syzygy Three or more bodies in a straight line in a gravitational system (e.g. Earth, Moon, Sun). Me, the wife and the girlfriend would not qualify. armigerous Having the quality of being an armiger, that is, having the right to use a coat of arms.
tapetum noun ZOOLOGY a reflective layer of the choroid in the eyes of many animals, causing them to shine in the dark.
mystagogue (n): A mystagogue (from Greek: μυσταγωγός, mystagogos, "person who initiates into mysteries") is a person who initiates others into mystic beliefs, and an educator or person who has knowledge of the sacred mysteries of a belief system. Another word for mystagogue is hierophant. The context that I first saw it in imbued it with heavy connotations of fraud.
Gaslighting: psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, the uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator Gaslighting can be a very effective tool for the abuser to control an individual. It's done slowly so the victim writes off the event as a one-off or oddity and doesn't realize they are being controlled and manipulated. I've been reading more into this one, commonplace jargon these days.
I learned the word imbricate the other day. It means to overlap, as with roof tiles or scales, but it's more interesting to use metaphorically.
Would that be something like the Fremen becoming followers and worshippers of the Paul Atreides in Dune?
According to Dell's crossword puzzle editor, "ire" is now a verb as well as a noun. In recent weeks I have encountered it used as a verb in multiple puzzles. Someone needs to inform the editors at Merriam-Webster and The Cambridge Dictionary.
The OED's had 'to ire' since 1915. Comparing to Cambridge, it would be nice to think it's a better dictionary from a better institution, but the reason will just be that the CALD isn't a historical dictionary. It tracks current usage. Probably 'to ire' is archaic enough to have missed being included in 1995 when CALD started being published. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99995/page/n997/mode/2up Merriam-Webster I know even less about, but from Wikipedia it seems they look empirically at what's being printed in the language - and OED's entry for 'to ire' says it's rare, so it might not have made it into the sampling frame that Merriam-Webster were using in the early 20th-Century.
Thanks for the history lesson. I guess the question then should be: In a book of "easy" crossword puzzles (i.e. crosswords for dummies) that was published in 2020 or 2021, is it appropriate to be using a word that was considered rare and archaic even in 1915? But that's a topic for another discussion area.
Demijohn noun a bulbous narrow-necked bottle holding from 3 to 10 gallons of liquid, typically enclosed in a wicker cover.
ledgerdemain meaning to skillfully manipulate an organization's finances, massage the numbers, cook the books, etc.
Flatulist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Not to be confused with Flautist. Le Pétomane was a professional flatulist around the start of the 20th century in France. A flatulist, fartist, or professional farter is an entertainer often associated with a specific type of humor, whose routine consists solely or primarily of passing gas in a creative, musical, or amusing manner.
