate has its precise uses. Derived from the Latin cumulare, meaning ‘a burgeoning mass’ of some description, the word is also linked meteorologically to cumulus, which describes the density, height and shape of a particular type of cloud – literally, a heap of water vapour.

He knew it was slovenly yet he had a tendency to cumulate his laundry on the bathroom floor and wash the lot in one go, much to the irritation of his flatmates.

4 Farouche

ADJECTIVE

Farouche originates from the Old French word forasche, which was used to describe somebody who lived outside, such as a wandering vagrant. In English, farouche was often used, in polite circles, to describe somebody who was shy or awkward in social situations. An alternative meaning – less common, but perhaps closer to the original French – is to use it to describe a person who has become marginalized or socially excluded on the grounds of their behaviour, character or lifestyle choices; an outsider.

When she first arrived in the country she was painfully farouche around groups of people and took time to settle in socially.

5 Handsel

NOUN

A handsel or hansel is an old-fashioned word for a small gift or tribute given either to children or to workers or servants. It derives from the Saxon word handsel, meaning ‘to press or deliver into the hand’, and is closely linked to a Scottish tradition known as ‘Auld Hansel Monday’, which fell on the first Monday of the New Year. On this day, particularly in rural communities, farm workers and servants were granted a day free from labour and were visited by their employer who furnished them with a small gift, often in the form of money, as a thank you for their service and as an omen of prosperity for the coming year. Up until the latter half of the nineteenth century, Auld Hansel Monday was the major winter festival for families, who would visit each other...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Joseph Piercy
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Problem with Definitions
• 1 Imbroglio
• 178 Repine
• Index