Glossary of Colloquialisms
(Starting with "M")
By
Natalya Belinsky,
"Fluent English Educational Project"
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M-government
- m-government
- M-Government
- m-Gov
- mgov
- MGOV
- M-GOV
- Mgovernment
- mGovernment
- government
- mgovernment
- MGovernment
- mobile
government
- mobile
- m-
- M-
- e-government
- e-
Also:
m-government, M-Government, m-Gov, mgov, MGOV, M-GOV,
Mgovernment, mGovernment, mgovernment, MGovernment,
mobile government
M-government is a subset of e-government.
The last is the use of information and communication
technologies (ICTs) to improve the activities of
public sector organisations. In the case of m-government,
those ICTs are limited to mobile and/or wireless
technologies like cellular/mobile phones, and laptops
and PDAs (personal digital assistants) connected
to wireless local area networks (LANs). M-government
can help make public information and government
services available "anytime, anywhere"
to citizens and officials.
Examples, explanation:
M-government should not be seen as something
brand-new: for example, wireless technology has
always been an important part of law enforcement.
Only today, police officers are as likely to use
a laptop wirelessly connected to the Internet as
the good old two-way radio. When officers spot a
suspicious vehicle they can directly search databases
that provide information on who owns the vehicle,
if it has been reported stolen or has been reported
at a crime scene, and if the owner is wanted by
police or has jumped bail. Health and safety inspectors
can now file their reports from the field in real
time using a Pocket PC or handheld terminals, eliminating
paper forms and the need to re-enter the data collected
when they get back to the office.
On the other hand, citizens are able to save time
and energy further by accessing the Internet and
government networks through mobile phones and other
wireless devices. In Malaysia,
for example, citizens can verify their voting information,
such as the parliamentary and state constituencies
where they are to vote, using SMS (short message
service). Alternatively, citizens can request that
real-time information is sent to their mobile phone,
PDA, or pager as an e-mail or text message. As another
example, the California
state government has established a Web page where
citizens can register to receive wireless PDA and
cell phone notification services for energy alerts,
lottery results, traffic updates and articles from
the Governor's press room.
M-government is not only about efficiency but it
also allows for citizen activism. In the Philippines,
citizens are able to help enforce anti-pollution
laws by reporting smoke-belching public buses and
other vehicles via SMS. SMS is also being used to
get citizens involved in the fight against crime
and illegal drugs.
M-government is not a replacement for e-government,
rather it complements it. While mobile devices are
excellent access devices, most of them, particularly
mobile phones, are not suitable for the transmission
of complex and voluminous information. Despite the
emergence of more sophisticated handsets, mobile
phones do not have the same amount of features and
services as PC-based Internet applications. For
example, SMS limits messages to 160 characters,
whereas email allows a nearly infinite quantity
of characters and multimedia content. Even PDAs
or Pocket PCs that support email have display and
other limitations. Internet-connected PCs are still
the preferred device to take part in online political
discussions, to search for detailed public sector
information, and to transact most types of e-government
service. Mobile applications also rely on good back
office ICT infrastructure and work processes: government
networks and databases, data quality procedures,
transaction recording processes, etc.
M-government is like automated teller machines (ATMs).
In both cases, the device used by the public is
quick and convenient. But it is just the tip of
an iceberg: just the final delivery channel to the
citizen. Underneath is a complex and costly infrastructure
that is required in order to make that final delivery
device work.
Etymology:
The term is a shortening for "mobile
government".
MGB
(chat) may God bless
MHOTY
(chat) my hat's off to you
MIA
- Missing
in Action
- Missing
- Action
Absent; someone who is missing or not where they
are supposed to be.
Examples:
1) Bob was MIA during the meeting. He probably left
early to watch the football game. 2) There are still
thousands of MIAs from the Vietnam War.
Etymology: This phrase comes the U.S. military, and stands for 'Missing in Action'.
Soldiers who disappear (and are presumably killed)
during a war are called MIAs. Now the phrase is
sometimes applied to less dramatic situations, in
which someone can't be found for a short period
of time.
MIPS
- Million
Instructions Per Second
- Million
- Instructions
- Per
Second
- Instruction
- Per
- Second
(computer science) a unit for measuring the
execution speed of computers
Example:
4 mips is 4,000,000 instructions per second.
Synonym:
Million Instructions Per Second
Etymology:
Abbreviation of "Million Instructions
Per Second".
MMD
(chat) make my day
MMDP
(chat) Make my day punk!
MMM
(chat, Internet) same as WWW,
but from inversion boots
MOSS
(chat, Internet) Member Of The Same Sex
MYOB
(chat) mind your own business
Mancunian
[man-kyOO'ne-un, -kyOOn'yun]
1. A native or inhabitant of Manchester,
England; a resident of Manchester.
2. Of or relating to or characteristic of
the English city of Manchester or its residents.
Examples:
1) She heard the various accents and
identified them without thinking, Cockney, West
Country, and a thick nasal Mancunian. ("So
very English'. - London: Serpent's Tail, 1990)
2) In an uproarious performance, Finney
comes over like a Mancunian Tigger, insufferably
bouncy and crassly insensitive.
Etymology:
From Latin Mancunium (Manchester), of Celtic
origin.
Many hands make light work
- Many
- hands
- hand
- make
- light
- work
A task is easier if many people share the work.
Mardi Gras
[MAR-dee-grah]
1. a) Shrove Tuesday often observed
(as in New Orleans) with parades and festivities;
b) a carnival period climaxing on
Shrove Tuesday
Example:
In New Orleans, Mardi Gras is a several-day event
that is well-known for its spectacular parades and
wild street celebrations.
2. a festive occasion resembling a pre-Lenten
Mardi Gras
Etymology:
"Mardi Gras", which literally
means "fat Tuesday" in French, is the
term for Shrove Tuesday, the Tuesday before Ash
Wednesday and the Christian period of Lent. Though
Mardi Gras has been celebrated since at least the
Middle Ages in Europe, the celebration did not arrive
in America until 1699, when, according to tradition,
a group of French explorers held a Mardi Gras celebration
downstream from the site of what is now New Orleans.
In modern times the festive revelry and extravagant
parades and costumes that are hallmarks of the carnival
tradition are alive and well in both France and
New Orleans, as well as other places around the
globe.
Methuselah
[muh-THOO-zuh-luh]
1. The name of a biblical patriarch said
to have lived 969 years.
2. An extremely old man.
Examples:
1) And he must've got it from his
great-grandpa, who must've bought it off Methuselah!
(Trevanian, "Incident at Twenty-Mile")
2) Opass is 80 years old, a Parisian
Methuselah living alone on the 13th floor of a tower
block. (Dominic Bradbury, "A picture never
quite in focus," Times (London), January 10,
2001)
Etymology:
Methuselah is from Hebrew Methushelah,
Biblical patriarch represented as having lived 969
years.
Mind your P's and Q's
- Mind one's P's and Q's
- Mind P's and Q's
- Mind
- P's and Q's
- P
- Q
- watch one's step
- watch your step
- watch
- step
Be very careful; behave yourself; be extremely exact;
be careful not to say or do anything wrong; mind
your manners.
Example:
1. If you wish to succeed you must mind your
P's and Q's.
2. Please try to mind your P's and Q's when
the princess visits the school.
Etymology:
One theory is that the phrase comes from the practice
in certain British pubs of tallying a customer's
purchases on a blackboard behind the bar, with the
notation "P" standing for "pints"
and "Q" for "quarts".
If a customer failed to pay close attention and
"mind his P's and Q's",
he might well find by evening's end that the barkeep
had padded his tab.
The similar version is that the expression came
from the old U.S. Navy when sailors marked on a
board in the bar how many Pints and Quarts
of liquor they had taken. It was bad manners to
cheat.
Another theory, drawn from the schoolroom, is that
any child approaching the mystery of penmanship
soon discovers that the lowercase "p"
is devilishly easy to confuse with the lowercase
"q". Thus, the theory goes, generations
of teachers exhorting their small charges to "mind
your P's and Q's" created a enduring
metaphor for being attentive and careful. A similar
theory centers on typesetters in old-fashioned printing
shops, where the danger of confusing lowercase "p"
and "q" was increased because typesetters
had to view the typeset text backwards.
Still other theories tie the "P"
to "pea" cloth (the rough fabric
used in "pea jackets") and the
"Q" to "queue",
which meant a ponytail, either that of the fancy
wigs worn by courtiers of the day or the real ponytails
commonly worn by sailors. In the upscale version
of this theory, young aristocrats were cautioned
not to get the powder from their wigs on their jackets
made of pea cloth. The sailor version has
old salts advising newcomers to dip their ponytails
in tar (a common practice, believe it or not), but
to avoid soiling their pea jackets with the
tar.
Finally, "pieds" and "queues"
are dance steps that a French dancing instructor
would teach his students to perform with care. There's
no proof as to where this catchy saying originated,
though.
Synonym: watch one's step
Mob
(chat, slang) mobile
Molotov Bread-basket
- Molotov's
Bread-basket
- Molotov's
Breadbasket
- Molotov
- Bread-basket
- Molotov
Breadbasket
- Breadbasket
Soviet fire bomb dispenser pod.
Example:
So-called "Molotov's breadbasket" included
small fire bombs that spreaded in wide area when
"breadbasket" was dropped from plane.
History:
The name is derived from Vyacheslav Mikhailovich
Molotov, the People's Commissar for Foreign
Affairs (Russian Foreign Minister and Secretary
of War of the Soviet Union). It is connected with
the events of the Winter War (the Soviet attack
on Finland, 1939-1940). The world's opinion in 1939
was not yet dulled by massive air bombardment of
cities, and attacking civilian targets was considered
an outrage. U.S. president Roosevelt sent a message
to Moscow wishing that Soviet bombers should not
be allowed to bomb Finnish cities. Comrade Molotov
answered that Soviet bombers have not bombed and
shall not bomb Finnish cities, but only air bases,
which cannot be seen from America which is 8000 km away. Also, the Soviet Aircraft were said
to drop bread for the starving Finnish people, absolutely
no bombs. Soon the Soviet fire bomb dispenser pod
was nicknamed "Molotov's bread basket".
On the other hand, when dropped, the winglets on
the top of the bomb folded out and made the "basket"
rotate and the centrifugal force scattered the incendiary
"loaves of bread".
Molotov cocktail
- Molotov
cocktails
- Molotov's
cocktail
- Molotov's
cocktails
- Molotov
- cocktail
- petrol
bomb
- gasoline
bomb
- petrol
- bomb
- gasoline
A crude explosive device consisting of a bottle
filled with gasoline; a crude incendiary bomb made
of a bottle filled with flammable liquid and fitted
with a rag wick.
Example:
The BMW had come to a stop and the boy was climbing
out, his Molotov cocktail now lit and ready. (Shah,
Eddy. "The Lucy ghosts". - London: Corgi
Books, 1993)
Synonyms: petrol bomb, gasoline bomb.
History:
1940. The name "Molotov cocktail"
is derived from Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov,
a Russian communist who was the Foreign Minister
and Secretary of War of the Soviet Union during
World War II. The soldiers of the Finnish Army successfully
used Molotov cocktails against Red
Army tanks in the two conflicts (Winter War and
Continuation War) between Finland and the Soviet
Union and coined the term. Molotov cocktails
were even mass-produced by the Finnish military,
bundled with matches to light them. They had already
been used in the Spanish Civil War, sometimes propelled
by a sling.
These weapons saw widespread use by all sides in
World War Two. They were very effective against
light tanks, and very bad for enemy morale.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, members of the
Israeli Kibbutz Dgania managed to stop a Syrian
tank assault by using Molotov cocktails.
Mother-in-law's Tongue
- Good Luck Plant
- Mother-in-law
- Tongue
- Mother
- law
- Good Luck
- Plant
- Good
- Luck
Sansevieria, a house plant with tall thick leaves.
Synonyms:
Mother-in-law's Tongue, Good Luck Plant.
Msg
(web, chat) message
Murray Mound
- Murray
- Mound
- Murray
Mount
- Mount
- Henman
Hill
- Henman
- Hill
- Rusedski
Ridge
- Rusedski
- Ridge
- Henmania
- Henmaniac
- Timbledon
- Tim-ometer
- Tim
- ometer
Also: Murray Mount
A raised area of grass at the Wimbledon tennis club
where spectators gather to watch British player
Andy Murray on a giant television screen.
Examples:
1) In almost every way, it seems,
he is different from the uncontroversial, mild-mannered
and very English player he is set to succeed as
Wimbledon's favourite son, Tim Henman. For Henman
Hill, read the rather more aggressive-sounding Murray
Mound. ("Financial Times", 24th June
2006) 2) Henman had to suffer
last year after being knocked out in the second
round, and even saw "Henman Hill" - the giant screen
area where fans watch the action - renamed "Murray
Mount" as teenager Andy Murray burst on to the scene.
(Sunday Mirror, 25th June 2006) History,
related words:
Its official name is Aorangi Park, but for
many years it's been called Henman Hill,
periodically it was referred to as Rusedski
Ridge, and in 2006 it's most definitely
Murray Mound. This is the tongue-in-cheek
description of a grassy bank at the Wimbledon tennis
club, where fans without show court tickets traditionally
gather around a giant TV screen to watch British
tennis players desperately trying to win the men's
singles championship. Murray Mound,
also regularly referred to as Murray Mount,
follows the tradition of naming this area based
on the surname of the current top British player
<http://www.andymurray.com> and
an appropriate noun beginning with the same letter.
It's lucky for British fans that English has such
a rich vocabulary of words referring to 'a raised
area of land'. Among the remaining possibilities
are crag, knoll, peak or slope,
which might tie in with other British surnames
such as Croft, Knightley, Peters or
Smith. Coinages such as Knightley
Knoll might well be a long way off however,
with Scottish player Andy Murray showing
superb form at only 19 years of age, and potentially
securing the use of Murray Mound for
many years to come. It's 70 years since Wimbledon
last had a British men's singles champion. Fred
Perry was the last British player to win the
tournament, before the Second World War in 1936.
As each year passes, the British public's anticipation
of a long-awaited champion grows more and more fervent,
and ephemeral terms referring to the players, their
fans and performances are coined along the way amid
media speculation about whether 'this will be the
year'. Tim Henman, though as yet unsuccessful
in fulfilling the fans' dream of a British champion,
has so far been at the pinnacle of media interest
and word formation, spawning terms such as Henmania,
and related derivative Henmaniac,
Timbledon, Henman Hill
and, in 2005, Tim-ometer. The
words Henmania and Henmaniac
have been a seasonal feature of English
in recent years, sprinkled liberally in journalistic
texts across the English-speaking world during Wimbledon
fortnight. However, just as Tim is gradually making
a graceful exit from the courts, the words that
go with him are retiring too, with far less evidence
of use in 2006. It looks like we're sliding down
Henman Hill, and climbing up
Murray Mound.
macabre
[muh-KAHB]
1. Having death as a subject; comprising
or including a personalized representation
of death.
2. Dwelling on the gruesome.
3. Tending to produce horror in a beholder.
Example:
The Halloween movie was a grisly and macabre tale
filled with gruesome special effects and terrifying
monsters.
History:
During the 13th and 14th centuries, when everyday
life was marked by horrific events such as the
Black Plague and the Hundred Years' War, Europeans
introduced the danse macabre
to demonstrate the inevitability and impartiality
of death. The danse macabre
was a dance or parade in which a skeleton representing
death led other skeletons or living persons to
the grave, and its name recalls the Maccabees,
2nd-century Jewish patriots who were associated
with death and purgatory. Middle French speakers
called this pageant "danse de Macabre,"
literally "dance of death," and it was
from the French name that English speakers borrowed
"macabre" as a term for
things hideous or deathly.
macaroni
[mak-uh-ROH-nee]
1. Pasta made from semolina and shaped
in the form of slender tubes.
2. A member of a class of traveled young
Englishmen of the late 18th and early 19th centuries
who affected foreign ways.
3. An affected young man; fop.
Example:
If he...talks about London and Lord March, and
White's, and Almack's, with the air of a macaroni,
I don't think we need like him much the less.
(William Makepeace Thackeray, "The Virginians")
History, synonyms:
The "macaroni" in the
song "Yankee Doodle" is not the
familiar food. The feather in Yankee Doodle's
cap apparently makes him a macaroni in
the now rare "fop" or
"dandy" sense. The sense
appears to have originated with a club established
in London by a group of young, well-traveled Englishmen
in the 1760s. The founders prided themselves on
their appearance, sense of style, and manners,
and they chose the name Macaroni Club
to indicate their worldliness. Because macaroni
was, at the time, a new and rather exotic food
in England, the name was meant to demonstrate
how stylish the club's members were. The members
were themselves called "macaronis,"
and eventually "macaroni"
became synonymous with "dandy"
and "fop."
machination
[mack-uh-NAY-shuhn; mash-]
1. The act of plotting.
2. A crafty scheme; a cunning design or
plot intended to accomplish some usually evil
end.
Examples:
1) He was telling me how he could
have married the royal princess as a reward for
his bravery in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was
an infantryman in the Kaiserliche und Konigliche
Austro-Hungarian army, but for the machinations
of the evil Archduke somebody-or-other. (George
Lang, "Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen")
2) Alongside the various representations
of sincere tears, then, are a series of representations
of insincerity and emotional machination. (Tom
Lutz, "Crying")
3) To keep away from them and steer
clear of their inveigling schemes and grasping
machinations . . . has been my constant life-long
effort. (Jeff Stryker, "They Couldn't
Resist: Oh, One Last Thing," New York Times,
May 21, 2000)
4) He declared that the tale he
could tell would not be of generals or kings,
for the political machinations of the great, he
said, he was and had been in no position to observe.
(Steven Pressfield, "Gates of Fire")
Etymology:
"Machination" derives
from Latin "machinatio" - "a
contrivance, a cunning device, a machination,"
from "machinari" - "to contrive,
to devise, especially to plot evil." It is
related to machine, from Latin "machina"
- "any artificial contrivance for performing
work". "To machinate"
is to devise a plot, or engage in plotting. One who machinates is a machinator.
macho
(slang)
1. Tough guy; superman
2. Strongly masculine or assertive
man; domineering and aggressive man.
3. Machismo, male chauvinism.
4. A great amount or quantity of something.
5. The striped mullet of california (mugil
cephalus, or mexicanus)
6. Masculine; assertive; domineering.
7. Super masculine; masculine to an extreme.
Example:
Remember that your goal is to raise a respectful
man, and not a macho.
Etymology:
1928 (n.) "tough guy," from Sp.
"macho" ("male animal");
as an adj., "masculine, virile,"
from L. "masculus". First attested
in Eng. as an adj. 1959.
macilentus
['masIl@nt]
Lean, shrivelled, or excessively thin.
Etymology, examples:
This word was marked as rare in dictionaries a
century ago and has become even more so since,
though it retains a niche in elevated or pretentious
prose. It's from Latin "macilentus"
- "lean". In 1851 a writer evoked with
it a victim of tuberculosis: "of whom
I could recollect nothing but a macilent figure,
stretched upon a sofa and scarcely breathing".
It can also have a figurative sense that refers
to poor-quality or inferior writing. A reviewer
of Britney Spears's album "In the Zone"
in 2003 described it as "Britney's most
personal statement. Because it's as lost and macilent
and alluring and eager to please and disturbingly
empty-eyed as she is."
macrocosm
- universe
- existence
- creation
- world
- cosmos
- microcosm
1. The entire world; everything that exists
anywhere; the great world; that part of the universe
which is exterior to man; contrasted
with microcosm, or man.
2. A system reflecting on a large scale
one of its component systems or parts.
Example:
They study the evolution of the macrocosm.
Synonyms:
universe, existence, creation, world, cosmos
Antonym: microcosm
Etymology:
Medieval Latin "macrocosmus":
Greek "makro-" ("macro-")
+ Greek "kosmos" ("world");
cf. French "macrocosme".
mad as a hatter
- as
mad as a hatter
- mad
- hatter
Stark raving mad, insane, deranged, strange, eccentric,
batty, plumb loco, completely crazy.
Examples:
1) If you wear that pink wig, people
will think you're mad as a hatter.
2) Sean is as mad as a hatter, but
he's my most interesting friend.
History:
Lewis Carroll created the character of
the Mad Hatter in his classic book "Alice
in Wonderland". The expression "mad
as a hatter" comes from the early
1800s. One possible origin is a snake called adder.
People in England thought that if you were bitten
by an adder, its poison would make you
insane. Some people pronounced "adder"
as "atter", so if you acted crazy,
you were as "mad as an atter",
which later became "hatter".
Another explanation of the expression's origin
is that people who worked in felt-hat factories
in the 1800s inhaled fumes of mercuric nitrate,
and, as a result, developed twitches, jumbled
their speech, and grew confused. The condition
was sometimes mistaken for madness and may have
given birth to the saying "mad as a
hatter."
mad as a wet hen
- as
mad as a wet hen
- mad
- wet
hen
- wet
- hen
Very upset; extremely angry; ready to fight.
Example:
When Tess realized that her brother had eaten
all the cookies, she was as mad as a wet
hen.
History:
It doesn't really bother hens much when
they get wet. This early 19th century expression
probably resulted from a mistake or someone's
imagination. It is not a barnyard reality.
maelstrom
[MAYL-struhm]
1. A large, powerful, or destructive
whirlpool.
2. Something resembling a maelstrom; a
violent, disordered, or turbulent state
of affairs.
Examples:
1) The murk became thicker as Zachareesi
fishtailed his canoe through a swirling maelstrom
of currents pouring past, and over, unseen rocks.
(Farley Mowat, "The Farfarers")
2) Suddenly, the Serb cause was thrust
into the maelstrom of the Napoleonic Wars. (Misha
Glenny, "The Balkans")
3) Always at the center of a maelstrom
of activity and contention, he provided good columns
for the press. (Arthur Lennig, "Stroheim
Like")
4) Captain Ahab, the monomaniacal
Harmon draws everyone around him into a maelstrom
of trouble. (John Motyka, review of "The
Dogs of Winter", by Kem Nunn, New York Times,
March 23, 1997)
Etymology:
"Maelstrom" comes from
obsolete Dutch "maelstroom",
from "malen" ("to grind,
hence to whirl round") + "stroom"
("stream").
maffick
- Mafeking
Night
- Mafeking
- Night
- Mafikeng
- Mafikeng
night
to celebrate with boisterous rejoicing and hilarious
behavior
Example:
In 1904, author H.H. Munro penned, "Mother,
may I go and maffick, / Tear about and hinder
traffic" in his sardonic satire about the
South African War, "Reginald's Peace Poem".
History:
"Maffick" is an alteration
of Mafeking Night, the British celebration
of the lifting of the siege of a British military
outpost during the South African War at the town
of Mafikeng (also spelled Mafeking)
on May 17, 1900. The South African War was fought
between the British and the Afrikaners, who were
Dutch and Huguenot settlers originally called
Boers, over the right to govern frontier territories.
Though the war did not end until 1902, the lifting
of the siege of Mafikeng was a significant
victory for the British because they held out
against a larger Afrikaner force for 217 days
until reinforcements could arrive. The rejoicing
in British cities on news of the rescue produced
"maffick", a word that
was popular for a while, especially in journalistic
writing, but is now less common.
magic carpet
- magic
- carpet
- Prince
Housain's carpet
- Prince
Housain
- King
Solomon's carpet
- King
Solomon
Imaginary flying carpet: in fairy stories,
a carpet that flies through the air and is used
as a form of transportation.
Example:
A magic carpet is a carpet that would transport
persons who were on it instantaneously or quickly
to their destination.
History:
The magic carpet of Tangu, also
called "Prince Housain's carpet"
was a seemingly worthless carpet from Tangu in
Persia that acted as a magic carpet.
It was featured in many Asian folktales, notably
in "Aladdin" and "Arabian
Nights".
King Solomon's carpet was reportedly
made of green silk, on which Solomon's throne
was placed when traveling. It was large enough
for his coterie to stand upon, people on his right,
spirits to his left. The wind followed Solomon's
commands, and ensured the carpet and its contents
would go to the proper destination. The carpet
was shielded from the sun by a canopy of birds.
magniloquent
- grandiloquent
- ornate
- florid
- flowery
- euphuistic
- sonorous
[mag-NIL-uh-kwunt]
Lofty or grandiose in speech or
expression; using a high-flown style of discourse;
speaking in or characterized by a high-flown
often bombastic style or manner.
Examples:
1) Poet Edward Weismiller told "The
Baltimore Sun" (April 10, 2004) that his
former tendency to be magniloquent "was stamped
out" of him by his mentor John Berryman.
2) Stevens did for American poetic
language what Saul Bellow was to do for prose,
extending its boundaries, taking in the magniloquent,
the arcane, the plainspoken, the gaudy, the low-rent.
(Algis Valiunas, "Wallace Stevens: Collected
Poetry and Prose," Commentary, January 1,
1998)
3) A feature of Young's intellectual
project is to incorporate the Elizabethan delight
in metaphors both decorous and indecorous, constantly
embellishing her prose with a poetic juxtaposition
of the grand with the prosaic, "a constant
alternation of the magniloquent and the colloquial."
(Constance Eichenlaub, "Marguerite Young,"
Review of Contemporary Fiction, June 22, 2000)
4) Although Napoleon presented himself
as "the Enlightenment embodied, bringing
rationality and justice to peoples hitherto ruled
in the interests of privileged castes," and
although he may even have believed to some degree
in the image he presented, the reality of his
rule belied the magniloquent professions of moral
generosity. (Algis Valiunas, "The ashes
of Napoleon," Commentary, June 1, 2002)
5) Shannon, doubling as NSBA's executive
director over that time, has taken wicked delight
in delivering new vocabulary in his sometimes
magniloquent columns about the workings of local
school boards. ("Thomas A. Shannon,"
School Administrator, April 1996)
Synonyms: ornate, florid, flowery, euphuistic,
sonorous, grandiloquent.
History, a related word:
"Magnus" means "great"
in Latin; "loqui" is a Latin
verb meaning "to speak." Combine the
two and you get "magniloquus,"
the Latin predecessor of "magniloquent."
English speakers started using "magniloquent"
for the "bombastic" in the 1600s - even
though we'd had its synonym "grandiloquent"
since the 1500s. ("Grandiloquent"
comes from Latin "grandiloquus,"
which combines "loqui" and "grandis,"
another word for "great" in Latin.)
Today, these synonyms continue to exist side by
side and to be used interchangeably, though "grandiloquent"
is the more common of the two.
maieutic
relating to or resembling the Socratic method
of eliciting new ideas from another
Example:
Professor Collins often uses maieutic logic to
encourage his students to explore and understand
the various facets of a problem.
Etymology:
"Maieutic" comes from
"maieutikos," the Greek word for "of
midwifery." Whoever applied "maieutic"
to the Socratic method of bringing forth new ideas
by reasoning and dialogue must have thought the
techniques of Socrates analogous to those a midwife
uses in delivering a baby. A teacher who uses
maieutic methods can be thought of as an intellectual
midwife who assists students in bringing forth
ideas and conceptions previously latent in their
minds.
make a beeline for
- make
a beeline
- make
- beeline
- beeline
for
go straight towards
Example:
When the kids saw Santa Claus coming, they all
made a beeline for him.
make a day of it
- make
a day of
- make
a day
- make
- day
1. Do something all day.
Example:
We were afraid of literature exam coming on Monday
and all the Sunday made a day of it.
2. Amuse oneself all day long.
Example:
We decided to make a day of it and spend the day
at the beach.
make a federal case out of
- make a federal case out of it
- make a federal case out of smth.
To exaggerate the seriousness of something small;
to make a big deal out of something.
Example:
I was looking at your test paper to see the date.
Don't make a federal case out of it.
History:
The federal courts and Supreme Court of the United
States handle the most important issues of the
law. So, if you overreact to something said or
done, you're "making a federal case
out of it," or making it more important
than it needs to be.
make a hames of smth.
- make a hames of
- make a hames
- make
- hames
- make a hame
- hame
(Irish) To make a mess of smth.
Example:
I thought I wasn't when they called on Saturday
but now I'm so shakky, I know what I should say
and all, but I'm afarid I just will make a hames
of it! ...
Etymology, more examples:
The expression is restricted to Ireland and doesn't
now seem to be so very common even there. Here's
one example from the "Irish Examiner"
in August 2004, describing a local politician's
chances in a reshuffle: "You know he'd
be thrilled with Finance, and it wouldn't do you
any harm to watch him make a hames of it. He could
even be the scapegoat for the next election."
Though the expression isn't known elsewhere,
anyone who has much to do with working horses
will know the term, because the hames are the
two curved supports attached to the collar of
a draft horse to which the traces are fastened.
It's all too easy to put the hames on a horse
the wrong way up, thus making a complete mess
of things and risking adverse comments from bystanders.
Here's a literary example, from Hugh Leonard's
"Out After Dark" of 1989:
"Instead I made a hames of it, mislaying
a verb, marooning a noun on a foreign shore, starting
a jerry-built sentence that caved in halfway through".
"Hame", in lots of different
spellings, was once common in dialects throughout
Britain and Ireland and there are terms in Old
Dutch and German that are similar. The best we
can say about its origins is that it's a Germanic
word, perhaps imported from Dutch around 1300
< ME "hames".
The word usually occurs in the plural. Some pubs
have the name "Hamemakers Arms",
others have a similar name "Homemakers
Arms". The names may be derived from
both "hames" and "home",
or may both be derived from one of these.
make a mountain out of
a molehill
- make
- mountain
- out of
- molehill
- make out
- make out of
- make
- make an elephant out of a fly
- make
- out of
- make out
- elephant
- fly
To make a problem bigger, exaggerate a problem;
to turn a small, unimportant issue into a big,
important one; to exaggerate the importance of
something.
Examples:
1) "I can't believe you forgot
to return your library book!" Damon wagged
his finger at
Yvonne.
"Look, it's only one day overdue and I'm
returning it right now. Stop making a mountain
out of a molehill!"
2) Your 'broken arm' was only a
sprained write. Don't make a mountain out of a
molehill.
History, synonym:
A mountain is huge; a molehill is
small. The ancient Greeks had a saying, "make
an elephant out of a fly," which
became a proverb in French and German. By the
mid-1500s people in England were saying "make
a mountain out of a molehill," probably
because "make", "mountain",
and "molehill" all begin with
"m", and alliteration
helps make an expression fun to say and easier
to remember.
make a pass at
make a romantic approach to smb.; woo smb.; try
to get a date with smb.
Example:
Julie made a pass at me. She sent me a love note
and smiled at me.
make a play for
- make
a play
- make
- play
for
- make
a play
- play
do something in order to obtain smth./smb., make
an effort to attain smth./smb.
Examples:
1) You remember Mile High Stadium.
Fans make a play for seats. But stadium security
sits on their attempts to swipe souvenirs.
2) John always makes a play for
new girls in the group.
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
- One can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
- One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
- You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
- You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
- good coat of poor cloth
- make good coat of poor cloth
- hunting horn out of a pig's tail
- make hunting horn out of a pig's tail
- put some lipstick on that pig
- hunting horn
- pig's
- tail
- pig
- hunting
- horn
- good
- coat
- poor
- cloth
- make
- silk
- purse
- out of
- sow's
- sow
- ear
- make out of
- make out
To create something valuable or beautiful
out of something practically worthless or
ugly.
Example:
Owen thinks that by polishing his old car, he
can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
History, synonyms:
There are similar expressions in many languages;
these sayings also use "good thing - bad
thing" combinations (for instance,
"to make good coat of poor cloth,"
and "to make hunting horn out of a
pig's tail"). In the US there is
a contemporary variant to that saying:
"to put some lipstick on that pig."
An English version close to this idiom has been
around since 1700. A silk purse is an elegant,
expensive item made of fine, shiny fibers. A sow
is an adult female pig. So if anyone can
take a sow's ear and turn it into a silk
purse, he or she
might be able to take a bad situation and make
something good out of it.
make away with
- make
away
- make
- away
with
- away
1. To take; to carry away;
Example: The cat made away with the bird
that was sitting on top of the kitchen counter.
2. To get rid of; to rid oneself of;
3. To finish, to complete
4. To kill, to murder (someone or oneself)
Example: He made away with himself.
5. To steal; To run away with stolen stuff
Example: The police gave chase, but the
thieves made away with the jewels.
make ends meet
1. To be able to support oneself financially
on one's salary; to have enough money to survive;
to pay the bills, have enough to pay the expenses.
2. Barely to earn enough money to survive;
to live on the edge of poverty.
Examples:
1) My dad has to work overtime almost
every night, and lately he works on weekends,
too. He says it's what he has to do to
make ends meet.
2) On her salary, Jackie can hardly
make ends meet.
3) Although the Millers are poor,
they make ends meet.
History:
What does "ends" mean in this
expression? Some word experts think that in the
1600s it could have meant the sum total, the end
of a column of figures that were added up. Others
think that in the mid-1700s it meant the beginning
and the end of the financial year.
make eyes at
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