l8r
(SMS) later


lab&tyd
(SMS) life's a bitch and then you die


labile
[LAY-byl]
1. Open to change; apt or likely to change; adaptable.
2. Constantly or readily undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown; unstable.
Examples:
1) They are too open to the rest of the world, too labile, too prone to foreign influence. (Robert Hughes, "Goya")
2) Mifflin may not have been much more labile than the people around him, but he was undoubtedly more aware of his volatility. ("Leander, Lorenzo, and Castalio," Early American Literature, January 1, 1998)
3) Faber's prose is an amazingly labile instrument, wry and funny, never pretentious, capable of rendering the muck of a London street and the delicate hummingbird flights of thought with equal ease. (Lev Grossman, "The Lady Is a Tramp," Time, September 16, 2002)
4) They lock themselves in their studies and from the labile, rocking mass of thoughts and impressions they form books, which immediately become something final, irrevocable, as if frost had cut down the flowers. (Adam Zagajewski, "History's children," New Republic, December 2, 1991)
Etymology:
"Labile" derives from Late Latin "labilis", from Latin "labi" ("to slip").


labor of love

• a labor of love
• labor
• love

Something done for personal pleasure and not for money; roductive work performed voluntarily without material reward or compensation; work done not for money but for love or a sense of accomplishment.
Examples:
1) The book that he wrote was a labor of love and he doesn`t expect to make any money from it.
2) He didn't get paid for painting the nursing home. It was a labor of love.
History:
In the New Testament of the Bible there is a phrase about work done for pleasure without profit, "your work of faith and labor of love." The English expression "labor of love" became popular around the 17th century, when many people worked at something because they loved doing it and not for money. Also, "labor" and "love" both begin with the letter "l", and that alliteration helped make the expression easy to remember.


lachrymose

• tearful
• mournful
• lachrymal
• lacrimal

[LAK-ruh-mohs]
1. Given to shedding tears or weeping; suffused with tears.
Synonym: tearful
2. Causing or tending to cause tears.
Synonym: mournful
Examples:
1) At the farewell party on the boat, Joyce was surrounded by a lachrymose family. (Edna O'Brien, "She Was the Other Ireland," New York Times, June 19, 1988)
2) I promise to do my best, and if at any time my resolution lapses, pen me a few fierce vitriolic words and you shall receive by the next post a lachrymose & abject apology in my most emotional hand writing. (Rupert Brooke, letter to James Strachey, July 7, 1905)
3) The game is perpetuated by the sons in a sometimes vicious sibling rivalry that inevitably subsides into lachrymose reconciliation. (Arthur Gelb and Barbara Gelb, O'Neill: Life With Monte Cristo)
4) Meanwhile, a lachrymose new waltz, "After The Ball Is Over," was sweeping the nation. (Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist)
5) The advertisements for the film portrayed it as a comedy, but the ending turned out to be surprisingly lachrymose.
Etymology, related words:
"Lachrymose" is from Latin "lacrimosus", from "lacrima" ("tear"). "Lachrymose" didn't appear in English until around 1727, but another closely related adjective can be traced all the way back to the 15th century. This earlier cousin, "lachrymal" (sometimes spelled "lacrimal", particularly in its scientific applications) is based in the realm of science rather than emotion. It is defined as "of, relating to, or being glands that produce tears" or "of, relating to, or marked by tears". On the other hand, "lachrymose" is associated with the strong feelings that often cause those tears to flow, or something that produces those feelings.



lackadaisical

• languid
• Lackaday
• alack the day
• lackadaisy
• alack
• day
• idle
• inattentive
• lazy
• lethargic

[lak-uh-DAY-zih-kul]
Lacking life, spirit, or zest Lacking spirit or liveliness; showing lack of interest; languid; listless.
Synonyms: idle, inattentive, lazy, lethargic, languid.
Examples:
1) Drowsy from the heat and from fatigue, he dozed to the steady lackadaisical clips of the mule's shoes. (Patricia Powell, "The Pagoda")
2) There was an oddly lackadaisical inflection to his speech. A sense of merely going though the motions. (Lesley Hazleton, "Driving To Detroit")
3) The very title, Hours of Idleness, which the young lord affixed to his maiden volume, sufficiently indicated the lackadaisical spirit in which he came before the public. (J. F. A. Pyre, "Byron in Our Day," The Atlantic, April 1907)
4) The simple fact is, whether we admit it or not, there's never been an "intelligence" or "achievement" test on which the smart and industrious have not done better than the dumb and the lackadaisical. (Jonah Goldberg, "Stupid Aptitude Test," National Review, July 1, 2002)
5) Disgusted by his team's performance during their losing streak, the coach gave a lecture scolding them for their lackadaisical play.
Etymology, related words:
"Lackadaisical" comes from the expression "lackadaisy", a variation of "lackaday", itself a shortening of "alack the (or a) day!"
We've all had days when nothing seemed to go right. When folks had one of those days back in the 17th century, they'd cry "Lackaday" to express their sorrow and disappointment. "Lackaday" was a shortened form of the expression "alack the day." In the mid- 1700s, "lackadaisical" was coined through addition of the suffix "-ical." The word "lackadaisy" also saw usage around that time as an interjection similar to "lackaday," and this word, though never as prevalent as "lackaday," might have influenced the coinage of "lackadaisical."


laconic

• concise
• succinct
• pithy

[luh-KON-ik]
Using or marked by the use of a minimum of words; brief and pithy; brusque.
Synonyms: concise, succinct, pithy
Examples:
1) Readers' reports range from the laconic to the verbose. (Bernard Stamler, "A Brooklyncentric View of Life," New York Times, February 28, 1999)
2) In the laconic language of the sheriff department's report, there was "no visible sign of life." (David Wise, "Cassidy's Run")
3) There was one tiny photograph of him at a YMCA camp plus a few laconic and uninformative entries in a soldier's log from the war year, 1917-18. (Edward W. Said, "Out of Place: A Memoir")
Etymology:
"Laconic" comes, via Latin, from Greek Lakonikos, "of or relating to a Laconian or Spartan," hence "terse," in the manner of the Laconians.
Trivia: Laconia was an ancient region of southern Greece in the southeastern Peloponnesus; Sparta was the capital. Its people were noted for being warlike and disciplined, and also for the brevity of their speech.


lagniappe
[LAN-yap]
A small gift given a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase; broadly: something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure.
Example:
The Garcia family's store always has the best holiday-themed lagniappes; this year with a $20 purchase you receive a hand-painted snowman figurine.
History, more examples:
"We picked up one excellent word," wrote Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississippi" (1883), "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word - 'lagniappe'.... It is Spanish - so they said." Twain encapsulates the history of "lagniappe" quite nicely. English speakers learned the word from French-speaking Louisianians, but they in turn had adapted it from the American Spanish word "la napa." Twain went on to describe how New Orleanians completed shop transactions by saying "Give me something for lagniappe", to which the shopkeeper would respond with "a bit of liquorice-root, ... a cheap cigar or a spool of thread". It took a while for "lagniappe" to catch on throughout the country, but by the mid-20th century, New Yorkers and New Orleanians alike were familiar with this "excellent word".


laissez-faire

• laissez
• faire
• laissez faire, laissez passer
• laissez passer
• passer

[leh-say-FAIR]
1. A doctrine opposing governmental interference in economic affairs beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights.
Example:
Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, was a firm believer in small government and the principles of laissez-faire.
2. A philosophy or practice characterized by a usually deliberate abstention from direction or interference especially with individual freedom of choice and action.
Etymology, more meanings:
The French phrase "laissez-faire" literally means "allow to do," with the idea being "let people do as they choose," or simply "leave things alone." The origins of "laissez-faire" are associated with the Physiocrats, a group of 18th-century French economists who believed that government policy should not interfere with the operation of natural economic laws. The actual coiner of the phrase may have been French economist Vincent de Gournay, or it may have been Francois Quesnay, considered the group's founder and leader. The original phrase was "laissez faire, laissez passer," with the second part meaning "let (things) pass." "Laissez-faire," which first showed up in an English context in 1825, is still most often a term of economics, but it is also used in broader contexts in which a "hands-off" or "anything-goes" policy or attitude is adopted.


lambaste
[lam-BAYST]
1. To give a thrashing to; to beat severely.
2. To scold sharply; to attack verbally; to berate.
Examples:
1. . . . Someone who spends most of his time lambasting his opponents for supporting the wrong ideas and the wrong courses of action. (Richard Bernstein, "A Conservative Who's Outgrown His Pigeonhole", New York Times, August 11, 1995)
2. Evening after evening, Hiro and his teammates were lambasted for their failures and shortcomings. (Noboru Yoshimura and Philip Anderson, "Inside the Kaisha Michael")
3. Porter, a leading Harvard business guru, offered further ammunition to critics of Europe's economic management, lambasting continental business culture for failing to promote entrepreneurship. (Gary Duncan, "Euro 'likely to mean single government' ", Times (London), January 27, 2001)
4. Eventually, at a 1965 conference of African and Asian revolutionaries in Algiers, he exploded, publicly lambasting the Russian leaders as "accomplices to imperialist exploitation". (Peter Canby, "Poster Boy for the Revolution", New York Times, May 18, 1997)
Etymology:
"Lambaste" is perhaps from "lam" ("to beat soundly; to thrash") + "baste" ("to beat vigorously").


lambent
[LAM-buhnt]
1. Playing lightly on or over a surface; flickering; as, "a lambent flame; lambent shadows."
2. Softly bright or radiant; luminous; as, "a lambent light."
3. Light and brilliant; marked by lightness or brilliance, especially of expression, as, "a lambent style; lambent wit."
Examples:
1) I have an image in my mind of the soaring vault rising and disappearing into the gray-white silence, the niches in the salt walls where the saints dwelled, the few points of lambent gold glimmering feebly on the altar. (Richard O'Mara, "The Unapologetic Tourist," New York Times, November 21, 1999)
2) There, in the lambent glow of flashlight or lantern, you find the fragile rock walls covered with thousand-year-old paintings illustrating the life of the Buddha and his teachings. (Michael O'Sullivan, "The Cave as Canvas: Hidden Images of Worship Along the Silk Road," Washington Post, January 4, 2002)
3) Across the plaza, the lambent moonlight cast shadows on a former convent's facade of saints and angels. (Stephen Benz, "Our Mailman in Havana," Washington Post, November 19, 2000)
4) She wanted to tell him how she felt and feel that lambent look that was better than sunshine, his look of offering all that was in him. (Anna Shapiro, "The Scourge," USA Today, July 23, 2001)
5) It [the opera] is also sumptuously orchestrated, gracefully written for the singers, well-suited to the stage action, deeply felt yet tasteful in expression, and, at its best, a lambent, shimmering creation, full of beauty and nuance. (Tim Page, "Appealing 'Dangerous Liaisons,'" Newsday, September 12, 1994)
6) On a warm, clear night, Roger and Theresa strolled through the park beneath the lambent glow of the moon.
History, more examples:
Fire is frequently associated with lapping or licking imagery: flames are often described as "tongues" that "lick." "Lambent," which first appeared in English in the 17th century, is a part of this tradition, coming from "lambens," the present participle of the Latin verb "lambere," meaning "to lick." In its earliest uses, "lambent" meant "playing lightly over a surface," "gliding over," or "flickering." These uses were usually applied to flames or light, and by way of that association, the term eventually came to be used to describe things with a radiant or brilliant glow, as Alexander Pope used it in his 1717 poem "Eloisa to Abelard": "Those smiling eyes, attemp'ring ev'ry ray, Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day."


lamia
[LAY-mee-uh]
A female demon; vampire.
Example:
In his latest horror flick, a seductive lamia revengefully preys upon the young men of a suburban town, who, it turns out, were responsible for her brutal death.
History:
According to Greek mythology, Lamia was a queen of Libya who was beloved by Zeus. When Hera, Zeus's wife, robbed her of her children from this union, Lamia killed every child she could get into her power. Stories were also told of a fiend named Lamia who, in the form of a beautiful woman, seduced young men in order to devour them and who also sucked the blood of children. Such nightmarish legends uncannily compelled poet John Keats, and many other writers before and after him, to write their own tales of Lamia, which still haunt and terrify those souls who dare read them.


lampoon
[lam-POON]
To make the subject of a lampoon; ridicule.
Example:
A local cartoonist lampooned the mayor, portraying him as a slow, drawling bumpkin.
History:
"Lampoon" can be a noun or a verb. The noun "lampoon" (meaning "satire," or, specifically, "a harsh satire usually directed against an individual") was first used in English in 1645. The verb followed about a decade later. The words come from the French "lampon," and probably originated with "lampons," the first person plural imperative of "lamper" ("to guzzle"). "Lampons!" (meaning "Let us guzzle!") is a frequent refrain in 17th-century French satirical poems.


land of Nod

• the land of Nod
• land
• Nod

To sleep.
Examples:
1) We were fast going off to the land of Nod, when - bang, bang, bang - on the scuttle, and "All hands, reef topsails, ahoy!" started us out of our berths. (Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before The Mast)
2) For the jet-lagged insomniac, here are a few suggestions of what to do in Manhattan once the last bar has chucked you out and the land of nod seems further away than the night bus to Camberwell. (William Hide, "The night shift", The Guardian, February 24, 2001)
Etymology:
Land of Nod is a pun on the biblical place-name, the country to which Cain journeyed after slaying Abel. (See Genesis, 4:16.)



languid
[LANG-gwid]
1. Drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion.
Synonyms: weak; weary; heavy.
2. Promoting or indicating weakness or heaviness.
3. Slow; lacking vigor or force.
Examples:
1) Deliberately languid, slow to rise to a dignified height, his handsomely graying wavy hair perfectly combed, Floyd sits most of the day with his long legs sprawled under his table. (William S. McFeely, "Proximity to Death")
2) . . . in the languid heat of Rome, late summer, late afternoon. (Matthew Stadler, "Allan Stein")
3) With their strength, grace, and endurance, [they] move about naturally, freely, at a tempo determined by climate and tradition, somewhat languid, unhurried, knowing one can never achieve everything in life anyway, and besides, if one did, what would be left over for others? (Ryszard Kapuscinski, "The Shadow of the Sun", translated by Klara Glowczewska)
Etymology:
"Languid" comes from Latin "languere" - "to become faint or weak; to droop; to be inactive".


lapidary
[LAP-uh-dair-ee]
1. Of or pertaining to the art of cutting stones or engraving on them.
2. Engraved in stone.
3. Of or pertaining to the refined or terse style associated with inscriptions on monumental stone.
4. One who cuts, polishes, and engraves precious stones.
5. A dealer in precious stones.
Examples:
1) Here, disgusted by venality and intrigue, the retired courtier would come to compose lapidary maxims and wise but sympathetic letters to ardent youth. (Michael Foley, "Getting Used to Not Being Remarkable")
2) If I asked how long it took to simmer the meat sauce, Emilia would answer with a grumble and her usual lapidary phrase: "Quanto basta. As long as it takes." (Patrizia Chen, "Rosemary and Bitter Oranges")
3) The settings for Jim Crace's fiction are always evoked with superb, lapidary precision. (Caroline Moore, "The timid Don Juan," Sunday Telegraph, August 31, 2003)
4) Nor is he dismissive of the benefits of modern technology; but a constant theme, like a mounting basso continuo in his story, is the destructive modern emergence of "the cult of the quantitative method known as scientism, physicalism, and reductionism," leading to what C. S. Lewis called in a lapidary phrase "the abolition of man." (M. D. Aeschliman, "Faithful Reason," National Review, September 16, 2002)
5) These writers have long and eloquently regretted the latter's lapsed reputation and the unavailability (until now) of his work, pointing to his plain, unobtrusive prose and to his bleak take on life (traits that can be traced, in their view, to Hemingway's lapidary sentences and to his Lost Generation pessimism). (Lee Siegel, "The Easter Parade," Harper's Magazine, July 2001)
Etymology:
The word is from Latin "lapidarius" - "pertaining to stone," from "lapis, lapid-" - "stone."


largess
[lar-ZHES; lar-JES; LAR-jes]
1. Generous giving (as of gifts or money), often accompanied by condescension.
2. Gifts, money, or other valuables so given.
3. Generosity; liberality.
Examples:
1) Four years after her marriage she exclaimed giddily over her father-in-law's largess: "He has given Waldorf the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for a birthday present!" (Stacy Schiff, "Otherwise Engaged," New York Times, March 19, 2000)
2) The recipients of Johnson's largesse were understandably indifferent to what propelled him. (Robert Dallek, "Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973")
3) A swelling chorus has arisen recently to complain that the PRI has been up to its old tricks, showering voters with largesse (ranging from washing machines to bicycles and cash). ("Mexico's vote," Economist, June 24, 2000)
Etymology:
"Largess" is from Old French "largesse" ("largeness, generosity"), from "large", from Latin "largus" ("plentiful, generous").


lassitude
[LASS-uh-tood; LASS-uh-tyood]
Lack of vitality or energy.
Synonyms:
Weariness; listlessness.
Examples:
1) The feverish excitement ... had given place to a dull, regretful lassitude. (George Eliot, "Romola")
2) A long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable lassitude of the whole body. (Edmund Burke, "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful")
3) She felt aged, in deep lassitude and numb despair, and regretted not marrying Mai Dong before he left for the front. (Ha Jin, "Waiting")
Etymology:
"Lassitude" is from Latin "lassitudo", from "lassus" ("weary, exhausted").


lateral quickness

• lateral
• quickness

The ability to move quickly from side to side.
Example:
A goalee in football (soccer) or in ice hockey has to have lateral quickness to protect the entire opening of the goal.

latitudinarian
1. (adj.) Having or expressing broad and tolerant views, especially in religious matters.
(noun) 2. A person who is broad-minded and tolerant; one who displays freedom in thinking, especially in religious matters. 3. (often capitalized) A member of the Church of England, in the time of Charles II, who adopted more liberal notions in respect to the authority, government, and doctrines of the church than generally prevailed.
Examples:
1) More was nothing like his supposed example, the gently latitudinarian Cicero, for instance: Cicero's philosophical and religious dialogues (as opposed to his legal and political speeches, of course) often read as if he delighted in being contradicted, while More's are spittingly conclusive. (Caleb Crain, "American Sympathy")
2) . . . the optimism preached in England by latitudinarians trying to soften the Puritan concepts of an inscrutable, cruel God and an abject, fallen humanity. (James Wood, "The Broken Estate")
Etymology:
"Latitudinarian" comes from Latin "latitudo", "latitudin-", "latitude" (from "latus" - "broad, wide") + the suffix "-arian".


laudable

• laudatory
• commendable

[LAW-duh-bul]
Worthy of praise.
Synonym: commendable
Examples:
1) Becoming a doctor is a laudable goal, but Kelly doesn't seem to realize how much work and stress it will take to accomplish it.
2) Her first answer was laudable - she wrote that yes, she would remain engaged to a man who fell seriously ill subsequent to the engagement. (Enid Nemy, "Metropolitan Diary," New York Times, January 11, 1999)
3) The second sense in which we are feminist researchers comes from our belief that equity between boys and girls, men and women, is a laudable goal. (Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins (editors), "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games")
Etymology, related words, more examples:
Both "laudable" and "laudatory" derive ultimately from Latin "laudabilis", from "laudare" ("to praise"), from "laud-, laus," meaning "praise." "Laudable" and "laudatory" differ in meaning, however, and usage commentators warn against using them interchangeably. "Laudable" means "deserving praise, praiseworthy," as in "laudable efforts to help the disadvantaged." "Laudatory" means "giving praise" or "expressing praise," as in "a laudatory book review." People occasionally use "laudatory" in place of "laudable," but this use is not considered standard.


laudanum

• tincture of opium
• tincture
• opium

Solution containing opium
Synonym: tincture of opium
Example:
During his absence from home one night, she died of an overdose of laudanum. (Cecil, Robert. "The masks of death". - Lewes, East Sussex: The Book Guild Ltd, 1991)
History:
Paracelsus coined it to name a medicine that contained opium, gold, and crushed pearls (among other things); eventually it came to denote any tincture of opium. Laudanum also contains alcohol, which is what makes it a tincture. The word "laudanum" perhaps derives from the Latin "laudere" ("to praise"), or from the Latin "ladanum" ("a resin").


laugh all the way to the bank

• laugh
• all the way
• bank
• way

1. To gloat over making money. 2. To make money when others thought it was not possible.
Example:
The phrase "to laugh all the way to the bank" often refers to a sportsman who loses a match, or to a show-business person who gives a poor performance, but who still cynically collects a thumping fee.
(See: "Cry all the way to the bank")

laugh out of the other side of one's mouth

• laugh out of the other side of your mouth
• laugh out of the other side of the mouth
• laugh out of
• the other side of
• mouth
• laugh out
• other side
• laugh
• other
• side

To be made to feel sorrow, annoyance, or disappointment after you felt happy; to cry at a change in luck after experiencing some happiness.
Example:
Once the news get out that Sid bought votes to win the election, he'll be laughing out
of the other side of his mouth.
History:
This saying was being used in England in the 17th century. This expression might not seem to make much sense. When a person laughs, he or she does it from both sides of
the mouth. You wouldn't laugh at all if you didn't feel happy. The key words in the phrase
are "other side". The other side of happiness is sadness, and the idiom suggests that by
laughing on the other or wrong side of your mouth, of face, your fortune has gone bad and your moment of happiness is over.

lave
[LAYV]
1. To wash, bathe.
2. To flow along or against.
3. To pour.
Example:
There are few traces of man's hand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did a thousand years ago. (Henry David Thoreau, "Walden")
History, more examples:
"Lave" is a simple, monosyllabic word that magically makes the mundane act of washing poetic. Shakespeare used it in "The Taming of the Shrew", when Gremio assured the father of his beloved Bianca that she would have "basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands." And in Charles Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop", Nell "laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk again." The poetry of "lave" is also heard when describing water washing against the shore, as in our example sentence, or even the pouring of water: "He... laved a few cool drops upon his brow" (John Lockhart, "Reginald Dalton"). The word, as well as "lavatory," comes from Latin "lavare," meaning "to wash."


lay an egg

• lay
• egg
• goose egg
• goose
• duck's egg
• duck
• lay a goose egg

1. To give an embarrassing performance.
2. To fail to win the interest or favor of an audience.
3. (Canadian and American slang) To make a joke.
4. To score a zero.
Examples:
1) Although he was supposed to be a good magician, his performance was terrible and it laid an egg with the audience.
2) Who told Sally she could sing? She really laid an egg at the talent show.
History:
This idiom comes from Britain, where cricket has been a popular game for centuries. If a team failed to score a single point, people said it had laid a duck's egg, an object that has the same shape as the O on the scoreboard. In the United States, toward the end of the 1800s, the saying "laid an egg" was applied to performers in vaudeville shows who bombed in front of the audience. In baseball slang, the expression for "zero" is "goose egg," and to get no score is to "lay a goose egg." Today you can "lay an egg" if you do anything that fails totally because nobody likes it.


lay one's cards on the table

• lay your cards on the table
• lay
• card
• cards
• table

To speak frankly, be honest, not hold back; to let someone know one's position openly, deal honestly; to reveal all the facts openly and honestly; to reveal one's purpose and plans.
Examples:
1) He laid his cards on the table during the meeting to dispose of the excess inventory.
2) The mayor laid the cards on the table about his secret campaign funds.
History:
The idiom comes from playing cards. There are many games in which players have to put their cards on the table face up to show what cards they have been holding. When that happens, there are no secrets, the truth is out.


lead by the nose

• lead smb. by the nose
• lead you by the nose
• lead by
• lead
• nose

1. To control, have the ability to rule over; to make or persuade someone to do anything you want; to dominate someone.
2. To conceal one's true motives from esp. by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end.
Examples:
1) My sister has been leading her husband by the nose since they got married.
2) He bamboozled his professors into thinking that he knew the subject well.
3) My grandfather thinks he's boss, but everyone knows that Grandma really leads him by the nose.
History:
Animals, like cattle in the field or trained bears in a circus, are often led about by a rope attached to a ring in their noses. Phrases about being led by one's nose first appeared in the Bible (Isaiah 37:29) and later in English about A.D. 170. By the 1500s the saying was carried over to people who were controlled by other people.

lead-pipe cinch
(Amer. slang) certain of the result, a foregone conclusion Example: The Jets are a lead pipe cinch to win the game. They're better. Etymology: The figurative sense of "cinch" is recorded from the 1880s on. Generally, it's the piece of a lead pipe that might have been used to tighten a strap. Maybe, the origin is in the plumbing trade itself, on the basis that there might have been some device that held, or cinched, pieces of pipe together. It might have been a version of a device sometimes known as a strap wrench, which is used when the jaws of a standard monkey wrench would damage the item being worked on. In all cases, "cinch" came from the saddle-girth meaning of the word, which itself had been borrowed from Spanish "cincha" in the 1860s. A saddle that had been tightly cinched was secure, so something that was a cinch was a safe or sure thing, an idea which developed into the slang sense of something that was a certainty. "Lead-pipe cinch" suddenly appears in the early 1890s. It's obvious enough that a lead-pipe cinch is one up on the common or garden variety of cinch, so that "lead-pipe" here is what grammarians call an intensifier. But why should it be so? This is where we part company with the facts and go drifting off on the wayward currents of surmise and supposition. Robert Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang" suggested it is because a lead pipe is easily bent, "in case one has bet on such a feat". Eric Partridge thought it came about through the effectiveness of a length of lead pipe as a weapon. Jonathon Green argues it is the solidity of the lead pipe that is most important. Unlike many modern urban folk, in the 1890s everyone who used the phrase knew exactly what a cinch was in its literal sense. So "lead-pipe cinch" had to resonate somehow with that. Jonathon Lighter, in the "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang", points out that there was a brief flowering of another sense, that of having an especially firm grip on something. The idea was presumably that if a leather cinch was effective, one made of lead would be even more so, or that one's grip on lead pipe could be firmer than on a leather strap.

learned

• learn

1. [le:nd] (the past tense of "learn") - acquired by learning or experience, as: learned behavior; a learned response.
Example:
I learned to drive at the age of 16.
2. [le:nid] - erudite, well read, broadly educated, directed toward scholars; having or showing much knowledge, as: learned professions, learned books, periodicals, societies.
Example:
Someone with knowledge in many areas of science and humanities is said to be learned.

leatherneck

• leather neck
• leather
• neck

Marines are called leathernecks.
Etymology:
The name came from the days of sailing ships, when marines were used as the boarding party to fight enemy ships hand to hand. They wore high thick leather collars to protect their necks from saber slashes.

leathernecks

• jarheads
• leatherneck
• jarhead
• leather-necks
• jar-heads
• leather-neck
• jar-head
• leather
• neck
• jar
• head

(army slang) US Marines.
Etymology:
The name "leatherneck" for Marines came from the days of sailing ships, when Marines were used as the boarding party to fight enemy ships hand to hand. They wore high thick leather collars to protect their necks from saber slashes.

leave no stone unturned

• leave
• stone
• unturn
• unturned
• go over with a fine-tooth comb
• go over with
• fine-tooth comb
• go over
• fine-tooth
• comb

To search thoroughly and exhaustively; to try in every way, to do everything possible; to make all possible effort to carry out a task or search for someone or something.
Synonym: go over with a fine-tooth comb
Examples:
1) The citizens of the town left no stone unturned when they were looking for the little girl who was lost.
2) The police left no stone unturned in looking for the president's murderer.
3) She vowed that she would leave no stone unturned in finding out who let the air out of her tires.
History:
Euripides, a great playwright of ancient Greece, once told the legend of a Persian general who left a treasure in his tent and then lost a major battle. Someone went looking for the treasure but couldn't find it, so he went to the Oracle of Delphi for advice. The Oracle said, "Movere omnem lapidum" which meant "Move every stone" in Latin.


leave smb. holding the bag

• leave smb.
• holding the bag
• leave
• hold the bag
• holding
• hold
• bag

To force someone to take the blame when it should be shared.
Example:
When the teacher demanded to know who wrote the joke on the blackboard, Diego was left holding the bag.
History:
This expression was known by many Americans in the 1780s. It might have come from
a mean trick boys played on a new boy in town. They'd take him to the woods at night, give him a lantern and a bag, and tell him to wait for a bird that, attracted by the light,
would fly into the bag. The rest of the boys would return home, knowing no bird would
appear.

leave smb. out in the cold

• leave smb. out
• in the cold
• leave out
• leave
• cold
• leave smb.

1. To not tell someone something.
2. To exclude someone from a place of activity.
Example:
Christina told everyone else about the party, but she left me out in the cold.
History:
If someone locked the door and left your outside on a cold night, you would feel
excluded and ignored. When this expression first became popular, it meant exactly that:
literally being left outside in cold weather.

left field

• left
• field

(Mainly Brit. informal)
(Slightly) odd or unusual; unconventional.
Examples:
1) Her parents were creative and left-field and wanted Polly to become a singer or a truck driver.
2) This left-field cabaret act made her laugh and cry.
History:
Baseball became a popular sport in the United States in the 20th century, and this expression is based on one of the field positions. Left field is a long way from home plate and is one of the farthest outfield positions to which fewer balls are hit. If home plate is called "home" because it's a safe place where a player starts out from and hopes to come back to, then "left field" means something far from what's considered normal. It's really weird!

legally separated

• legally
• separated
• separate

A married couple, living apart under a court order or separate maintenance agreement.


legerdemain
[lej-ur-duh-MAIN]
1. Sleight of hand.
2. A display of skill, trickery, or artful deception.
Examples:
1) We are inclined to regard the treatment of [paradoxes].. . as a mere legerdemain of words. (Benjamin Jowett, "Dialogues of Plato")
2) Their alleged legerdemain at the blackjack table and roulette wheel of the luxurious Salle Anglaise was caught on closed-circuit television. ("Double dealing puts Monte Carlo in a spin," Daily Telegraph, February 23, 1997)
3) There is a certain knack or legerdemain in argument. (Shaftesbury, "Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times")
Etymology:
"Legerdemain" is from Old French "leger de main", literally "light of hand": "leger" ("light") + "de" ("of") + "main" ("hand").


leitmotif

• leitmotiv

[LYTE-moh-teef]
1. A melodic phrase or figure that accompanies the reappearance of an idea, person, or situation, especially in a Wagnerian music drama.
2. A dominant recurring theme.
Example:
The struggle of finding identity in an anonymous world is a common leitmotif in the director's earlier films.
History:
The English word "leitmotif" (or "leitmotiv," as it is also spelled) comes from the German "Leitmotiv," meaning "leading motive" and formed from "leiten" ("to lead") and "Motiv" ("motive"). In its original sense, the word usually applies to opera, and was first used by writers interpreting the works of Richard Wagner. The German composer was famous for employing leitmotifs in operas such as "Der Ring des Nibelungen" and "Tristan und Isolde", although Wagner himself did not invent the technique. "Leitmotif" is still commonly used with reference to music and musical drama, but is now also used more broadly to refer to any recurring theme in the arts or in everyday life.


lemon
A defective product, or anything that doesn't work very well; something which breaks constantly, particularly a car.
Examples:
1) Tom's new car turned out to be a lemon. 2) My new computer is a lemon; I should just throw it out the window.
Etymology:
A "lemon" is a citrus fruit with a tart or sour (not sweet) flavor. In the 1800's, people started using the word 'lemon' to describe people who were sour (or unfriendly). Over time, 'lemon' came to refer to anything that was defective or broken.

lend an ear

• lend smb. one's ear
• lend
• ear
• give one's ear to smb.
• give one's ear to
• give

To listen and pay attention to.
Example:
I know you're very busy, but could you just lend me your ear for a minute?
History:
This saying, of course, doesn't really mean to lend someone your ears as you would lend him or her a pencil. In William Shakespeare's time, around 1600, it was a common way of asking that you listen to the person speaking. Shakespeare used this expression in the play "Julius Caesar" when he had his character Mark Antony shout to a noisy crowd of Romans at the funeral of the assassinated Julius Caesar, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." The crowd quickly quieted and listened to what Mark Antony had to say. This expression caught on.

lend smb. a hand

• give smb. a hand
• lend a hand
• lend
• hand

1. To give smb. a hand; to help smb.; to assist; to aid; to support;
2. to help smb. physically to carry, lift, move smth. etc.
Examples:
You gonna change the tyre. I can lend you a hand if you like.
Let me lend you a hand with this stuff.

lenity

• mildness
• leniency

[LEN-uh-tee]
The state or quality of being lenient; gentleness of treatment.
Synonyms: mildness; leniency
Examples:
1) The criminal suspect is pressured by remorse or hope of lenity or sheer despair to fess up. (Richard A. Posner, "Let Them Talk," The New Republic, August 21, 2000)
2) In this context, severity is justice, lenity injustice. (Dr Anthony Daniels, "It's no way to treat a lunatic," Sunday Telegraph, December 13, 1998)
3) ...An excessive lenity toward criminals, which encourages crime. (Richard A. Posner, "The Moral Minority," New York Times, December 19, 1999)
4) And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity? (William Shakespeare, "Henry VI, part III")
Etymology:
"Lenity" comes from Latin "lenitas", from "lenis" - "soft, mild."


let one's hair down

• let
• hair down
• let one's hair
• hair
• let your hair down

To relax, get comfortable; to behave informally, to behave freely and naturally; to relax and show your true self; to rid oneself of restraints.
Example:
At my sleep-over party, Nina really let her hair down.
History:
This idiom started in the 1800s when many women wore their long hair pinned up in
public and only let it down in private, especially just before they went to bed.

let sleeping dogs lie

• let
• sleeping
• dogs
• dog
• lie

To not make trouble if you don't have to; to not make someone angry by stirring up trouble; don't stir up trouble.
Examples:
1) You should let sleeping dogs lie and not ask him any questions about the argument.
2) Don't remind the director that you missed two rehearsals. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
History:
This well-known proverb was used by many people in the 1200s. English writer Geoffrey Chaucer used it in one of his books in 1374, saying it was not good to wake a sleeping dog. Imagine that you come upon a sleeping dog. Since you don't know what will happen if you wake it up (it may pounce on you and bite you!), it would be much smarter to just let the hound dream on. In the same way, if right now everything is calm, it's better not to stir up anything that could cause trouble or danger. Leave well enough alone!

let the cat out of the bag

• let the cat out of the bag
• buy a pig in a poke
• spill the beans
• buy
• pig
• poke
• spill
• bean
• beans
• let
• cat
• bag
• let out
• let out of
• out of
• out of the bag

To reveal the secret; to give away a secret; to tell people smth.
Synonyms: to buy a pig in a poke; to spill the beans
Examples:
1) People know we plan to elope. Who let the cat out of the bag?
2) Carol's little brother let the cat out of the bag about her surprise party.
Etymology:
At medieval markets, unscrupulous traders would display a pig for sale. However, the pig was always given to the customer in a bag, with strict instructions not to open the bag until they were some way away. The trader would hand the customer a bag containing something that wriggled, and it was only later that the buyer would find he'd been conned when he opened the bag to reveal that it contained a cat, not a pig. Therefore, "letting the cat out of the bag" revealed the secret of the con trick.
Alternatively, at one time, and even today in some circles, some people who have unwanted cats put them in a "gunny" sack with some large rocks and drop the whole thing in the river. Some people would find this practice objectionable. Hence a desire to keep it a secret. Letting the cat out of the bag would divulge that secret.



let the chips fall where they may

• let
• chip
• chips
• fall
• may

Never mind the results; do something regardless of the consequences; don`t worry about the results of your actions; do the right thing, as you see it, whatever consequences might be.
Examples:
1) I will speak out against the new dress code and let the chips fall where they may.
2) I am not going to worry about whether or not the company will go broke or not. I will let the chips fall where they may.
History:
This idiom was first used in the 1880s and referred to woodcutters who needed to concentrate on doing a good job instead of on where the small chips of wood fell from their axes.


lexicographer

• lexicon

[lek-suh-KAH-gruh-fer]
An author or editor of a dictionary.
Example:
The great lexicographer Noah Webster, who wrote the first authoritative dictionary of American English, was born on October 16, 1758.
History, related words:
The ancient Greeks were some of the earliest makers of dictionaries; they used them mainly to catalog obsolete terms from their rich literary past. To create a word for writers of dictionaries, the Greeks sensibly attached the suffix "-graphos," meaning "writer," to "lexikon," meaning "dictionary," to form "lexikographos," the direct ancestor of the English "lexicographer." "Lexikon," which itself descends from the Greek "lexis" (meaning "word" or "speech"), also gave us "lexicon," which can mean either "dictionary" or "the vocabulary of a language, speaker, or subject."


lexicon

• lexicons
• lexica

[LEK-suh-kon]
Plural: lexicons or lexica [-kuh]
1. A book containing an alphabetical arrangement of the words in a language with the definition of each; a dictionary.
2. The vocabulary of a person, group, subject, or language.
3. (Linguistics) The total morphemes of a language.
Examples:
1) He thought it right in a lexicon of our language to collect many words which had fallen into disuse. (James Boswell, "Life of Johnson")
2) There were schoolbooks for young James: Ovid, Caesar, Virgil, Terence, Greek grammar, Greek lexicon. (Linda K. Kerber, "No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies")
3) Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled their homes during the fighting and became, in the lexicon of relief workers, IDPs, or internally displaced persons. ("Casualties of War," Washington Post, June 15, 1999)
4) Curse words ceased to shock; many moved into the accepted lexicon. (Bruce J. Schulman, "The Seventies")
5) "Backwardness" was a very important word in the Soviet Communist lexicon: it stood for everything that belonged to old Russia and needed to be changed in the name of progress and culture. (Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Everyday Stalinism")
Etymology:
"Lexicon" comes from Greek "lexikon", from "lexikos" ("of or belonging to words"), from "lexis" ("a speaking, speech, a way of speaking, a word or phrase"), from "legein" ("to say, to speak").


lho
(SMS) laughing head off


libation
1. The act of pouring a liquid (usually wine) either on the ground or on a victim in sacrifice to some deity; also, the wine or liquid thus poured out.
2. A beverage, especially an alcoholic beverage.
3. An act or instance of drinking.
Examples:
1) Hearing that the train had lost one of its engines and that the remainder of the trip would be very slow, I headed for the bar car for a libation and a snack or two to soothe my growing hunger pangs. (Lawrence Van Gelder, "Tales of Flying Cars and Trees," New York Times, May 28, 2000)
2) Giving careful packing instructions to his Sherpas who would be freighting the spirits to his Base Camp, Todd more than half-anticipated some nights when the libation might serve to take off the edge. (Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt, "The Climb")
Etymology:
"Libation" is from Latin "libatio", from "libare" - "to take a little from anything, to taste, to pour out as an offering."


lido
[LEE-doh]
A fashionable beach resort.
Example:
Staff at hotels and restaurants along the world-famous lido are already gearing up for the huge influx of students during Spring Break.
History:
The original Lido is a beach resort near Venice, Italy. The town's name comes from the Italian word "lido," which means "shore" or "bank." (The Italian root derives from "litus," the Latin word for "shore.") By the mid-19th century, Lido's reputation as a chic vacation destination for the well-to-do was the envy of seaside resorts everywhere. English speaking social climbers generalized the town's name and started using it for any fashionably Lido-esque beach.


lief

• had as lief
• would as lief
• had liefer
• would liefer
• have liefer
• have as lief

soon, gladly
Example:
In Shakespeare's comedy "As You Like It", when Orlando is tardy meeting his love, Rosalind, she wittily reproaches him with the words, "Come no more in my sight. I had as lief be woo'd of a snail."
Etymology:
"Lief" began as "leof" in Old English and has since appeared in many literary classics, first as an adjective and then as an adverb. It got its big break in the epic poem "Beowulf" as an adjective meaning "dear" or "beloved". The adverb first appeared in the 13th century, and in 1390, it was used in John Gower's collection of love stories, "Confessio Amantis". Since that time, it has graced the pages of works by William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and D.H. Lawrence, among others. Today, the adjective is considered to be archaic and the adverb is used much less frequently than in days of yore. It still pops up now and then, however, in the phrases "had as lief", "would as lief", "had liefer", and "would liefer".


liger

• tigon

A cross between a male lion and a female tiger.
Example:
Did you see the report that a liger was born last week in a Moscow zoo?
Etymology, related words:
"Liger" = "lion" + "tigress". The term is recorded from the 1930s. The liger has a lion's mane and a tiger's stripes and can weigh up to 450 kilos. The liger is a zoo-bred hybrid, as is the tigon, the result of mating a tiger with a lioness. It is probable that neither the liger nor the tigon occurs in the wild, as differences in the behaviour and habitat of the lion and tiger make interbreeding unlikely. The liger and the tigon possess features of both parents, in variable proportions.



light at the end of the tunnel

• light
• end
• at the end
• tunnel

Light in the heart of darkness, hope that there will be an end to a crisis; a sign of progress; feeling hopeful because you will soon be finished; a long-searched-for answer, goal, or success.
Examples:
1) After four years of study, I could see light at the end of the tunnel. I would soon graduate.
2) After many years of experiments on the phonograph, Edison saw the light at the end of the tunnel with the wax cylinder.
History:
Imagine driving through a long, dark tunnel. You wonder when you'll ever get out. Then, far ahead, you see a tiny spot of light that marks the end of the tunnel. You know that if you keep going forward, the light will grow bigger and you will come out into the sunlight again. Now imagine that the tunnel represents a long period of hard work. The light represents the end of that work. It's still up ahead, but it gives you hope to continue your quest.


light jockey

• light
• jockey
• LJ

Someone who arranges lighting shows.
Example:
A good DJ plays music that works for the crowd; a great DJ plays music that draws the crowd along. The best light jockey turns what the DJ is doing into light.
Synonym: LJ.

like a bump on a log

• like
• bump
• log

Inactive and not responding.
Examples:
1) I spoke to him but he just sat there like a bump on a log.
2) Don't just sit there like a bump on a log. Help me move this piano.
History:
Mark Twain, the author of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn", among other great
books, used this simile (a comparison often using "like" or "as") in 1863. A bump on a log is an immovable lump of wood. In this idiom it represents a fixed, motionless person.

like a house on fire

• like
• house on fire
• house
• fire
• like a house afire
• afire

1. Very well.
2. Very quickly; rapidly; with great force or intensity.
Examples:
1) They get on like a house on fire.
2) The crowd burst through the gate like a house on fire.
3) She talked like a house on fire.
4) The kids grow like a house on fire.
Synonym: like a house afire
History:
The simile made better sence in the old days when houses were of wooden construction and had thatched roofs. The houses on fire did tend to burn rapidly and create intense balls of fire as they burn.


like two peas in a pod

• like
• two
• pea
• peas
• pod

Like identical twins, like two things that are very similar; identical; alike in looks and behavior.
Example:
Kyle and his brother are like two peas in a pod.
History:
A pod is a seedcase that holds beans or peas. When it is ripe, the pod split open to let go of what's inside. Peas lying cozily in a pod seem like in shape and color.


liminal

• subliminal

[LIM-uh-nul]
1. of or relating to a sensory threshold
2. barely perceptible
Example:
In the background of the painting, a liminal figure stands in the murky half-light.
3. of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition
Synonyms: in-between, transitional
Etymology, related words:
"Liminal" descends from the Latin noun "limen," meaning "threshold." It makes sense, then, that "liminal" applies to the idea of a sensory threshold, the point at which a physiological effect begins to be produced. Likewise, closely related "subliminal" means "below a threshold"; it can describe something inadequate to produce a sensation or something operating below a threshold of consciousness. The "sensory threshold" sense of "liminal" has given rise to extended uses. In addition to the "barely perceptible" sense, "liminal" now sometimes means "transitional" or "intermediate" (as in "the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness").


limn
[LIM] 1. To depict by drawing or painting. 2. To portray in words; to describe.
Examples:
1) Oh, yes, I write, as I limn the familiar perfections of his profile, "you look very well." (Kimberly Elkins, "What Is Visible", The Atlantic, March 2003)
2) In telling these people's stories Mr. Butler draws upon the same gifts of empathy and insight, the same ability to limn an entire life in a couple of pages. (Michiko Kakutani, "Earthlings May Endanger Your Peaceful Rationality", New York Times, March 10, 2000)
3) But used faithfully and correctly, language can "limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers." (John Darnton, "In Sweden, Proof of The Power Of Words", New York Times, December 8, 1993)
Etymology:
"Limn" is from Middle English "limnen", alteration of "luminen", from "enluminen", from Medieval French "enluminer", from Late Latin "illuminare" ("to illuminate"), ultimately from Latin "lumen" ("light").


limp
uneven manner of walking that results from an injured leg

linchpin
[LINCH-pin]
1. A locking pin inserted crosswise (as through the end of an axle or shaft).
2. One that serves to hold together parts or elements that exist or function as a unit.
Example:
Jane's canceled check was the linchpin of the case against her, because it proved that she did know about the sale of Aunt Jessie's vase.
History, more examples:
"There was the good old custom of taking the linch-pins out of the farmers' and bagmens' gigs at the fairs, and a cowardly blackguard custom it was." That custom, described by British writer Thomas Hughes in his 1857 novel "Tom Brown's School Days", was "blackguard" indeed. The linchpin in question held the wheel on the carriage and removing it made it likely that the wheel would come off as the vehicle moved. Such a pin was called a "lynis" in Old English; Middle English speakers added "pin" to form "lynspin." Modern English speakers modified it to "linchpin" and, in the mid-20th century, began using the term figuratively for anything as critical to a complex situation as a linchpin is to a wagon.


lineament

• lineaments

[LIN-ee-uh-muhnt]
1. One of the outlines, exterior features, or distinctive marks of a body or figure, particularly of the face.
2. A distinguishing or characteristic feature (usually in the plural: lineaments).
Examples:
1) If she saw herself, even in her memory, she did not see the brightness that had been hers as a wife; she saw the lined and ageing woman she had become, as if these lineaments had been waiting to emerge since her features had first been formed. (Anita Brookner, "Visitors")
2) Biography - and, by definition, autobiography - is the form of the moment. In the shape of a well-lived, well-told life we can discern the lineaments of the day and even, if the life to hand signifies more than itself, the age. (Fred Inglis, "No Discouragement: An Autobiography," New Statesman, December 6, 1996)
3) Crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud, and threatening to fall into it - as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage; all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch. (Charles Dickens, "Oliver Twist")
Etymology:
"Lineament" comes from Latin "lineamentum" ("feature, lineament"), from "linea" ("line").


lionize

• lionise

[LY-uh-nyz]
In BRIT, also use 'lionise'
1. To treat or regard as an object of great interest or importance.
Synonyms: celebrate; idolize
2. To seek the company of celebrities.
3. (Chiefly Br.) To visit interesting sites; to show the lions or objects of interest to; to conduct about among objects of interest.
Examples:
1) At Penn State he'd been welcomed, nurtured, lionized as a track and field star who narrowly missed making our Olympic team in the decathlon. (James Brady, "Further Lane")
2) Like the Itinerant Gaul, he leaves his vessel in the port, and hurries away to lionise that city. (George Dennis, "Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria": "Pisa: Pisae")
3) A police officer admits that unruly elements have taken over the movement, but it still suits the government to lionise those fighting the Maoists.
4) While others were being lionised he conducted himself like a lamb or even a mouse.
Etymology:
"Lionize" comes from "lion", in the sense of "an object of great interest and importance."


liquorice

• licorice
• glycyrrhiza glabra
• glycyrrhiza
• glabra

1. A deep-rooted coarse-textured plant native to the mediterranean region having blue flowers and pinnately compound leaves; widely cultivated in europe for its long thick sweet roots.
Synonyms: licorice, glycyrrhiza glabra
2. A root of the liquorice plant (used in medicine, liquors and candy).
3. A black candy flavored with the dried root of the licorice plant.
Synonym: licorice
Example:
Next to me a girl eating a box of liquorice torpedoes.
Etymology:
1205, from Anglo-Fr. "lycoryc", from O.Fr. "licorece", from L.L. "liquiritia", alteration of L. "glychyrrhiza", from Gk. "glykyrrhiza" (lit. "sweet root"), from "glykys" ("sweet") + "rhiza" ("root"); form influenced in L. by "liquere" ("become fluid"), associated by the method of extracting the sweet stuff from the root. Fr. "réglisse", It. "regolizia" are the same word, with metathesis of "-l-" and "-r-".
"Liquorice" is usually written as "licorice" in the USA. The word has had many spellings down the centuries, including "lickerish", which is the way it's often said. The "liquorice" spelling was probably influenced by the process of getting it out of the root, the first stage of which produces a liquor that is then evaporated.



litmus test

• litmus
• test

[LIT-mus-TEST]
a test in which a single factor (as an attitude, event, or fact) is decisive
Example:
For Curtis, the litmus test of good barbecue ribs is whether or not they have that moist fall-off-the-bone quality.
History:
It was in the 14th century that scientists discovered that litmus, a mixture of colored organic compounds obtained from lichen, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions and, thus, can be used as an acid-base indicator. Six centuries later, people began using "litmus test" figuratively for any single factor that establishes the true character of something or causes it to be assigned to one category or another.


little pitchers have big ears

• little
• pitcher
• pitchers
• big
• ear
• ears

Little children, listening to the conversations of older people, often overhear things that they are not supposed to hear; they often hear and understand a lot more than people give them credit for.
Examples:
1) My big sister and her friends never tell secrets around me. They say that little pitchers have big ears.
2) "Little pitchers have big ears", she said when she saw her daughter standing at the door listening to her talking to her husband.
History:
The creator of this ancient saying imagined that the handles on the sides of a two-handled pitcher looked like human ears. The little pitchers in this idiom stand for small children, and having big ears means they are able to hear and understand things adults think they're too young to know.

little strokes fell great oaks

• A little stroke fells great oaks
• little stroke fells great oaks
• little
• strokes
• stroke
• fell
• fells
• great
• oaks
• oak

A task may seem overwhelming, but if you break it into manageable smaller tasks and
persevere, you can complete it.
Example:
When the students volunteered for the housing program, they couldn't imagine what their hammering, sawing, and plastering would do. But little strokes fell great oaks, and in the spring five new houses were ready for families to occupy.

littoral
[LIH-tuh-rul] 1. Of, relating to, or on a coastal or shore region, especially a seashore. 2. A coastal region, especially the zone between the limits of high and low tides.
Examples:
1) Professor Henslow tells me, he believes that nearly all the plants which I brought from these islands, are common littoral species in the East Indian archipelago. (Charles Darwin, "The Voyage of the Beagle")
2) A country that is landlocked or has few neighbors will be more vulnerable than one that is littoral or extensive. (Franklin L. Lavin, "Asphyxiation or Oxygen? The Sanctions Dilemma", September-October 1996)
3) Like 49ers <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=forty-niners> staking claims in California, the five littoral nations have asserted overlapping territorial claims in the Caspian itself. (Richard Stone, "Caspian Ecology Teeters On the Brink", Science, January 18, 2002)
4) As the Portuguese moved south along the Upper Guinea Coast along the littoral of Sierra Leone, a region known as the Windward Coast, they entered another major area of rice cultivation. (Judith A. Carney, "Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas")
Etymology:
"Littoral" derives from Latin "littoralis, litoralis", from "litor-, litus" ("the seashore").

live a cat and dog life

• live
• a cat and dog life
• cat and dog
• cat
• dog
• life

To be always arguing.
Etymology: Phrase was coined by Carlysle in his book Frederick the Great: 'There will be jealousies, and a cat-and-dog life over yonder worse than ever.'

live and let live

• live
• let live
• let

This saying means mind your own business and let other people mind theirs.
Example:
"You need a haircut, Daryl." Kenya put her hands on her hips. "And look at those shoes! The right one has a hole in the toe." "I like the way my hair looks, and these are cool shoes," Daryl said. "Besides, I don't tell you how to dress. Kenya, you'd better learn to live and let live."

live high off the hog

• live
• live high
• hog
• high
• off the hog
• live off

To have the best of everything, live in great comfort; to live in a rich style and own lots of expensive things.
Examples:
1) My mother and father have been living high off the hog since they won the lottery.
2) Since Florence got a new job, she's been living high off the hog.
History:
This African-American expression suggests that eating pork chops and ribs, which come from the upper parts of a hog, are better than eating pig feet, chitlins (intestines), and other things that come from the lower parts.


liveblogging

• live blogging
• live
• weblogging
• blogging

Also: live blogging, live-blogging.
This is a type of blog, a personal diary posted to the Web (a shortened form of "Web log"), which is sent out as a report on an event as it is happening.
Example:
The debate starts at 6pm PDT, and I'll be live-blogging my impressions here.
History:
It was around for some months before it has been in the news in the very beginning of October, 2004, because bloggers reported online in real time on the first presidential election debate between John Kerry and George W Bush.
Synonym: live weblogging


living apart together

• LAT
• living apart
• together
• living together
• living
• apart
• together

Couples who maintain an intimate relationship but live in separate homes.
Example:
Though some LATs are married, the majority are just two people with a serious emotional commitment who prefer to live apart - now didn't that use to be called having a boyfriend/girlfriend?!
History, synonym:
Living apart together sometimes is referred to as LAT; it can be for a variety of practical reasons. Some LATs are divorcees with children who would rather avoid moving their whole family in with a new partner. Others may be professionals who have jobs in different cities or countries. Older couples may decide to stay apart to ensure that their children and grandchildren inherit their property. A study published in December 2005 by the British "Office for National Statistics" suggested that, in the UK, over 10 per cent of under 60 year-olds who were in a relationship were LATs.


living bandage

• living
• bandage

A bandage or dressing made from skin cells, particularly cells cultured from a sample of the patient's skin.
Examples:
1) Last month he began a new treatment for an ulcer on his big toe which has failed to heal for five years. Doctors scraped skin cells from his thigh which were then grown in the laboratory and are now being applied in a special "living bandage" on his toe to kick-start natural skin growth. Early indications are that the ulcer is at last beginning to heal. ("'Living bandages' offer hope to skin patients", Yorkshire Post, October 21, 2003)
2) Thousands of patients with severe burns and long-term wounds could soon be helped by "living bandages" made from their own skin cells, doctors said today. The Myskin bandages, which have taken 10 years to develop, are made by taking a sample of a patient's skin, growing the cells in the lab and then placing them onto specially-made discs. (Lyndsay Moss, "The bionic bandage", The Evening Standard (London, England), April 27, 2004)
3) It is common practice in other countries for hospitals to keep a reserve of human skin on hand, preserved in liquid nitrogen, to be used in burn emergencies. The grafted skin acts like a living bandage to prevent infection of the burned area and to allow new skin to form. (Dan Fisher, "Rigorous rules for medical grafts", Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1985)


loan shark

• loan
• shark

A person who lends out money, at a very high rate of interest and with the threat of violence if the loan is not repaid quickly.
Example:
I had to see a loan shark to cover my $100,000 gambling debt.
Etymology:
When you borrow money, it is called a 'loan'. A 'shark' is a big fish that is very dangerous. So a 'loan shark' is someone who lends money and is dangerous, because he will 'bite' (or attack) you if you don't repay the loan.


local time

• local
• time

Time that is officially used in a certain country or a part of a country.

lock

• stock and barrel
• lock, stock and barrel

Absolutely everything.
Example:
"What, the burglars took every jewel in the store?" Mrs. Mim asked.
"They didn't just take every jewel," Mrs. Thorp sighed, "they took every watch, every piece of silver...they cleaned the store out, lock, stock, and barrel!"
Etymology:
The lock, the stock, and the barrel were essential parts of a gun in earlier times.
Synonyms:
lock, stock and barrel;
stock and barrel


lock the barn door after the horse is out

• lock
• barn
• door
• barn door
• after
• horse
• be out
• out
• is out

To take careful precautions to do the right thing after it is too late.
Example:
If you failed the quiz, why study? That's locking the barn door after the horse is out!
History:
This popular proverb can be found in many languages. It was first used in French
in the 1100s and later appeared in English. If you put a prize horse into the barn for the
night and then forgot to lock the door, it is possible that the next day you'll find the
horse is gone or stolen. It would be pretty foolish to lock the barn door then, because
the horse is already gone.

lock, stock, and barrel

• lock, stock and barrel
• lock
• stock
• barrel

Every single thing; in totality; everything, kit and caboodle; the whole of something; all the parts of a thing.
Examples:
1) They took everything in the shed - lock, stock and barrel.
2) He sold everything - lock, stock, and barrel - and moved to California.
History:
This saying originally referred to just the three main parts of a gun: the lock (the firing mechanism), the stock (the handle), and the barrel (the tube the bullet is fired through). By the early 19th century the expression came to mean all of anything or the whole works. The origin might also be in the old general store, which had a lock on the door to the stock, or goods, and a barrel on which business took place.


log on

• log

To connect to a computer or computer network.
Examples:
1) I log on to check my email several times a day. 2) I couldn't log on last night. There must be something wrong with my phone line.
Etymology:
When you enter or 'sign on to' a computer, your activity is recorded in an electronic 'log file'. A 'log' is a record of events, like a diary, and 'on' refers to entering the file. Since computers became popular in the 1970s, 'log on', 'log in', and 'login' have become very common terms.

long in the tooth

• long
• tooth

(Slang) Aged (people); elderly; old.
Example:
Grandma's boyfriend looks a little long in the tooth, even for her.
History:
This 19th-century idiom comes from the barnyard. As a horse gets older, its gums move back and the teeth appear longer. So a horse that is "long in the tooth" is getting older. This expression was passed on to people.

long johns

• long john
• long
• john
• johns
• long handles
• long-handle underwear
• long handle
• handles
• handle
• underwear

Long, warm underwear
Synonyms:
long handles, long-handle underwear
Etymology & Example:
The earliest references to the garments strongly suggest the name was given to the long underwear issued to American soldiers during World War Two. Until this piece appeared, the first known reference to them was in a publication of 1943, but Michael Quinion has succeeded in taking that back a couple of years at least, to a letter home by a new recruit published in the "Sheboygan Press", Wisconsin, on 16 October 1941: "We have had but three days of rain in the nine weeks we have been here. Last Friday it turned a little cool so we were issued our winter clothes. We all hope we don't get our 'long Johns' for a while because it is too warm yet." Another local newspaper reference, this time from the "Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune" of 3 June 1944, suggests an origin: "Many a rookie has been ridiculed and laughed at the first time he swallowed his pride and donned his LONG JOHNS. They are the winter underwear issued by the Army, and have the disturbing effect of making a G.I. look like a scarecrow trapeze artist. It might be added that they itch but good! After a soldier finally gets into his LONG JOHNS, he invariably swells his chest, flexes his biceps and struts around the barracks like a John L. Sullivan, after whom these practical if not sightly garments have been named."
We just don't know for sure if it is true. Nevertheless, the classic pictures of the famous boxer show him wearing long white drawers or skivvies tucked into his socks. On the other hand, Spurgeon Smith and John Orford separately suggested that an old African-American work song with the title Long John might be its origin. One of the choruses is
"He's John, John,
Old John, John,
With his long clothes on,
Just a-skippin' through the corn."


long shot

• dark horse
• long
• shot
• dark
• horse

Something not very likely to happen; poor odds, low probability.
Example: It may be a long shot, but it's worth a try anyway.
Synonym: dark horse

longueur
[long-GUR]
A dull and tedious passage in a book, play, musical composition, or the like.
Examples:
1) One of the commentators compared my speech to one of Gladstone's which had lasted five hours. "It was not so long, but some of the speech's . . . longueurs made Gladstone seem the soul of brevity," he wrote. (Lord Lamont of Lerwick, "Been there, done that," Times (London), March 6, 2001)
2) If this book of 400 pages had been devoted to her alone, it would have been filled with longueurs, but as the biography of a family it has the merit of originality. (Peter Ackroyd, review of Gwen Raverat: "Friends, Family and Affections", by Frances Spalding, Times (London), June 27, 2001)
3) This book ... has its defects. Sometimes it loses focus (as in a longueur on Chechens living in Jordan). (Colin Thubron, "Birth of a Hundred Nations," New York Times, November 19, 2000)
Etymology:
"Longueur" is from French (where it means "length"), ultimately deriving from Latin "longus" ("long"), which is also the source of English "long".


look down one's nose

• look down one's nose at smb.
• look down one's nose at
• look down
• look
• down
• nose

To think of and treat people as if they were lower in quality or ability.
Example:
The eleventh-graders looked down their nose at us.
History:
From about 1700 "to look down" at someone meant to believe that you were better in quality or rank than another. "Nose" was added about 200 years later. The saying creates a clear image: a person who thinks he or she is above others actually looks down his or her nose at someone in a proud and self-important way.

look like a cat that swallowed a canary

• look
• like a cat that swallowed a canary
• like
• a cat that swallowed a canary
• cat
• swallow
• canary
• cat that swallowed a canary

To display a self-satisfied grin.

look like something the cat dragged in

• look like
• like
• look
• like something the cat dragged in
• something the cat dragged in
• something
• cat
• dragged in
• dragged
• drag in
• drag

(jocular) Someone looks rumpled or worn out.
Examples: 1. Alice - Tom just came in. He looks like something the cat dragged in. What do you suppose happened to him? 2. Rachel - Wow! Did you see Sue? Jane - Yes. Looks like something the cat dragged in.
(See: Look at what the cat dragged in.)

loquacious

• wordy
• garrulous

[loh-KWAY-shus]
1. Full of excessive talk.
Synonym: wordy
2. Very talkative.
Synonym: garrulous
Examples:
1) Bob is a loquacious spokesman for his company, an easygoing speaker with a tendency to ramble on for about ten minutes longer than his audience wants to listen.
2) The meeting went on for hours, accommodating loquacious bores who were each allowed their say. (Andrew Sullivan, "Gay Life, Gay Death," The New Republic, December 17, 1990)
3) In drawing a sharp contrast with the loquacious Ginsburg, her new lawyers appeared for just a few moments and said virtually nothing to reporters before retreating into the building. (Peter Baker, "Lewinsky Replaces Ginsburg," Washington Post, June 3, 1998)
Etymology:
When you hear or say "loquacious", you might notice that the word has a certain poetic ring. In fact, poets quickly snatched up "loquacious" soon after its debut in 1663 and, with poetic license, stretched its meaning to include such things as the chattering of birds and the babbling of brooks. In less poetic uses, "loquacious" usually means "excessively talkative". The ultimate source of all this chattiness is Latin "loquax" ("talkative"), from "loqui", a Latin verb meaning "to speak." Other words descended from "loqui" include "colloquial", "eloquent", "soliloquy", and "ventriloquism".


lord of misrule

• lord
• misrule
• abbot of misrule
• abbot

A master of Christmas revels in England especially in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Example:
Elliot was chosen to play the lord of misrule in the college's medieval Christmas pageant, and he gleefully presided over his mock court.
History, synonym:
Late in the medieval days of England, the royal court, the houses of noblemen, and many colleges at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford appointed a manager for their Christmas festivities and dubbed him the "lord of misrule" or the "abbot of misrule." The lord of misrule was responsible for arranging all Christmas entertainment, including plays, processions, and feasts. The lord himself usually presided over these affairs with a mock court and received comic homage from the revelers. Scholars believe that the name "lord of misrule" was taken from the name of the official who presided over an older New Year's celebration called the "Feast of Fools."


lose one's shirt

• lose
• shirt

To lose everything, especially money; lose all that one owns.
Example:
Spiro lost his shirt betting against me in the frog-jumping contest.
History:
This 20th-century phrase refers to a huge loss of money or property because of a bad bet or poorly managed money. If you end up losing your shirt, it means you've lost practically everything. But the idiom started out meaning "to be very angry" and ready to fight.


louche
[LOOSH]
Of questionable taste or morality; disreputable or indecent.
Synonyms: dubious; shady.
Examples:
1) You've got to keep yourself free of any suggestion of louche behavior. (Anthony West)
2) A man in a bar, utterly average, though there is something louche about him, something sly. (Andrew Holleran, "In September, the Light Changes")
3) Danny would be sipping a mai tai or a whiskey sour in some louche West End club. (Will Self, "Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys")
4) In the louche era of the Regency she was almost a portent of the Victorian ideal to come; in an earlier age she might have been a Puritan. (Mary S. Lovell, "Rebel Heart")
Etymology:
"Louche" is from French "louche" ("shady, suspicious"), from Old French "losche" ("squint-eyed"), from Latin "luscus" ("one-eyed").


love bleeper

• love
• bleeper
• love beeper
• lovegety
• beeper
• lovegeties

A programmable electronic device used to locate a potential romantic partner, which beeps and flashes when near to a device programmed with similar information about likes and interests.
Examples:
1) Supermarkets have long been known as one of the most popular places for single people to go out looking for a partner & Now Sainsbury's is helping its customers by giving them a chance to leave the shop with more than they bargained for  with the not-so-subtle use of love bleepers. ("The Guardian", 6th November 1999)
2) When you're brought together through the Lovegety (love bleeper), you're more at ease because you already have something in common; you already have something to talk about. ("Wired News", 11th June 1998)
3) February brings us cold weather, dark nights, and Valentine's day  that one day when many of us enjoy a bit of fun expressing our fondness for those important people in our lives, either openly or anonymously! If you're still in search of a recipient for this year's Valentine's card, the love bleeper may be just the thing for you&
History, synonyms:
The love bleeper was first marketed in Japan in 1998, manufactured by the makers of the tamagotchi, a hand-held virtual pet which two years earlier had been a huge success worldwide. The basic love bleeper is a small oval device with three buttons that the user can set according to which activity they are interested in pursuing with a potential romantic partner, be it 'talk', 'karaoke' or 'get2' (meaning "get to (it)"!). Once the device has been set up, it searches for a love bleeper holder of the opposite sex within a five-metre radius. If it locates someone holding a device with the same settings, it beeps and flashes so that the two can find each other. If there is a love bleeper holder in the vicinity with different settings, a light flashes and the device makes a different noise, indicating that this is a less suitable 'match'.
The love bleeper, often also referred to as a love beeper, is alternatively known as the Lovegety (plural form "Lovegeties"), based on the Japanese trade name for the product. "Lovegety" is a transliteration of the English "get love". The Lovegety, hugely successful after it was first released in Japan, was subsequently enhanced to provide an expanded coverage area of one hundred metres, and a wider selection of modes, including activities such as 'drink', 'dinner' and 'movie'.


love handles

• love handle
• love
• handle
• handles

Unsightly fat that shows from the sides at the waist, usually on men.
Example:
I need to exercise more - my love handles are growing!
Etymology:
Fat at the waist sometimes forms 'handles' or grips that a lover could grab and hold onto.


low blow

• a low blow
• low
• blow

a big disappointment.
Example:
A: Fred seems depressed. Is he OK?
B: He's OK, but not good. It was a low blow for him to be laid off from his job.


low man on the totem pole

• low on the totem pole
• lowest face on a totem pole
• the lowest face on a totem pole
• lowest
• face
• low man
• on the totem pole
• low
• man
• totem pole
• totem
• pole

The lowest-ranking, least important person in a group or organization.
Example:
I may be low on the totem pole, but someday I plan to be Chief Executive Officer.
History, synonym:
Some Native American groups carve symbols, one on top of the other, into tall poles of wood. The symbols, called totems, are often human faces or figures, and the pole is called a totem pole. Although "lowest" often means "least" in phrases like "lowest pay"
and "lowest score," the lowest face on a totem pole is not the least important. The person who created this idiom must have thought so by mistake. But few people realize the error when they use this popular saying.

low-life

• low
• life
• bum
• loser
• humble life
• humble

1. A person with bad habits or a questionable lifestyle; someone who doesn't amount to much in society.
Examples:
1) Don't lend Billy any money. He's a low-life and he'll never repay you. 2) I don't understand how they could let such a low-life out of prison.
Synonyms: bum, loser
2. Low life: life of the lower social classes, life of the poor
Example:
They frequently suffer chest infections and have a low life expectancy. ("Central News" autocue data)
Synonym: humble life


lower the boom

• lower
• boom

To scold or punish strictly; to make someone follow the rules.
Example:
When the counselor saw that the campers had put frogs in his bed, he lowered the boom on them.
History:
A boom is a long pole used on ships that stretches upward to lift cargo high in the air. Booms are also used backstage in theaters to move scenery. If someone actually
lowered a boom on your head, you might be knocked out!

lubricious
[loo-BRISH-us]
1. Lustful; lewd.
2. Stimulating or appealing to sexual desire or imagination.
3. Having a slippery or smooth quality.
Examples:
1) [T]he heroine, through some form of ESP, can hear, and be offended by, the lubricious speculations going on inside the heads of the men she meets. (Philip French, "More about What Women Want," The Observer, February 4, 2001)
2) And even if the public ate up every lubricious detail about their leaders, that same public grew offended that the news media would actually pander to their baser impulses. (Jeff Greenfield, "Film at 11," New York Times, November 7, 1999)
3) . . . urged women to give up their vanities, their cosmetics, and their high-heeled shoes, and to pile them on ... bonfires next to lubricious works of art. (Anthony Grafton, "The Varieties of Millennial Experience," The New Republic, November 1999)
4) Here was a place where a kind of benign... anarchy seemed to rule, a lubricious, frictionless chaos into which one could simply disappear. (Eugene Robinson, "On the Beach at Ipanema," Washington Post, August 1, 1999)
Etymology:
"Lubricious" derives from Latin "lubricus" - "slippery, smooth."


lucid

• lucent
• relucent
• translucent

[LOO-sid]
1. a) suffused with light; synonym - luminous; b) translucent.
2. Having full use of one's faculties.
Synonym: sane.
3. Clear to the understanding.
Synonym: intelligible.
Example:
Susan seemed quite lucid despite the head injury.
Etymology, related words:
It's easy enough to shed some light on the origins of "lucid" - it derives (via the Latin adjective "lucidus," meaning "shining") from the Latin verb "lucere," meaning "to shine." "Lucid" has been used by English speakers since at least the late 16th century. Although it once meant merely "filled with light" or "shining," it has developed extended senses describing someone whose mind is clear or something with a clear meaning. Other shining examples of "lucere" descendants include "translucent," ("semitransparent"), "lucent" ("glowing"), and the somewhat rarer "relucent" ("reflecting light" or "shining"). Even the word "light" itself derives from the same ancient word that led to "lucere."


luck of the draw

• luck
• draw
• that's the way the ball bounces
• that is the way the ball bounces
• the way the ball bounces
• way the ball bounces
• way
• ball
• bounce
• bounces

According to fate or chance.
Example:
Everyone else's computer works just fine, but mine is broken. I guess that's the luck of the draw.
Etymology:
When playing cards, you "draw a hand", which means that you get a random set of cards. The cards that are dealt are called "the draw". So the "luck of the draw" refers to the good or bad results produced by a random process. Synonym: that's the way the ball bounces


lucre
[LOO-kuhr]
Monetary gain; profit; riches; money (often in a bad sense).
Examples:
1) His stories began to be published in the American Mercury before he moved to L.A., lured by the dream of Hollywood lucre. (Jerome Boyd Maunsell, "Truly, madly, weepy," Times (London), June 10, 2000)
2) They ought to feel a calling for service rather than lucre. (Sin-Ming Shaw, "It's Time to Get Real," Time Asia, July 1, 2002)
3) But surely there are other motives for writing, and they range from the desire for filthy lucre to the pleasure in doing the thing itself to the impulse to delight readers. (Robert Alter, "The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages," New Republic, October 10, 1994)
4) Picture the place where you grew up. Now, imagine it trampled by an avalanche of capital and the stampede of lucre-crazed hordes chasing after it. (Katharine Mieszkowski, "I Want to Blow Up Silicon Valley," Salon, July 14, 2000)
Etymology:
"Lucre" comes from Latin "lucrum" ("gain, profit"). It is related to "lucrative" ("profitable").


lucubration

• lucubrate
• lucubrations

[loo-kyuh-BRAY-shun]
1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation; also: that which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement; hence (loosely) any literary composition.
2. Laborious or intensive study; also: the product of such study (usually used in plural).
Examples:
1) A point of information for those with time on their hands: if you were to read 135 books a day, every day, for a year, you wouldn't finish all the books published annually in the United States. Now add to this figure, which is upward of 50,000, the 100 or so literary magazines; the scholarly, political and scientific journals (there are 142 devoted to sociology alone), as well as the glossy magazines, of which bigger and shinier versions are now spawning, and you'll appreciate the amount of lucubration that finds its way into print. (Arthur Krystal, "On Writing: Let There Be Less", New York Times, March 26, 1989)
2) One of his characters is given to lucubration. "Things die on us," he reflects as he lies in bed, "we die on each other, we die of ourselves." ("Books of The Times", New York Times, February 7, 1981)
3) Naturally, these fictions ran the risk of tumbling down the formalist hill and ending up at the bottom without readers - except the heroic students of Roland Barthes or Umberto Eco, professors whose lucubrations were much more interesting than the books about which they theorized. (Mario Vargas Llosa, "Thugs Who Know Their Greek", New York Times, September 7, 1986)
4) Harper's doctoral dissertation is a collection of lucubrations that contemplate the role of linguistics in media and politics.
Etymology, history:
"Lucubration" comes from Latin "lucubratus", past participle of "lucubrare" ("to work by night, to work by lamplight, composed at night (as by candlelight)"), ultimately connected with "lux" ("light"). Hence it is related to "lucent" ("shining, bright") and "lucid" ("clear"). The verb form is "lucubrate".
Imagine someone studying through the night by the light of a dim candle or lamp. That image demonstrates perfectly the most literal sense of "lucubration." In its earliest known English uses in the late 1500s and early 1600s, "lucubration" named both nocturnal study itself and a written product thereof. By the 1800s, however, the term had been broadened to refer to any intensive study (day or night), or a composition, especially a weighty one, generated as a result of such study. Nowadays, "lucubration" is most often used as a plural and implies pompous or stuffy scholarly writing.


luculent

• comprehensible
• crystal-clear
• intelligible
• unambiguous

[LOO-kyuh-luhnt]
Clear; easily understood.
Synonyms: comprehensible, crystal-clear, intelligible, unambiguous.
Examples:
1) Yet it is always luculent, even when the concepts being expressed become somewhat sophisticated. (Dan Schnabel, "Goodbye Descartes," American Mathematical Monthly, November 1998)
2) From the high ground all is clear, interpretable, luculent: this is what this means. (Thomas Lux, "The Cradle Place")
Etymology:
"Luculent" comes from Latin "luculentus", from "lux, luc-" ("light").


ludic

• playful
• Ludicrous

[LOO-dik]
Of or relating to play; characterized by play.
Synonym: playful.
Examples:
1) Um, there's only one problem: her mother. Who, being a substantial executive, has a somewhat different attitude to the worth of the professions than her wastrel, ludic husband. (Pat Kane, "Pleasing papa," The Guardian, July 11, 2001)
2) He is indeed the outstanding imaginative prose stylist of his generation, with an entirely recognizable literary manner, fizzy and playful (I am trying to avoid the words "pyrotechnic" and "ludic"). (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "What Kingsley Can Teach Martin," The Atlantic, September 2000)
3) But within this ludic tale there lurks a tragedy of love and loss that does not lose its tenderness even when embedded in [the author's] perpetually farcical frame of mind. (Richard Bernstein, "Lalita, Post-Modern Object of Desire," New York Times, September 8, 1999)
4) Three-year-old Rachel was delighted with her present, a ludic and lively pop-up book about the celebration of Hanukkah.
Etymology, related words:
"Ludic" derives from Latin "ludus" - "play" (refers to a whole range of fun things -- stage shows, games, sports, even jokes). "Ludicrous" ("amusing or laughable"), shares the same root.
Here's a serious word, just for fun. That is to say, it means "fun," but it was created in all seriousness around 1940 by psychologists. They wanted a term to describe what children do, and they came up with "ludic activity." That may seem ludicrous - why not just call it "playing"? - but the word "ludic" caught on, and it's not all child's play anymore. It can refer to architecture that is playful, narrative that is humorous and even satirical, and literature that is light.


lugoil
(South Yorkshire dialect) An ear.


lugubrious

• lugubriously
• lugubriousness
• luctual

[loo-GOO-bree-us]
1. Mournful; especially: exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful.
2. Dismal.
Example:
The dogs ... simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. (Bram Stoker, "Dracula")
History, related words:
"It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery," wrote Publilius Syrus in the first century BC. Perhaps this explains why "lugubrious" is so woeful - it's all alone. Sure, we can dress up "lugubrious" with suffixes to form "lugubriously" or "lugubriousness," but the word remains essentially an only child - the sole surviving English offspring of its Latin ancestors. This wasn't always the case, though. "Lugubrious" once had a linguistic living relative in "luctual," an adjective meaning "sad" or "sorrowful." Like "lugubrious," "luctual" traced ultimately to the Latin verb "lugere," meaning "to mourn." "Luctual," however, faded into obsolescence long ago, leaving "lugubrious" to carry on the family's mournful mission all alone.


luminaria

• phillumenist

[loo-muh-NAIR-ee-uh]
A traditional Mexican Christmas lantern originally consisting of a candle set in sand inside a paper bag.
Example:
More than one neighborhood in our Texas town is lit by luminarias lining the streets for the annual Christmas Stroll.
History, related words:
"Luminaria" is a fairly recent addition to English; the earliest known use in the language dates from 1949, about the time that the old Mexican Christmas custom was gaining popularity among Anglo-Americans. In some parts of the U.S., particularly New Mexico, these festive lanterns are also called "farolitos," which means "little lanterns" in Spanish. "Luminaria" was borrowed from Spanish, but the word has been around with exactly the same spelling since the days of Late Latin. The term ultimately traces to the classical Latin "luminare," meaning "window," and to "lumen," meaning "light." It is related to other light-bearing words such as "luminary," "illuminate," and "phillumenist" (a fancy name for someone who collects matchbooks).


luminary
[LOO-muh-nair-ee] 1. Any body that gives light, especially one of the heavenly bodies. 2. A person of eminence or brilliant achievement.
Examples:
1) Those who came to the Pyrenees sought the sublime in the mountains and the exotic in the population, drawn by the descriptions of ethnographers and literary luminaries like Vigny, Sand, Baudelaire and Flaubert. (Ruth Harris, "Lourdes")
2) There's something comforting in those occasional lapses when a luminary lurches and trips over the humble stone his powerful torch somehow failed to reveal. (Brad Leithauser, "You Haven't Heard the Last of This", New York Times, August 30, 1998)
Etymology:
"Luminary" derives from Latin "luminare" ("a window"), from "lumin-, lumen" ("light").



lumpen

• lumpens

[LUHM-puhn; LUM-puhn]
1. Of or relating to dispossessed and displaced individuals, especially those who have lost social status.
2. Common; vulgar.
3. (Noun; plural lumpen, also lumpens) A member of the underclass, especially the lowest social stratum.
Examples:
1) . . . an academic sweatshop where underpaid lumpen intellectuals slave for a pittance. (Ashlea Ebeling, "I got my degree through e-mail," Forbes, June 16, 1997)
2) If traditionally cricket has been the game of the elite, and football strictly for the lumpen masses, all that's changed now. (Louisa Buck, "Fever pitch," ArtForum, October 1996)
3) Though I appreciate that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is a self-made man, having made his billions by selling the voltage of his brainpower to behemoths such as CompuServe and Yahoo!, and though I also appreciate that he has maintained his ability to mingle with the lumpen, he still is a very, very rich man. (Sean Deveney, "Mavs make their move, but at what cost?" Sporting News, March 4, 2002)
4) The New Russians are depicted as lumpens who have left the countryside and never fully adjusted to city life. (Emil Draitser, "The new Russians' jokelore: Genesis and sociological interpretations," Demokratizatsiya, Summer 2001)
Etymology:
"Lumpen" is from German "Lumpenproletariat" ("degraded stratum of the proletariat"), from "Lump" ("a contemptible person"), from "Lumpen" ("rags") + "Proletariat" ("proletariat"), from French.


lutp
(SMS) love you to pieces


luwamh
(SMS) love you with all my heart


ly4e
(SMS) love you forever


lymphatic

• sluggish
• lymph

1. a) of, relating to, or produced by lymph, lymphoid tissue, or lymphocytes; b) conveying lymph;
2. lacking physical or mental energy
Synonym: sluggish
Example:
Wrench had a wretched lymphatic wife who made a mummy of herself indoors in a large shawl.... (George Eliot, "Middlemarch")
History:
Lymph is a pale liquid in the body that helps maintain fluid balance and removes bacteria from tissues. Today, we understand that lymph plays an important role in the body's immune system. In the past, however, it was commonly believed that an excess of lymph caused sluggishness - hence the "sluggish" meaning of "lymphatic". The word "lymph" comes from Latin "lympha" ("water" or "water goddess"), which itself may be a modification of the Greek word "nymphe", meaning "nymph". Both "lymph" and its related adjective "lymphatic" have been used in English since the mid-17th century.


lyric
[LEER-ik]
1. Suitable for singing to the lyre or for being set to music and sung; of, relating to, or being drama set to music; especially: operatic.
2. Expressing direct usually intense personal emotion, especially in a manner suggestive of song.
3. Exuberant, rhapsodic.
4. Having a light voice and a melodic style.
Example:
The critics are praising Jessica's debut novel as a lyric masterpiece that bravely lays out the emotional tensions experienced by its young author.
History:
To the ancient Greeks, anything "lyrikos" was appropriate to the lyre. That elegant stringed instrument was highly regarded by the Greeks and was used to accompany intensely personal poetry that revealed the thoughts and feelings of the poet. When the adjective "lyric," a descendant of "lyrikos," was adopted into English in the 1500s, it too referred to things pertaining or adapted to the lyre. Initially, it was applied to poetic forms (such as elegies, odes, or sonnets) that expressed strong emotion, to poets who wrote such works, or to things that were meant to be sung; over time, it was extended to anything musical or rhapsodic. Nowadays, "lyric" is also used as a noun naming either a type of poem or the words of a song.