sabot
[sa-BOH]
1. A wooden shoe worn in various European countries.
2. A strap across the instep in a shoe, especially of the sandal type.
3. A shoe having a sabot strap.
4. A thrust-transmitting carrier that positions a missile in a gun barrel or launching tube and that prevents the escape of gas ahead of the missile.
5. A dealing box designed to hold several decks of playing cards.
Example:
All her kind, at least in the countryside, wore... sabots, well past the century's end. (Eugen Weber, France, "Fin de Siecle")
History, related words:
The term "sabot" may have first been introduced into English in a 1607 translation from French: "Wooden shoes," readers were informed, are "properly called sabots." The gun-related sense appeared in the mid-1800s with the invention of a wooden gizmo that kept gun shells from shifting in the gun barrel. Apparently, someone thought the device resembled a wooden shoe and named it "sabot" (with later generations of this device carrying on the name). Another kind of French sabot - a metal "shoe" used to secure rails to railway ties - is said to be the origin of the word "sabotage," from workers destroying the sabots during a French railway strike in the early 1900s. The word "sabot" is probably related to "savate," a Middle French word for an old shoe.


saccade
[sak-KAHD]
A small rapid jerky movement of the eye especially as it jumps from fixation on one point to another (as in reading).
Example:
In reading, the eyes scan the text in a series of saccades and form what can be thought of as still photographs processed by the brain.
History:
"Saccade" is a French word meaning "twitch" or "jerk." It galloped into English in the early 18th century as a term used in horseback riding for a quick check using the reins. (Today, this meaning is too specialized for entry in "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary", but it is stabled in "Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged".) In 1879, French ophthalmologist Emile Javal observed that a reader's eyes make a series of short jumps, which he referred to in French as saccades. It wasn't until 1938, however, when experimental psychologist Robert Woodworth wrote about the pioneering Javal and his saccades, that the ocular use of the word was seen in an English publication.


sacrosanct

• os sacrum
• os
• sacrum

[SAK-roh-sankt]
1. Sacred; inviolable.
2. Treated as if holy; immune from criticism or violation.
Examples:
1) The family was viewed as sacrosanct: divorce was highly unusual and children were expected to be grateful for the sacrifices that parents, who postponed their own gratifications in forming a family, made on their behalf. (Alan Wolfe, "One Nation, After All")
2) Espionage is about redefining Good and Evil, the violable and the sacrosanct. (Edward Shirley, "Know Thine Enemy")
3) For years the respected scientist's theories were treated as sacrosanct by his colleagues, and only recently have his ideas been seriously challenged.
Etymology, related words:
In "sacrosanct", "sacro" and "sanctus" were combined long ago to form a phrase meaning "hallowed by a sacred rite." "Sacro" means "by a sacred rite" and comes from "sacrum," a Latin noun that lives on in English anatomy as the name for our pelvic vertebrae - a shortening of "os sacrum," which literally means "holy bone." "Sanctus" means "sacred" and gave us "saint" and obvious words like "sanctimony," "sanctify," and "sanctuary."


saga
[SAH-guh]
1. A prose narrative recorded in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries of historic or legendary figures and events of the heroic age of Norway and Iceland.
2. A modern heroic narrative resembling the Icelandic saga.
3. A long detailed account.
Example:
The author's latest book is a saga about four hikers trapped atop a snowy mountain for six days.
History:
The original sagas were prose narratives that were roughly analogous to modern historical novels. They were penned in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries and blended fact and fiction to tell the tales of famous rulers, legendary heroes, or even plain folks. And they were aptly named; "saga" traces back to an Old Norse root that means "what is said or told." When English speakers borrowed the term back in the early 1700s, they used it to describe those first Icelandic stories. Later, "saga" was broadened to cover anything that resembled such a story, and eventually it was further generalized to cover any long, complicated scenario.


sagacious
[suh-GAY-shus]
Of keen penetration and judgment; discerning and judicious; knowing; shrewd; wise.
Examples:
1) Edward's uncle, a sagacious scholar equally at home with Celtic myth and Eastern wisdom, declines his nephew's request to tell the story of Hamlet (it would come too close to home). (John Gross, "New York Times", December 3, 1984)
2) Others worked up sagacious-sounding comments about the French author that would serve until they could read some of his books themselves, or until the current interest fades. (Maureen Dowd, "Nobel Panel's Pick Keeps Cognoscenti Guessing," New York Times, October 18, 1985)
3) John Adams, another of the doctor's Congressional colleagues, said of him: "Franklin had a great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive, capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanic arts. (Richard M. Ketchum, "Saratoga")
Etymology:
"Sagacious" derives from Latin "sagax" ("keen; shrewd; clever").


saggar
A protective box enclosing ceramic ware while it is being fired.
Example:
The processes of making pottery are demonstrated here, and the building complex includes an engine house and a saggar maker's shop, where fireclay cases were made for holding batches of pots during firing. (Bailey, Brian. A guide to Britain's industrial past. - London: Whittet Books Ltd, 1985)
History:
In large-scale pottery manufacture years ago, the furnaces (called bottle kilns from their shape) were usually heated by coal or coke furnaces. Flames, ashes and corrosive gases would have damaged the pottery if it wasn't protected by being put into "saggars", a word that seems to be a contraction of "safeguard". These were hollow squat cylinders with flat tops and bottoms so they could be stacked in the kiln, often in piles 30 feet high or more. Saggars were made from a type of fireclay that was mixed with a proportion of ground-up reused saggar called "grog"; they only lasted for about forty firings, so every large works had its own saggar-makers. These men had assistants whose job was to make the heavy flat bottoms of the saggars, beating the fireclay into shape inside an iron hoop using a mallet called a mawl (pronounced [maw] in Staffordshire). These assistants, lads in their teens, were the "saggar-maker's bottom knockers". These and related jobs - such as the "batter-outs" who beat out the strips of clay for the sides of the saggars - vanished when kilns began to be fired instead by clean gas or electricity so that protective saggars weren't needed.
Some modern small-scale potters still use saggars, but as an enclosure to allow materials such as seaweed or pine needles to be placed against the piece to create interesting markings or colourings. Isn't it interesting that the only people who fire in saggars today use them for exactly the opposite function to traditional potters - to make marks on the ware?"


saguaro

• giant cactus
• giant
• cactus

[suh-WAHR-uh]
A tall columnar usually sparsely-branched cactus ("Carnegiea gigantea") of dry areas of the southwestern United States and Mexico that bears white flowers and a scaly reddish edible fruit and that may attain a height of up to 50 feet (16 meters).
Example:
For a brief period in spring, ...the saguaro has a silly aspect, as white flowers bloom atop its columnar trunk, like a frilly little Easter hat... (Christine Temin, "Boston Globe", September 4, 1994)
History, synonym:
For people living in Arizona and southeastern California, the word "saguaro" won't be anything new. Perhaps you know this emblem of all things Southwestern simply as the "giant cactus," another of its common names. The word "saguaro" originated in Opata, a language spoken by peoples of the Sonoran Desert region of Mexico. It came into English by way of the Spanish spoken by the Mexican settlers of the American West. The very saguaros we see today may well have been around when the word was first noted, some 150 years ago - this amazing cactus can live for up to 200 years, particularly - in the Arizonan desert, and it is in bloom in May and June.


salad days

• salad day
• salad
• days
• day

A time of youthful inexperience, innocence, or indiscretion.
Example:
Those were his salad days, and he thought they might last forever. (David Gergen, "'They Love You. Watch Out' ", New York Times, February 2, 1997)
Etymology:
"Salad days" was coined by Shakespeare in "Antony and Cleopatra":
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood.


salient

• prominent
• projecting
• sally
• Salientia
• salmon
• somersault

[SAIL-yunt, SAY-lee-unt]
1. Shooting out or up; jutting forward beyond a line.
Synonym: projecting.
2. Forcing itself on the attention; conspicuous; noticeable; standing out conspicuously; of notable significance.
Synonym: prominent.
3. Leaping; springing; jumping.
4. An outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense.
5. A projecting angle or part.
Examples:
1) The senator's speech was filled with so much twisted rhetoric that it was hard to identify its salient points.
2) The strength of the hypothesis is that it simultaneously explains all these salient features, none of which had satisfactory independent explanations. (Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag, "Snowball Earth," Scientific American, January 2000)
3) He was killed during an attack on German positions dug into Ploegsteert Wood on the Ypres salient. (Russell Jenkins and Stephen Farrell, "Search begins for family of Flanders fusilier," Times (London), January 10, 2000)
Etymology:
"Salient" first popped up in English in the mid-17th century, and in its earliest English uses meant "moving by leaps or springs" (such as a salient cheetah) or "spouting forth" (such as a salient fountain). Those senses aren't too much of a jump from the word's parent, the Latin verb "salire", which means "to leap". "Salire" has leaped into many English words; it's also an ancestor of "somersault" (a forward or backward roll performed by the body; make a complete forward or backward roll) and "sally" ("to leap forth or rush out suddenly"), as well as "Salientia", the name for an order of amphibians that includes frogs, toads, and other notable jumpers, and perhaps "salmon" - the "leaping" fish. Today, "salient" is usually used to describe things that are physically prominent (such as a salient nose) or that stand out figuratively (such as the salient features of a painting).


salmagundi
[sal-muh-GUHN-dee]
1. A salad plate usually consisting of chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, and onions, served with oil and vinegar.
2. Any mixture or assortment; a medley; a potpourri; a miscellany.
Examples:
1) A glance at the schedule is enough to make one feel that one would rather go out and shoot songbirds than stay in and watch the dismal salmagundi of game shows, repeats and soap operas. (Jane Shilling, "My brother and other animals", Daily Telegraph, August 22, 1998)
2) What the BBC has the nerve to call Vanity Fair is a baffling salmagundi of Nineties accents, 1800s clothes, Wardour Street plotting, and a sort of language never spoken by any human being at any point in history. ("Stop betraying the classics", Independent, November 4, 1998)
Etymology:
"Salmagundi" comes from French "salmigondis".


salt of the earth

• salt
• earth

1. Highly respected people; people of high morals, with permanent and indestructible humanity.
2. Common people; honest, hard-working people.
Example:
The Swensons are plain, decent people - salt of the earth, eh.
History:
In the ancient world, salt was considered indestructible, thus it was used to seal (and to dry the text of) agreements.
At the same time, to the ancient Hebrews and some other peoples (e.g., the Eastern Slavs) salt symbolized hospitality, durability and purity. To eat the salt of the King was to owe him utmost fidelity. Eating bread and salt together sealed an unbreakable friendship. Jesus said if it lost its taste is was good for nothing. It was also currency; e.g., soldiers were, at one time, paid in salt, and probably, hence the word "salary" appeared. In India, if you eat someone's salt, you are bound to be loyal to him or her - a betrayal of the debt of salt is the worst kind.




salubrious
[suh-LOO-bree-us]
Favorable to health; promoting health; healthful.
Examples:
1) A physician warned him his health was precarious, so Montague returned to the United States, shelved his legal ambitions and searched for a salubrious climate where he might try farming. ("Teeing Off Into the Past At Oakhurst," New York Times, May 2, 1999)
2) For years, her mother has maintained that the sea air has a salubrious effect on both her spirits and her vocal cords. (Anita Shreve, "Fortune's Rocks")
3) Uptown, however, the tanners' less salubrious quarter is notorious for its stench. ("Byzantium," Toronto Star, February 7, 1999)
Etymology:
"Salubrious" is from Latin "salubris" ("healthful"), from "salus" ("health").


salutary
[SAL-yuh-ter-ee]
1. Producing or contributing to a beneficial effect; beneficial; advantageous.
2. Wholesome; healthful; promoting health.
Examples:
1) Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed during his sojourn in this country that America was teeming with such associations - charities, choral groups, church study groups, book clubs - and that they had a remarkably salutary effect on society, turning selfish individuals into public-spirited citizens. (Fareed Zakaria, "Bigger Than the Family, Smaller Than the State," New York Times, August 13, 1995)
2) Surviving a near-death experience has the salutary effect of concentrating the mind. (Kenneth T. Walsh and Roger Simon, "Bush turns the tide," U.S. News, February 28, 2000)
3) And they washed it all down with sharp red wines, moderate amounts of which are known to be salutary. (Rod Usher, "The Fat of the Land," Time Europe, January 8, 2000)
Etymology:
"Salutary" derives from Latin "salutaris", from "salus, salut-" ("health").


sanctum

• sanctums
• sancta

(pl. sanctums or sancta)
1. A sacred place.
2. A place of retreat where one is free from intrusion.
Examples:
1) What's more, the babble of radios, televisions and raised voices from the other households in the condominium rarely penetrated this sanctum. (Tim Parks, "Mimi's Ghost")
2) Seymour has spent most of her research time in that sanctum of the professional biographer, the London Library. (John Mullan, "The agony and the ecstasy", The Guardian, December 23, 2000)
Etymology:
"Sanctum" comes from the Latin, meaning "holy, sacred, or inviolable".


sang-froid

• sangfroid
• calmness

also sangfroid [sang-FRWAH]
Freedom from agitation or excitement of mind; coolness in trying circumstances.
Synonym: calmness.
Examples:
1) The Treasury Secretary's sang-froid in moments of crisis. ("Keeping the Boom From Busting," New York Times, July 19, 1998)
2) Both men were mightily impressed by the calmness of the Americans on board, particularly among the women. "I had, during my sojourn in America," Beaumont said later, "a thousand occasions to see the sang-froid of the American." (Michael Kammen, "Wrecked on the Fourth of July," New York Times, July 6, 1997)
3) Gaviria knew Alberto as an impulsive but cordial man capable of maintaining his sangfroid under the most stressful circumstances. (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "News of a Kidnapping")
Etymology:
"Sang-froid" is from the French; it literally means "cold blood": "sang" ("blood") + "froid" ("cold").


sangfroid

• sang-froid

[SAHN-FRWAH] (the vowel in the first syllable is pronounced nasally without any following consonant)
self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain
Example:
Harry thought he would be a jittery, stumbling mess on the day of his presentation, but instead surprised himself and impressed others with his sangfroid.
Etymology:
If you're a lizard, "cold-blooded" means your body temperature is strongly influenced by your environment. If you're an English-speaking human, it means you are callous and unfeeling. If you're a French speaker, it means that you're calm, cool, and collected in stressful situations. By the mid-1700s, English speakers were already using "cold-blooded" (that term has been around since the late 1500s), but they must have liked the more positive spin the French put on having "cold blood" because they borrowed the French "sang-froid" (literally, "cold blood") for someone who is imperturbable under strain. The French term, by the way, developed from the Latin words "sanguis" ("blood") and "frigidus" ("cold").


sapid
[SAP-id]
1. Having taste or flavor, especially having a strong pleasant flavor.
2. Agreeable to the mind; to one's liking.
Examples:
1) Chemistry can concentrate the sapid and odorous elements of the peach and the bitter almond into a transparent fluid. (David William Cheever, "Tobacco," The Atlantic, August 1860)
2) I've raved about the elegant and earthy lobster-and-truffle sausage, the sapid sea bass with coarse salt poached in lobster oil, and the indescribably complex and delectable ballottine of lamb stuffed with ground veal, sweet-breads and truffles. (James Villas, "Why Taillevent thrives," Town & Country, March 1, 1998)
Etymology:
"Sapid" comes from Latin "sapidus" ("savory"), from "sapere" ("to taste")


sartorial
[sar-TOR-ee-ul]
Of or relating to a tailor or tailored clothes; (broadly) of or relating to clothes.
Example:
"Far be it from me to criticize your sartorial choices," said Helen, laughing, "but do you really think that shirt goes with those pants?"
History:
It's easy to uncover the root of "sartorial." Just strip off the suffix "-ial", and you discover the Latin noun "sartor," meaning "tailor" (literally, "one who patches or mends"). Sartorial splendor has been the stuff of voguish magazines for years, and even "sartor" itself has occasionally proven fashionable, as it did in 1843, when Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote of "coats whose memory turns the sartor pale," or in the 1870 title "The Sartor, or British journal of cutting, clothing, and fashion". "Sartorial" has been in style with English speakers since at least 1823.


sashay

• sashay down

[sash-AY]
1. To make the sliding dance step called chasse.
2. To walk, glide, go; to stroll.
3. To strut or move about in an ostentatious or conspicuous manner.
4. To proceed or move in a diagonal or sideways manner.
Examples:
1) Cameras flashed and fans screamed as the latest pop princess sashayed down the red carpet.
2) They sashayed down to the beach.
Etymology:
The French verb "chasse" ("to make a sliding dance step") danced into English unaltered in the early 19th century, but as the word gained popularity in America people often had difficulty pronouncing and transcribing its French rhythms. By 1836, "sashay" had begun to appear in print in American sources. Authors such as Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, and John Updike have all since put their names on the word's dance card and have enjoyed the liveliness and attitude "sashay" adds to descriptions of movement. They and many, many others have helped "sashay" slide away from its French dance origins to strut its stuff in descriptions of various walks and moves.


satiety

• surfeit
• fullness
• satiate
• sate

1. the quality or state of being fed or gratified to or beyond capacity
Synonyms: surfeit, fullness
Example:
Our host presented one sumptuous dish after another, and we ate to satiety.
2. the revulsion or disgust caused by overindulgence or excess
Etymology:
You may have guessed that "satiety" is related to "satisfy", "satiate" (meaning "to satisfy fully or to excess"), or "sate" (which means "to glut" or "to satisfy to the full"). If so, you guessed right. "Satiety", along with the others, ultimately comes from the Latin word "satis," which means "enough". English speakers apparently couldn't get enough of "satis"-derived words in the 15th and 16th centuries, which is when all of these words entered the language. "Satiety" itself was borrowed into English in 1533 from the Middle French word "satiete" of the same meaning.


saturnine
[SAT-er-nyne, SAT-uhr-nyn]
1. Born under or influenced astrologically by the planet Saturn.
2. Cold and steady in mood; slow to act or change.
3. Of a gloomy or surly disposition.
4. Having a sardonic or bitter aspect.
Examples:
1) His saturnine spirit appealed to younger bohemians who were anxious to make idols of an earlier generation's tormented souls, but even so, it cannot have been easy for Rothko always to be the pessimist among the optimists. (Jed Perl, review of "Mark Rothko: A Biography, by James E.B. Breslin", New Republic, January 24, 1994)
2) A saturnine prison guard sits and broods - and every now and then, gets up and shoots an unseen prisoner. (John Walsh, review of "The Silence Between Two Thoughts", Independent, June 11, 2004)
3) He only knew his mother from photos, which showed her to be a saturnine woman with a permanent frown.
Etymology:
Eeyore is saturnine. The gloomy, cynical character of A. A. Milne's gray donkey typifies the personality type the ancient Romans ascribed to individuals born when the planet Saturn was rising in the heavens. Both the name of the planet and today's featured adjective derive from the name of the Roman god of agriculture, who was often depicted as a bent old man with a stern, sluggish, and sullen nature. In Medieval times Saturn was believed to be the most remote planet from the Sun and thus coldest and slowest in its revolution. The Latin name for Saturn was "Saturnus," which is assumed to have yielded the word "Saturninus" (meaning "of Saturn") in Medieval Latin; that form was adapted to create English "saturnine" in the 15th century.


saviour sibling

• saviour
• sibling

Using an embryos for some desirable genetic characteristic that would help cure a sickly existing child.
Example:
An example of a "saviour sibling" would be to create a baby whose umbilical cord blood could save the life of a sibling with a rare blood disorder.
Etymology:
The term is a specific application of the more general "designer baby"; as a result, the blended expression "designer sibling" has also appeared. Professor Alison Murdoch of the British Fertility Society stresses: "We are not taking about engineering a child to have a certain hair colour or aesthetic characteristic. This is about families being able to make a decision that their new baby could save the life of its older brother or sister:"


scandaroon
1. A kind of homing pigeon.
Example:
The Scandaroon pigeon standard is brought to you by the Arizona Pigeon Club.
2. (17th-century slang) A swindler or fraudulent dealer.


scapegrace
A reckless, unprincipled person; one who is wild and reckless; a rascal; a scoundrel.
Examples:
1) She intended to divide her fortune neither evenly nor proportional to need, but to ensure her own pleasure, bequeathing the bulk of it to her scapegrace nephew Rawdon Crawley, who had few virtues but much vitality; he amused her. (Randy Cohen, "The Heir Unapparent", New York Times Magazine, December 12, 1999)
2) The Poggenpuhls consist of a widowed mother, three unmarried daughters, and two young soldier sons, one a model of rectitude and the other, Leo, a high-living scapegrace who, naturally, is everybody's favorite. (Dennis Drabelle, "The Dickens of Berlin", The Atlantic, October 2000)
3) He is a happy-go-lucky scapegrace of a boy, often a younger brother, who, by the exercise of cunning and a quick tongue but, above all, by good luck, overtakes his worthy betters to rise from rags to riches and get the girl as well. (Roland Huntford, "Nansen: The Explorer as Hero)
Etymology:
Scapegrace is from "scape" (a variant of "escape") + "grace".


scaredy-cat

• scaredy
• cat

A person who won't act on a dare, or who is afraid to try something new.
Etymology: The phrase was coined in recognition of a cat's trait of not standing up against a dog many times its size.

schadenfreude
[SHOD-n-froy-duh, SHAH-dun-froy-duh]
Also: Schadenfreude
A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others; enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.
Examples:
1) That the report of Sebastian Imhof's grave illness might also have been tinged with Schadenfreude appears not to have crossed Lucas's mind. (Steven Ozment, "Flesh and Spirit")
2) He died three years after me - cancer too - and at that time I was still naive enough to imagine that what the afterlife chiefly provided were unrivalled opportunities for unbeatable gloating, unbelievable schadenfreude. (Will Self, "How The Dead Live")
3) Somewhere out there, Pi supposed, some UC Berkeley grad students must be shivering with a little Schadenfreude of their own about what had happened to her. (Sylvia Brownrigg, "The Metaphysical Touch")
4) The historian Peter Gay - who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics - has said that it "can be one of the great joys of life." (Edward Rothstein, "Missing the Fun of a Minor Sin," New York Times, February 5, 2000)
5) There is simply no higher level of schadenfreude than when the rich or famous stumble. (John Gonzalez, 'Boston Magazine", August 2005)
Etymology:
"Schadenfreude" comes from the German, from "Schaden" ("damage", "harm") + "Freude" ("joy"). The word is often capitalized, as it is in German, and it makes sense that "schadenfreude" means joy over some harm or misfortune suffered by another. "What a fearful thing is it that any language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others," wrote Richard Trench of Dublin, an archbishop with literary predilections, of the German "Schadenfreude" in 1852; perhaps it was just as well he didn't live to see the word embraced by English speakers before the century was out.

schlemiel
[shluh-MEEL]
An unlucky bungler; chump.
Example:
"What a schlemiel," sighed Evelyn, watching Frank trip his way up to the bowling lane and throw yet another ball straight into the gutter.
Etymology:
"Schlemiel," from the Yiddish "shlemil," has sometimes been associated with Peter Schlemihl, the hero of a story about an unlucky man who sold his shadow to the devil, by German writer Adelbert von Chamisso. While this story may have helped to popularize "schlemiel," the word probably has much older roots. The Hebrew name "Shelumiel" is mentioned in the Bible (Numbers 1:6), and the Talmud describes Shelumiel as a man whose behavior earned derision and an unfortunate fate. A "schlemiel" in modern English usage is a chronic blunderer or loser, and is sometimes paired with the less common "schlimazel," another Yiddish word for an unlucky or bungling person.


schwarmerei
[shavair-muh-RYE]
Excessive or unwholesome sentiment.
Example:
The poet's later works are refreshingly free of the schwarmerei that hobbled his earlier efforts.
History:
In 1845, the editors of the "Edinburgh Review" felt compelled to use the German "Schwarmerei" to describe fanatical enthusiasm because the concept seemed so foreign to them. In commenting on the writings of German critic and dramatist Gotthold Lessing, they declared "Schwarmerei" to be "untranslatable, because the thing itself is un-English." That German word derives from the verb "schwarmen," which means not only "to be enthusiastic", but "to swarm" (it was used to refer to bees), and its ancestors were part of Old High German. Ironically, the "Edinburgh Review's" use (the first ever documented in an English publication) seems to have contributed to making the word much more English, and it has since become a naturalized citizen of the language.


sciential
[sye-EN-shul]
1. relating to or producing knowledge or science
Example:
Of the value of having a library at hand for a liberal education, Coleridge wrote: "There is no way of arriving at any sciential end but by finding it at every step."
2. having efficient knowledge
Synonym: capable
History:
One might expect "sciential," which derives from Latin "scientia" (meaning "knowledge"), to be used mostly in technical papers and descriptions of scientific experiments. In truth, however, "sciential" has long been a favorite of playwrights and poets. It appears in the works of Ben Jonson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats, among others. Keats made particularly lyrical use of it in his narrative poem "Lamia", which depicts a doomed love affair between the Greek sorceress Lamia and a human named Lycius. In the poem, Hermes transforms Lamia from a serpent into a beautiful woman, "Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain."


scintilla

• scintillate

[sin-TIL-uh]
A tiny or scarcely detectable amount; the slightest particle; a trace; a spark.
Examples:
1) In victory, they must hold on to at least a scintilla of humility, lest they get too cocky - and ripe for a takedown. (Bill Breen, "'We are literally trying to stop time,'" Fast Company, May 2000)
2) "I bear her not one scintilla of ill will," he said. (Sarah Lyall, "That Harriman Book," New York Times, May 4, 1994)
3) There was never a scintilla of doubt, or a hint of equivocation, in Michael about his commitment to the party. ("Ferris's decency and sense of fun recalled," Irish Times, March 23, 2000)
Etymology, related words:
"Scintilla" is from Latin "scintilla" - "a spark, a glimmer, a faint trace." Also from "scintilla" is the verb "scintillate" - "to sparkle."


sciolism

• sciolist

[SY-uh-liz-uhm]
Superficial knowledge; a superficial show of learning.
1) Religion was mostly superstition, science for the most part sciolism, popular education merely a means of forcing the stupid and repressing the bright, so that all the youth of the rising generation might conform to the same dull, dead level of democratic mediocrity. (Charles Waddell Chesnut, "Conjure Tales and Stories of the Color Line")
2) American classics teachers' choice in the early national period to focus on gammer rather than other aspects of the classical inheritance resulted from their primary pedagogical goals: to mold gentlemen who navigated between sciolism and pedantry, ministers who could intelligently read the Bible, and citizens who were moral and dutiful. (Caroline Winterer, "The Culture of Classicism")
Etymology:
"Sciolism" comes from Late Latin "sciolus" - "a smatterer," from diminutive of Latin "scius" - "knowing," from "scire" - "to know." One who has only superficial knowledge is a sciolist.


scion
[SYE-un]
1. A detached living portion of a plant (as a bud or shoot) joined to a stock in grafting and usually supplying solely aerial parts to a graft.
2. Descendant, child; especially: a descendant of a wealthy, aristocratic, or influential family.
3. Heir.
Examples:
1) The scion of a family of legendary actors, Fiona was well groomed for her own show business career.
2) Convinced he was the scion of Louis Alexandre Lebris de Kerouac, a noble Breton, he was off to do genealogical research in the Paris libraries and then to locate his ancestor's hometown in Brittany. (Ellis Amburn, "Subterranean Kerouac")
3) Sassoon, scion of a famously wealthy Jewish banking family, had never needed to earn his living. (Philip Hoare, "Oscar Wilde's Last Stand")
4) Gates is the scion of an old, affluent Seattle family; Jobs is the adopted son of a machinist in Northern California. ("Steve Jobs, Hesitant Co-Founder, Makes New Commitment to Apple," New York Times, August 7, 1997)
Etymology:
"Scion" derives from the Middle English "sioun" and Old French "cion," and is related to the Old English "cith" and the Old High German "kidi" ("sprout" or "shoot"). When it first sprouted in English in the 13th century, "scion" meant "a shoot or twig." That sense withered in horticultural contexts, but the word branched out, adding the grafting-related meaning we know today. The figurative sense, "descendant," blossomed in the 19th century, with particular reference to those who were descendants of notable families.


scribe
1. A copyist, copier of manuscripts; an amanuensis or secretary; a notary; a public clerk.
2. An author, writer; one who writes; a draughtsman; a writer for another; especially, an offical or public writer.
3. (Judaism) A Jewish scholar who transcribed edited and interpreted Biblical scrolls; a writer and doctor of the law; one skilled in the law and traditions; one who read and explained the law to the people.
Example:
There are the scribes and the Pharisees, and they began grumble saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them, and Jesus told them a parable.
4. To write down, record, inscribe; to write, engrave, or mark upon; to mark by cutting or scratching; to work as a scribe; to make a mark.
Example:
With the separated points of a pair of spring dividers scribe around the edge of the templet.
5. (carp.) To cut (anything) in such a way as to fit closely to a somewhat irregular surface, as a baseboard to a floor which is out of level, a board to the curves of a molding, or the like. (So called because the workman marks, or scribe, with the compasses the line that he afterwards cuts.) 6. To score or mark with compasses or a scribing iron.
Etymology:
1377, from L.L. "scriba" ("teacher of Jewish law") used in Vulgate to render Gk. "grammateus", corresponding to Heb. "sopher" - "writer, scholar". In secular L., "scriba" meant "keeper of accounts, secretary" (from "scribere" = "to write"). It recovered this sense in Eng. 16c. Another source is Fr. "scribere" ("to write"); cf. Gr. "ska`rifos" - "a splinter, pencil, style (for writing)", Eng. "scarify"; cf. ascribe, describe, script, scrivener, scrutoire.


scrutinize

• scrutineer

[SKROO-tuh-nyze]
1. To examine closely and minutely.
Example:
Signora Bernasconi scrutinized the painting, said to be by Fra Angelico, and declared it a fake.
2. To make a scrutiny.
Etymology, related words:
A close look at the etymology of "scrutinize" reveals that the word stems from the Latin verb "scrutari" (meaning "to search" or "to examine"), which in turn probably comes from "scruta" (meaning "trash," or more specifically "a mixture of worthwhile articles and trash"). "Scrutari" gave us the noun "scrutiny" in the 15th century, a word which originally meant "a formal vote" and then "an official examination of votes." "Scrutinize" retained reference to voting, with the meaning "to examine votes," at least into the 18th century - and even today in Britain a "scrutineer" is a person who counts votes.


scumble

• skim
• Scumbling

[SKUM-bul]
1. To make (as color or a painting) less brilliant by covering with a thin coat of opaque or semiopaque color; to apply (a color) in this manner.
2. To soften the lines or colors of (a drawing) by rubbing lightly.
Example:
The painting's dreamy look was created by first drawing sharply defined figures and then scumbling them.
History, related words:
The history of "scumble" is blurry, but the word is thought to be related to the verb "scum," an obsolete form of "skim" (meaning "to pass lightly over"). Scumbling, as first perfected by artists such as Titian, involves passing dry, opaque coats of oil paint over a tinted background to create subtle tones and shadows. But although the painting technique dates to the 16th century, use of the word "scumble" is only known to have begun in the late 18th century. The more generalized "smudge" or "smear" sense appeared even later, in the mid-1800s.


scupper

• do in
• done in
• done
• do

(British) to defeat or put an end to
Synonym: do in
Example:
"In the Netherlands two years ago, schemes to introduce toll booths around Amsterdam ... were eventually scuppered by a campaign led by the leading Dutch drivers' organisation." ("Prospect", March 2003)
Etymology:
All efforts to figure out where this verb came from have been defeated, including attempts to connect it to the noun "scupper", a 500-year-old word for a drain opening in the side of a ship. (The main conjecture, largely unfounded, is that a ship is "scuppered" when its scuppers are submerged ... in other words, when it is sinking or "done in".) All we know for sure is that "scupper" meant "to ambush and massacre" in 19th century military slang. Then, just before the century turned, it found its place in a magazine story in the sense of simply "doing (someone) in." The more common modern application to things rather than people being done in or defeated didn't appear until a couple of decades into the 20th century.


scuttlebutt

• office water cooler
• office
• water cooler
• water
• cooler

[SKUHT-l-buht] 1. A drinking fountain on a ship. 2. A cask on a ship that contains the day's supply of drinking water. 3. Gossip; rumor.
Examples:
1) What were they talking about? Sports? Neighborhood scuttlebutt? Off-color jokes? I didn't know; I knew only how exciting it was to see Dad in action. (Eric Liu, "The Accidental Asian")
2) It was written in the optimistic belief that open debate beats backroom scuttlebutt. (Jon Entine, "Taboo")
3) In snooping around, my mother overheard the pageant scuttlebutt, which was that Snow White was the big winner. (Delta Burke with Alexis Lipsitz, "Delta Style")
Etymology, synonym:
"Scuttlebutt" comes from "scuttle" ("a small opening") + "butt" ("a large cask") - that is, a small hole cut into a cask or barrel to allow individual cups of water to be drawn out. The modern equivalent is the office water cooler, also a source of refreshment and gossip.


seagull manager

• seagull
• manager

A manager who only interacts with employees to criticize their work or when a problem arises; a manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
Examples:
1) However, it was our native US marketing wheel who told me about "seagull managers" - externally recruited senior execs who drift into a firm for a short while, disrupt everything and then get headhunted off somewhere else, clutching their meretricious resumes and well-thumbed copies of The Minute Manager. (Michael Madison, "The Sharp End," Marketing, May 26, 1988)
2) The president is acting like a seagull, swooping in, making a lot of noise and flying out. When operating in this mode, executives focus on finding people to criticize but never balance their efforts with finding an equal number of employees to praise.
Counteract this tendency by spending time trying to catch employees in the act of doing something right, and praise them accordingly. This will improve morale for all your workers. If you focus only on being a seagull manager, your employees will cringe at the sight of you, will do only the minimum effort to get by and will tell all their friends to avoid your business. (Scott Clark, "The Miracle of Morale-Building," Arizona Business Gazette)



seasonal affective disorder

• seasonal affective
• disorder
• seasonal
• affective disorder
• affective
• SAD
• Winter Depression
• Winter
• Depression
• hibernation reaction
• hibernation
• reaction
• winter blues
• blues
• winter blue
• blue

[SEE-zun-ul-a-FEK-tiv-dis-OR-der]
Depression that tends to recur as the days grow shorter during the fall and winter.
Example:
Call it seasonal affective disorder,
Call it the winter blues -
But what ever you call it,
Don't let it get the better of you.
History, synonyms:
"Seasonal affective disorder" hasn't been recognized as a medical condition for very long, and the term has only become part of the general English vocabulary during the past two decades or so (its earliest documented appearance in print dates from 1983). "Seasonal affective disorder" (abbreviated SAD) is also sometimes called "Winter Depression," and some researchers describe it as a "hibernation reaction" in which sensitive individuals react to the decreasing amounts of light and the colder temperatures of fall and winter. The term "seasonal affective disorder" is sometimes used casually of the mild blahs that so many of us experience when the days grow short, but true SAD actually goes beyond the poetic "winter blues" - it is a diagnosable form of depression that can be quite debilitating.


secondary mandate

• secondary
• mandate

A system for indirectly electing the UK parliament's second chamber; an indirect election.
Example:
Since beginning his crusade for reform of the House of Lords, Bragg was invited to present his ideas to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, to promote the idea of replacing the House of Lords with a second chamber elected using his Secondary Mandate system and to drive up the numbers of people voting in an attempt to combat voter apathy.
History:
The Labour Party conference voted for further reform of the British House of Lords. It is likely that it would be by an indirect election - for which this is the jargon term - in which most of its members would be drawn from party lists in proportion to the way people voted at a general election. The scheme has been advocated by the singer Billy Bragg and has gained support among MPs as a way to break a long-standing impasse about reform in which the government's favoured plan has been to appoint all the members of the upper house.


seder

• haroset
• charoset
• matzo
• maror

[SAY-der]
A Jewish home or community service including a ceremonial dinner held on the first or first and second evenings of the Passover in commemoration of the exodus from Egypt.
Example:
Ari enjoys the stories, songs, and ceremonies that accompany dinner on the night of the seder.
History:
Order and ritual are very important in the seder, so important that they are even reflected in its name; the English word "seder" comes from a Hebrew word that means "order." The order of courses in the meal, as well as prayers, stories, and songs, are recorded in the Haggadah, a book that retells the story of the Exodus and relates the events of the seder to it. Each food consumed as part of the seder recalls an aspect of the Exodus. For instance, matzo (unleavened bread) represents the haste with which the Jews fled Egypt; maror (a mix of bitter herbs) recalls the bitterness of life as a slave; and a mixture of fruits and nuts called charoset (or haroset) symbolizes the clay or mortar the Israelites worked with as slaves.


sedition
[sih-DISH-un]
Conduct or language inciting resistance to or rebellion against lawful authority.
Examples:
1) [M]ost of us now accept as common sense what was once prosecuted as sedition, namely Tom Paine's proposition that "the idea of hereditary legislators is as absurd as a hereditary mathematician - as absurd as a hereditary poet laureate". (Geoffrey Robertson, "Dumping our Queen," The Guardian, November 6, 1999)
2) At several points in his long career, Jinnah was threatened by the British with imprisonment on sedition charges for speaking in favour of Indian home rule or rights. (Akbar S. Ahmed, "Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity")
3) Outspoken critics of the policy have until now faced the possibility of having a charge of sedition brought against them. (David Cohen, "Malaysian universities rejecting Chinese students," The Guardian, May 3, 2001)
Etymology:
"Sedition" comes from Latin "seditio", "sedition-" ("a going apart," hence "revolt, insurrection"), from "se-" ("apart") + "itio, ition-" ("act of going"), from "ire" ("to go").


sedulous
[SEJ-uh-luss]
1. Involving, characterized by or accomplished with careful perseverance.
2. Diligent in application or pursuit; steadily industrious.
Example:
1) Daphne was a sedulous student whose hard work and determination earned her a number of college scholarships.
2) He did not attain this distinction by accident but by sedulous study from the cradle forward. (Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, "Al Gore: A User's Manual")
3) This writing is clearly the product of sedulous art, but it has the flame of spontaneity and the grit of independence both as to mode and spirit. ("The Wonder and Wackiness of Man", New York Times, January 17, 1954)
4) And so he reminded the legion that, even though his veneration of his country's flag may not have inhibited sedulous avoidance of the inconveniences of serving under it, he is a patriot so wholehearted that he signed the Arkansas law that forbids flag-burning. (Murray Kempton, "Signs of Defeat In the Wind", Newsday, August 30, 1992)
History, related words, more examples:
No fooling - the word "sedulous" ultimately comes from the Latin "se dolus," which literally means "without guile." Those two words were eventually melded into one, "sedulo," meaning "sincerely" or "diligently," and from that root developed the Latin "sedulus" and the English "sedulous." Don't let the "sed-" beginning mislead you; "sedulous" is not related to words such as "sedentary" or "sedate" (which derive from the Latin verb "sedere," meaning "to sit"). "Sedulous" types are not the sedate or sedentary sort. They're the hardworking types Scottish author Samuel Smiles must have had in mind when he wrote in his 1859 book "Self-Help": "Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always mark the true worker."

see better heads in a piss trough

• better heads in a piss trough
• see
• better heads
• piss trough
• better head
• piss
• trough
• better
• head
• heads

ugly

see better heads on a glass of beer

• better heads on a glass of beer
• see
• better heads
• glass of beer
• better head
• glass
• beer
• heads
• head

Expression deriding another's looks.
Example: I've seen better heads on a glass of beer; and all you've told us is enough to make a cat laugh.

see eye to eye

• on the same wavelength
• on the same wave length
• see
• eye to eye
• same
• wavelength
• wave length
• eye
• wave
• length

In agreement; to have the same opinion on something.
Examples:
1) We see eye to eye on all the vital issues. 2) Sabah and I have a good working relationship. We see eye to eye most of the time.
Etymology: We use our eyes to understand the world, and so when you see eye to eye with someone else, you are seeing the same thing and reaching a shared understanding. Synonym: on the same wavelength


see into smth.

• see into
• see

1. To investigate smth.; 2. to foresee; to see smth. Invisible
Examples:
1) When are you going to see into the customers' complaints?
2) The old woman claims to be able to see into the future.

see smb. off

• see off
• see

1. To accompany to the place of departure.
Example: I went to the airport to see her off.
2. To persuade smb. to leave against his will.
Example: It is very unpleasant, but his way of behaviour makes me see him off.

see smb. out

• see out
• see

To accompany smb. outside / to the door.
Example: I went to the front door to see out our gests to their car.

see ya

• See you later
• later
• see
• ya

A way of saying "good-bye."
Example:
Matt yelled "See ya!" as he left the house.
Etymology:
"See ya" is an informal way to say "See you later". Synonym: later


seersucker
A lightweight fabric with a crimped or puckered surface (usually striped).
Examples:
1) Seersucker was the fashionable fabric for the coming summer, despite clothes made from it looking as though they had been badly ironed or that the wearer had slept in them. (The way to give the fabric that crinkled look is to weave together fibres that shrink differently.)
2) Nick Foulkes wrote in the "Sunday Telegraph" that British wearers intend the seersucker suit to convey "a dashing transatlantic look that is a little bit George Plimpton and a touch F. Scott Fitzgerald".
3) The seersucker suit evokes a world-weary foreign correspondent in some tropical clime, suffering from heat and excess alcohol.
History:
Originally, in the 18th century, seersucker was striped Indian cotton, the stripes being the identifying feature. You can tell that from the original name, the Persian "shir o shakar", literally "milk and sugar", in reference to what we would now call its candy stripes.


segue
[SEG-way; SAYG-way]
1. (intransitive verb) To proceed without interruption; to make a smooth transition.
2. (noun) An instance or act of segueing; a smooth transition.
Examples:
1) The gratifying thing about McCourt is that he can drop his professional character act and segue into a smart, emotionally direct conversation faster than you can say "Top o' the morning." ("Malachy Mccourt: How a Rogue Becomes a Saint," New York Times, July 29, 1998)
2) A melody will start innocuously enough, then segue into the inevitable buildup, with swelling strings and bursting brass. ("Woe to Shows That Put On Operatic Airs," New York Times, July 20, 1997)
3) Addie later recalled her host's charming segue to topics more pleasant. (Gary Kinder, "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea")
Etymology:
"Segue" is from the Italian, meaning "there follows," from "seguire" ("to follow"), from Latin "sequi".


sell like hotcakes

• selling like hotcakes
• selling like hot cakes
• sell like hot cakes
• selling
• sell
• like
• hotcakes
• hotcake
• hot cakes
• hot
• cake
• hot
• cake

To sell very quickly; a characteristic of a popular product.
Examples:
1) His new book, "How to Make Millions in the Slang Business," is selling like hotcakes! 2) The new Pokemon game sold like hotcakes.
Etymology: A 'hotcake' is a pancake - flour and egg and milk cooked in hot pan. It's not clear why 'hotcakes' are used as a model of popularity and high demand. It's probably because hotcakes taste best when they are fresh and hot, so when someone is cooking 'hotcakes' you have to run to get them as they're coming off the stove.

sempiternal

• enduring
• eternal
• everlasting
• perpetual

[sem-pih-TUR-nuhl]
Of never ending duration; having beginning but no end; everlasting; endless.
Synonyms: enduring, eternal, everlasting, perpetual.
Examples:
1) In all the works on view, Mariani conjures a sempiternal realm that exists parallel to mundane reality and which is accessible through art, reverie and the imagination. (Gerard Mccarthy, "Carlo Maria Mariani at Hackett-Freedman," Art in America, September 1999)
2) This is a sempiternal truth for institutions of high prestige. Someone will pay (almost) anything for Ivy-ish credentials. (Dennis O'Brien, "A 'Necessary' of Modern Life?" Commonweal, March 28, 1997)
3) Finally, Syon's orchards are the world as our imagination would like it to be - not wilderness, since orchards are after all planted and cultivated by farmers, but a sempiternal and ideal region of the mind. (Thomas L. Jeffers, "That which sustains us," Commentary, June 2002)
4) The owner of the lost exotic bird made it clear that whoever found his pet would receive a handsome cash reward as well as his sempiternal gratitude.
Etymology, related words, more examples:
Despite their similarities, "sempiternal" and "eternal" come from different roots. "Sempiternal" comes from Medieval Latin "sempiternalis", from Latin "sempiternus", a contraction of "semperaeternus", from "semper" ("always") + "aeternus" ("eternal"). (You may recognize "semper" as a key element in the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps: "semper fidelis," meaning "always faithful.") "Eternal," on the other hand, is derived by way of Middle French and Middle English from the Late Latin "aeternalis" and ultimately from "aevum," Latin for "age" or "eternity." "Sempiternal" is much less common than "eternal," but some writers have found it useful. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, wrote, "The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves...to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why...."

senescence

• aging
• senescent
• senate
• Senatus
• senectitude

[sih-NEH-suhn(t)s]
1. The state of being old; the process of growing old.
Synonym: aging
2. The growth phase in a plant or plant part (as a leaf) from full maturity to death.
Examples:
1) Our own bodies are simultaneously and subtly undergoing the same inexorable process that will lead eventually to senescence and death. (Sherwin B. Nuland, "How We Die")
2) Is there a middle ground between an obsession with aging and an intelligent commitment to a healthier lifestyle? How much time, money, energy, and angst should we devote to the fight against senescence? (Tony Schwartz, "In My Humble Opinion," Fast Company, November 1999)
3) Trying to understand the factors that determine maximum possible lifespan is one of the most puzzling aspects of the overall study of senescence and death. (William R. Clark, "A Means to an End")
4) Refusing to be overcome by senescence, his mother continued to play tennis every Tuesday well into her seventies.
Etymology, related words:
"Senescence" ultimately derives (via the verb "senescere," meaning "to grow old") from the Latin "senex," meaning "old." It is related to "senile", as well as to "senior" and even to "senate." This word for a legislative assembly dates back to ancient Rome, where the "Senatus" was originally a council of elders composed of the heads of patrician families. There's also the much rarer "senectitude," which, like "senescence," refers to the state of being old (specifically, to the final stage of the normal life span). The adjective form is "senescent".

seneschal
[SEN-uh-shul]
An agent or steward in charge of a lord's estate in feudal times.
Example:
The king's seneschal grew nervous awaiting his master's return, even though he knew he had prepared the palace to perfection.
History:
In the days of knights and fair damsels, the seneschal was the principal administrator in a noble household. French nobility held the office in high regard in medieval times, and it was from the French that English speakers borrowed the term (although it is of Germanic origin) in the 14th century. For a time, "seneschal" was also used to refer to a governor or judicial officer, but that sense is now rare except in places such as the island of Sark in the English Channel, where the title is still used. Elsewhere, the importance of seneschals at court gradually declined, and now both the office and most references to the office are limited to historical contexts.


sentient
[SEN-shee-uhnt; -tee-; -shuhnt]
1. Capable of perceiving by the senses; conscious.
2. Experiencing sensation or feeling.
Examples:
1) I can remember very vividly the first time I became aware of my existence; how for the first time I realised that I was a sentient human being in a perceptible world. (Lord Berners, "First Childhood")
2) Answers to such profound questions as whether we are the only sentient beings in the universe, whether life is the product of random accident or deeply rooted law, and whether there may be some sort of ultimate meaning to our existence, hinge on what science can reveal about the formation of life. (Paul Davies, "The Fifth Miracle")
Etymology:
"Sentient" comes from Latin "sentiens" ("feeling"), from "sentire" ("to discern or perceive by the senses").


sequacious

• sequacity

[sih-KWAY-shus]
Intellectually servile.
Example:
Ronald was disappointed that his students presented only sequacious arguments in their term papers and that few offered any original ideas.
History, related words:
"Sequacious" is formed from the Latin "sequac-," or "sequax," (which means "inclined to follow" and comes from "sequi," "to follow") and the English "-ious." The original and now archaic meaning of "sequacious" was "inclined to follow" or "subservient, tractable." Although that meaning might as easily describe someone who willingly dropped into line behind a war leader, or who was unusually compliant or obedient in any sense, the concept gradually narrowed into the image of someone who blindly adopts another's ideas without much thought. Labeling a person "sequacious" is not very complimentary, and implies a slavish willingness to adopt a thought or opinion. It is also possible to accuse someone of "sequacity," but that would be equally unkind.


sequester
[sih-KWESS-ter]
1. to set apart
Example:
Counsel for the defendant moved to sequester the jury for the remainder of the trial so they would not be influenced by the media.
Synonym: segregate
2. to seize by authority of a writ
Etymology:
"Sequester" first appeared in English in the 14th century. The word derives from the Latin "sequestrare" ("to hand over to a trustee") and ultimately from "secus" ("beside", "otherwise"), which is akin to the Latin "sequi" ("to follow"). In this relationship we can trace links to words such as "sequel", "sequence", "consequence", and "subsequent", all of which convey a meaning of one thing following another. These days, we most frequently hear "sequester" used in legal contexts, as juries are sometimes sequestered for the safety of their members or to prevent the influence of outside sources on a verdict. In a different sense, it is possible to sequester property in certain legal situations.


sere

• sear

[SEER]
Also: sear
Dry; withered.
Examples:
1) ... A country that has been transformed from a place of lush abundance to a sere, mutilated, inhospitable land. (Zofia Smardz, "A Nice Place for Extinction," New York Times, June 15, 1997)
2) Recent rains have done little to relieve the sere conditions. (Thomas Omestad, "The struggle over water," U.S. News and World Report, April 10, 2000)
3) Mr. Campbell, a biologist, spent three seasons in the Antarctic and returned with eerily clear perceptions of that sere and uninhabitable place. ("Review of The Crystal Desert", by David G. Campbell, "New York Times", December 5, 1993)
4) There was a lavatory at the end of the garden beyond a scraggy clump of Michaelmas daisies that never looked well in themselves, always sere, never blooming, the perennial ghosts of themselves, as if ill-nourished by an exhausted soil. (Angela Carter, "Shaking a Leg")
Etymology:
"Sere" comes from Old English "sear" - "dry."


serendipity
[seh-run-DIP-uh-tee]
The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also: an instance of this.
Example:
The fact that the roadside restaurant we selected happened to be the best deal in town was the result of serendipity rather than careful planning.
History:
In the mid-1700s, English author Horace Walpole stumbled upon an interesting tidbit of information while researching a coat of arms. In a letter to his friend Horace Mann he wrote: "This discovery indeed is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of...." Walpole's memory of the tale (which, as it turns out, was not quite accurate) gave "serendipity" the meaning it retains to this day.


seriatim

• verbatim
• literatim

[sir-ee-AY-tim; -AT-im]
In a series; one after another.
Examples:
1) Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs thanked every lady and gentleman, seriatim, for the favour of their company. (Charles Dickens, "Nicholas Nickelby")
2) Two days from the opening of the impeachment debate, gangs of television crews moved through mostly deserted corridors, doling out their 15 minutes of fame seriatim as individual lawmakers stepped up to batteries of microphones. ("New York Times", December 16, 1998)
3) In his company one found oneself supposing, on hearing Walters handle German and Spanish, French and Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian, that his mind traveled from any one language to any other seriatim, because his mind worked that way, taking it all in. (William F. Buckley Jr., "Dick Walters, R.I.P.," National Review, February 15, 2002)
Etymology, related words:
"Seriatim" derives from the Latin "series", meaning "row, chain," and is formed on the same model as "verbatim" ("word for word") and "literatim" ("letter for letter").


sesquipedalian

• sesquicentennial

[ses-kwuh-puh-DAIL-yun]
1. Long and ponderous; having many syllables.
2. Given to or characterized by the use of long words.
3. A long word.
Examples:
1) As a sesquipedalian stylist, he can throw a word like 'eponymous" into a sentence without missing a beat. (Campbell, Patty, "The sand in the oyster," The Horn Book Magazine, May 15, 1996)
2) Plus he has a weakness for what we can mischievously call sesquipedalian excess: Look out for such terms as "epiphenomenal," "diegetic" and "proprioceptive." (Jabari Asim, "Reel Pioneer," Washington Post, November 19, 2000)
3) They walk and speak with disdain for common folk, and never miss a chance to belittle the crowd in sesquipedalian put-downs or to declare that their raucous and uncouth behavior calls for nothing less than a letter to the Times, to inform proper Englishmen of the deplorable state of manners in the Colonies. (William C. Martin, "Friday Night in the Coliseum," The Atlantic, March 1972)
4) ...Her eccentric family's addiction to sesquipedalians (that big word for "big words"), and her furtive passion for flossy mail-order-catalog prose. (David Browne, "Books/The Week," Entertainment Weekly, October 23, 1998)
5) While the writer's sesquipedalian style can be irksome at times, his novels usually have interesting plots and good character development.
Etymology:
"Sesquipedalian" comes from Latin "sesquipedalis" ("a foot and a half long", hence "inordinately long"), from "sesqui" ("one half more, half as much again") + "pes, ped-" ("a foot").
Horace, the Roman poet known for his satire, was merely being gently ironic when he cautioned young poets against using "sesquipedalia verba" - "words a foot and a half long" - in his book "Ars poetica", a collection of maxims about writing. But in the 17th century, English literary critics decided the word "sesquipedalian" could be very useful for lambasting writers using unnecessarily long words. Robert Southey used it to make two jibes at once when he wrote "the verses of [16th- century English poet] Stephen Hawes are as full of barbarous sesquipedalian Latinisms, as the prose of [the 18th-century periodical] the 'Rambler' ". The Latin prefix "sesqui-" is used in modern English to mean "one and a half times," as in "sesquicentennial" (a 150th anniversary).

set-jetter

• set
• jetter
• set-jetting
• jetting
• jet-set
• jet
• metathesis
• metatheses
• spoonerism

A person who visits a particular place because it was featured in a book or film that they enjoyed.
Examples:
1) Tourist locations are seeing up to a 30 per cent surge in bookings from 'set-jetters', who like to visit places depicted in films, it was revealed yesterday. ("The Scotsman", 9th August 2005) 2) & I am not part of the phenomenon that is 'set-jetting'. This involves holidaying in places purely because they have prominently featured in a book or film. ("The Herald", 10th August 2005) 3) If you're finding it hard to decide where you'd like to go on holiday this year, why not take inspiration from your favourite film or book? You too could join the ranks of the set-jetters! The set-jetter is a recently identified breed of tourist who holidays in a particular location specifically because it's the setting for a book or film that they're crazy about.
History: Recent research by "Halifax Travel Insurance" <http://www.estateangels.co.uk/propertynews/2005-08-10/set_jetters_phenomenon_growing> revealed that in the UK more than 25% of holidaymakers claim to have chosen a particular destination because they have read about it in a book or seen it in a film or TV show. Though this is by no means a new concept, the recent overwhelming increase in popularity of particular locations, including those not traditionally thought of as tourist destinations, has led marketing analysts to coin the terms set-jetting for this new trend and set-jetter for participants. Tourist industries across the world have been boosted by set-jetting, one of the biggest beneficiaries being New Zealand after the immense success of the film version of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Over in the UK, the tourist industry in Yorkshire has been substantially boosted by the "Harry Potter" films and the 2003 film "Calendar Girls". A recent novel which has provided inspiration for UK tourists is Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code", which caused numbers visiting Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland to soar to 68,000 in 2004 compared to 9,500 a decade earlier.
The phenomenon of a film location being the motivation for a particular holiday destination was first recognised in the fifties, when the film "Roman Holiday" (1953), starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, inspired a generation of Americans to head to the Italian capital. The recent coining of the terms set-jetting and set-jetter in recognition of this now fast-growing holiday trend is of course a play on the words "jet-setting" and "jet-setter". These are derivatives of the noun "jet-set", first attested in 1951 as a reference to wealthy and fashionable people who travelled widely for pleasure. Formation of "set-jetting" and "set-jetter" from "jet-set" and its derivatives hinges on what linguists would technically refer to as metathesis (pl. "metatheses"), the transposition of sounds or syllables within a word or between words. Relative to the word "jet-setter", "set-jetter" could in fact be described as a 21st century example of a spoonerism, a transposition of the initial sounds of two words. Spoonerisms are named after the 19th century Revd W. Spooner, who reputedly regularly made errors such as "You've hissed the mystery lesson" (= "You've missed the history lesson") when talking. Strictly-speaking however, spoonerisms are accidental, unlike the deliberate transposition of sounds in "set-jetter".


seventeen-year itch

• Brood X
• seventeen-year
• seventeen
• year
• itch
• Brood

Every once-in-a-great while across this grand American landscape, a city with roots so deep in passion and creativity breaks out of its shell and becomes abuzz with overwhelming inspiration. Such is the surreal scenario of America's Renaissance City, Cincinnati USA - dateline 2004 - when 5 billion cicadas, officially titled Brood X, emerge in spring to croon and swoon in the leafy and lush neighborhoods of the picturesque Ohio River Valley. Every 17 years, these rather overly romantic cicadas swarm Cincinnati and entertain its 2 million residents morning, noon and night, with wave after wave of unrelenting mating calls - conspicuously sung solely by the males.
Examples:
1) Newspapers in the USA and elsewhere reported this week on the emergence in the eastern US of "Brood X", vast numbers of a species of periodical cicada that only appears every 17 years.
2) "The Cicada CD;" The 17 Year Itch: Mating Songs of Cincinnati USA will be available around May 11, 2004.
History:
Why "Brood X", though? The name is due to Charles L. Marlatt, a nineteenth-century employee of the US Department of Agriculture. In 1887, he mapped thirty distinct groups (he called them broods) of the two sorts of cicadas and designated them by Roman numerals according to the year they were to emerge, the 17-year sort having numbers 1-17 (I-XVII), the 13-year ones 18-30 (XVIII-XXX). So, "Brood X" was reported in 1987 and before that in 1970.


shambles
[SHAM-bulz]
1. A place of mass slaughter or bloodshed.
2. A scene or state of great destruction; wreckage.
3. A scene or state of great disorder or confusion; mess.
Example:
The tornado ripped through the picnic ground, leaving the place a shambles - strewn with fallen trees, splintered tables, and other debris.
Etymology:
How does a word meaning "footstool" turn into a word meaning "mess"? Start with the Latin "scamillum," meaning "little bench." Modify the spelling and you get the Old English "sceamol," meaning "a footstool" or "a table used for counting money or exhibiting goods." Alter again to the Middle English "shamele," and the meaning can easily become more specific: "a table for the exhibition of meat for sale." Pluralize and you have the base of the 15th-century term "shambles," meaning "meat market." A century takes "shambles" from "meat market" to "slaughterhouse," then to figurative use referring to a place of terrible slaughter or bloodshed (say, a battlefield). The scene of a slaughter can get messy, so it's logical for the word to pick up the modern sense "mess" or "state of great confusion." Transition accomplished.


shibboleth
[SHIB-uh-lith; -leth]
1. A word or pronunciation that distinguishes a particular class or set of persons from another.
2. A word or saying identified with a group or cause; a slogan; a catchword.
3. A saying or belief identified with a particular group and usually regarded by outsiders as meaningless or untrue.
4. A custom, practice, behavior, etc. regarded as distinctive of a particular group.
Examples:
1) In the late '60s, however, the loud, open use of the "F" word became a true shibboleth, dividing the student radicals from the Establishment "pigs" they delighted in tweaking. (Elizabeth Austin, "A small plea to delete a ubiquitous expletive: can't we all get along without the 'f' word?", US News & World Report, April 6, 1998)
2) Newspapers accused the West of trying to foment anti-Russian feelings and revive the cold war, substituting the old "Soviet threat" with the new shibboleth "Russian mafia." (Michael Satchell, "Kremlin gilt - or is it guilt?", US News & World Report, September 20, 1999)
3) Most cases, she says, involve the charges of secular humanism - a "shibboleth invented by far-right organizations and others who object to textbooks, library books and curriculum materials that do not promote their particular brand of religion." (Thomas S. Elliott, "Fight heats up over censoring schoolbooks," US News & World Report, February 20, 1984)
4) Class size is another shibboleth: First, small class sizes do not increase learning, and, second, class sizes have become quite small anyway. (Jay Nordlinger, "The Anti-Excusers," National Review, October 27, 2003)
5) This could not be stated, because the doctrines in the name of which the revolution was carried out - and which, ironically enough, the revolution did so much to expose and discredit - were too strongly ingrained as official radical shibboleths to which lip-service was still paid. (Isaiah Berlin, "The Sense of Reality")
6) Christmas church attendance will be the last shibboleth of Christian devotion in Europe to fall: it has a wealth of sentiment, mid-winter cheer and good tunes to keep pulling the crowds. (Madeleine Bunting, "Paralysed by panic," Guardian, December 20, 2004)
Etymology:
"Shibboleth" is from Hebrew "shibboleth" ("stream, flood"), from the use of this word in the Bible (Judges 12:4-6) as a test to distinguish Gileadites from Ephraimites, who could not say 'sh' but only 's' as in 'sibboleth'.


shilly-shally
[SHIL-ee-shal-ee]
In an irresolute, undecided, or hesitating manner.
Example:
"Don't stand shilly-shally like a fool, Ned. Just make up your mind and marry the woman," advised Gretchen.
History:
Shall I? Shall I? When you just don't know what to do, it may feel as if asking that question twice will somehow help you decide. The early 1600s saw the use of the phrase "stand shall I, shall I" to describe vacillation or indecision. By 1700, the phrase had been altered to "shill I, shall I", most likely because people just liked the vowel alteration (that's the same process that gave us "dillydally" and "wishy-washy"). Soon after, the form "shilly-shally" made the jump from slang to literature, and by the late 1700s it was being used not only as an adverb, but also as an adjective, a noun, and a verb.


shindig

• shin-dig
• shindy
• shin
• dig
• knees-up
• knees
• knee-up
• knee
• kick up a shindy
• kick up
• kick

a noisy or merry dance or party, often one that is celebrating something
Synonym:
(informal British English) knees-up (from the music-hall song "Knees Up", Mother Brown)
Etymology, history, examples:
"Shindig" appears for the first time in American writing of the 1870s and the oldest example I can lay my mouse on is in the Idaho Statesman of 30 October 1871. "Shindig" is a modification of the older "shindy", which could equally be a noisy party or gathering, but in its first examples instead referred to a commotion, ruckus or brawl, as in "to kick up a shindy". In that form it dates from the 1820s; an example from later in the century is in Jerome K. Jerome's "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow", published in 1886: "I always do sit with my hands in my pockets except when I am in the company of my sisters, my cousins, or my aunts; and they kick up such a shindy - I should say expostulate so eloquently upon the subject - that I have to give in and take them out - my hands I mean." This idea was often taken over into "shindig", as you can tell from Stephen Crane's "Active Service" of 1899: "You have noted that there are signs of a few bruises and scratches? ... Well, they are from the fight. It seems the people took us for Germans, and there was an awful palaver, which ended in a proper and handsome shindig." You can see how the idea of a ruckus could have become modified into that of a noisy party. It's less obvious how "shindy" turned into "shindig". An entry in Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms gives the clue, because it says that "shin-dig" was used literally in the Southern states to mean a kick to the shins. You can see how popular etymology could have added that to the sense of a brawl and created "shindig" from "shindy". That leaves us only to explain the origin of "shindy". Here we get on to shaky ground. It is possible that it's from the Scots game of "shinty" or "shinney", a bit like hockey and likewise played with a bent stick, a cousin of Irish hurling that some say is also the origin of ice hockey. If that's so, "shindy" may be from the Gaelic "sinteag", a bound or leap, or possibly from one of the rude cries uttered in the game, such as "shin ye", "shin you", "shin t'ye". By all accounts it was a rough game, often with 100 or more men on each side and no holds barred in the quest for supremacy. The "Penny Magazine" of 31 January 1835 described it with muted horror: "Large parties assemble during Christmas holidays, one parish sometimes making a match against another. In the struggles between the contending players many hard blows are given, and more frequently a shin is broken, or by rarer chance some more serious accident may occur." It's not hard to imagine the name being borrowed in North America for a commotion.


shiny-floor

• shiny
• floor

A type of glossy, studio-based, popular television show.
Example
History, example:
This term appeared in "Broadcast" magazine (August, 2004) in reference to the new ITV autumn schedules. A comment in an article about Graham Norton on the BBC Web site gives a context: "He insists he has many ambitions but one of the biggest is to have a mainstream game show. 'I do love game shows and I would love to do a big, shiny-floor punter-led show.'"


shipshape

• ship-shape
• ship
• shape

In perfect order.
Example:
"I'm not going to let you kids leave this room until it's shipshape," Mr. Walters said. The art classroom was littered with sheets of colored paper, small pots of paint, pans of water, and paintbrushes.
"But, Mr. Walters," Al said, "how can we make a room shipshape if we're not on a boat?" "Very funny, Al. Now get to work and clean up this mess!"

shoe bomber

• shoe
• bomber
• suicide bomber
• suicide bombing
• suicide
• bombing
• shoecide bomber
• shoe-icide bomber
• shuicide bomber
• shoecide
• shoe-icide
• shuicide

A person who has explosives hidden in his shoes for the sake of suicide bombing; a suicide bomber with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Example:
Was Richard Reid "Shoe Bomber No. 2"? Some experts believe Flight 587 downed by Shoe Bomber No. 1.
History:
Richard Colvin Reid (born August 12, 1973), also known as the shoe bomber, is a British citizen from South London and a Muslim allegedly working for Al Qaeda who was arrested on December 22, 2001 for attempting to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes. The FBI identified him as Tariq Raja, born in Sri Lanka. He also had the alias Abdel Rahim.
Synonyms:
shoecide bomber, shoe-icide bomber, shuicide bomber


shoeicide bomber

• shoe-icide bomber
• shuicide bomber
• shoeicide
• bomber
• shoe-icide
• shuicide
• suicide bomber
• suicide bombing
• shoe bomber
• suicide
• bombing
• shoe

Also: shoe-icide bomber, shuicide bomber.
A suicide bomber that hides explosives in his shoes (see: suicide bomber, suicide bombing)
Example:
This adventurous reporter had come to Pakistan to investigate a link involving the shoeicide bomber Richard Reid and local terrorist groups.
Synonym:
shoe bomber

shofar
[SHOH-far]
a ram's-horn trumpet blown by the ancient Hebrews in battle and during religious observances and used in modern Judaism especially during Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur
Example:
The first blast of the shofar echoed within the sanctuary, announcing the beginning of the High Holy Days.
History:
1833, from Heb. "shophar" - "ram's horn," related to Arabic "sawafiru" - "ram's horns," Akkad. "shapparu" - "wild goat."
One of the shofar's original uses was to proclaim the Jubilee year (a year of emancipation of Hebrew slaves and restoration of alienated lands to their former owners) or the anointing of a new king. Today, it is mainly used in synagogues during the High Holy Days. It is blown during the month of Elul (the 12th month of the civil year or the 6th month of the ecclesiastical year in the Jewish calendar) until the end of Rosh Hashanah and again at the end of the last service on Yom Kippur as reminders to attend to spiritual matters. The custom is to sound the shofar in broken notes resembling sobbing and wailing followed by a long unbroken sound.


shoot-to-kill

• shoot
• kill

aiming to kill, not wound, somebody
Example:
One of the team, Paul, an American lawyer, is shot dead in an RUC undercover shoot-to-kill operation.


short shrift

• short
• shrift
• give short shrift
• make a short shrift
• Shrive
• schrive

1. Summary, careless treatment; scant attention.
Example:
These annoying memos will get short shrift from the boss.
2. Quick work.
3a. A short respite, as from death; b. The brief time before execution granted a condemned prisoner for confession and absolution.
Etymology:
Do you know the scene in Shakespeare's "Richard III" of 1594 in which Lord Hastings is condemned by Richard to be taken out at once and beheaded? Richard Ratcliffe says to Hastings, "Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head". That's the first known use of the phrase in English.
What's odd about it is that it then doesn't appear again until Sir Walter Scott's poetic romance, "The Lord of the Isles" in 1815: "Short were his shrift in that debate". After that, it quickly becomes a standard idiom in the language with the sense first of a brief respite, then of giving a matter brief and unsympathetic attention, especially in the phrase "to give short shrift" to somebody or something. Scott likely extracted the phrase from Shakespeare's play - he loved using archaisms. He was so influential in the early nineteenth century that he was probably single-handedly responsible for making it popular. Shakespeare's meaning for "shrift" would have been immediately known to his audience. It's from the verb "shrive", the act of confessing to a priest followed by penance and absolution. So, when Ratcliffe was telling Hastings "to make a short shrift" he was telling him to be quick about his confession because Richard wanted him dead as soon as possible. "Shrive" is itself a strange word, since its source is the Latin "scriptum", letters or writing, from which we get words such as "script". The modern German verb "schreiben", to write, comes from the same source, as do similar terms in other European languages. For some reason we don't understand, the verb "schrive" took on a special sense in the Old English and Scandinavian languages of imposing a penalty, perhaps from the idea of making a written decree, and means 'what is written,' or, to use the Latin word, 'what is prescribed.' Theologians and confessors viewed the sacrament of penance as a prescription that cured a moral illness. In early medieval times penances were long and arduous-lengthy pilgrimages and even lifelong exile were not uncommon-and had to be performed before absolution, not after as today. However, less demanding penances could be given in extreme situations; short shrift was a brief penance given to a person condemned to death so that absolution could be granted before execution.



shrive

• short shrift
• short
• shrift

[SHRYVE]
1. To administer the sacrament of reconciliation to.
2. To free from guilt.
Example:
Only the knowledge that her son had forgiven her could shrive her of the guilt she felt for leaving him behind when she fled the country all those years ago.
History, related words and phrases:
The story of "shrive" began when the Latin verb "scribere" (meaning "to write") found its way onto the tongues of certain Germanic peoples, who brought it to Britain in the early Middle Ages. Because it was often used for laying down directions or rules in writing, 8th-century Old English speakers used their form of the term, "scrifan," to mean "to prescribe or impose." The Church adopted "scrifan" to refer to the act of assigning penance to sinners and, later, to hearing confession and administering absolution. Today, the noun form of "shrive," "shrift," makes up half of "short shrift," a phrase meaning "little or no consideration." Originally, "short shrift" was the barely adequate time for confession before an execution.

siagonology
the study of jawbones


sibyl

• Sibyl

(often capitalized)
1. any of several prophetesses usually accepted as 10 in number and credited to widely separate parts of the ancient world (as Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy)
2. a) prophetess; b) fortune-teller
Example:
Grandmother had a knack for foretelling the future, and her reputation as an extraordinarily gifted sibyl increased with each correct prediction.
Etymology:
The original "Sibyl" (her Greek name was "Sibylla") was an old woman who made predictions in an ecstatic frenzy; by the 5th century B.C. she was no more than a legendary figure in Greek mythology, but her prophecies, in Greek hexameters, were handed down in writing. She must have been good at prophesying, because her name came to be used as a title for the varied "sibyls" at oracle centers dispersed throughout the ancient world. Middle- English speakers eventually borrowed modified forms of "sibylla" ("sibile", "sybylle") to refer to those same ancient prophetesses. By the time we began to use the word to refer to prophetesses and female fortune-tellers in general, in the late 16th century, we had arrived at our modern spelling.


sight for sore eyes

• a sight for sore eyes
• be a sight for sore eyes
• be easy on the eyes
• easy on the eyes
• sight
• sore eyes
• sore
• eyes
• eye
• easy
• on the eyes

One whom it is a relief or joy to see; one whose appearance or arrival is an occasion for joy or relief; something pleasurable to behold, refreshing sight; something or someone you are happy to see.
Examples:
1) Is not our little bride a sight for sore eyes! (Philippa Wiat, "The child bride")
2) A visit to the Westonbirt Arboretum with its 13,000 trees and shrubs is always a sight for sore eyes. (Mike Stone and Roger Russell, "Warm welcomes in Britain")
Synonym:
easy on the eyes


silver bullet

• silver
• bullet
• No Silver Bullet
• magic bullet
• magic

1. Something that acts as a magical weapon; a magical solution to a problem; a simple guaranteed instant solution for a difficult problem.
Example:
There is no single silver bullet or panacea that will solve all the problems of Bay Area schools. ("San Francisco Chronicle", May 18, 1995)
2. An infallible means of attack or defense.
Example:
No silver bullet can make the world safe from terrorism.
3. The perfect drug to cure a disease with no danger of side effects.
History:
From the idea that silver possesses magical qualities, rendering the bullet effective against such enemies as werewolves in folklore and modern fiction ("vampire legends"). Werewolves were believed to have been given the power to change form by the Devil in return for acting as his servants. Nothing ordinary could kill one - only a silver bullet would do it. Later, the same idea was applied to anything supernatural. Some of the legends say that a hare, who was either a witch in disguise or the familiar of a witch, could only be killed in this way. Others refer to any man who had sold himself to the Devil, or sometimes to the Devil himself, who could be scared off by such means. Another legend says that a silver bullet would never miss its target. Obviously, these legends couldn't appear before guns were invented, but the first examples are actually rather late even so: the stories didn't become common until the early nineteenth century. The term was probably first used in this sense by the great German scientist Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) to describe the drug salvarsan that he created to treat and, hopefully, to cure syphilis. Neither salvarsan nor any other drug has proved to be a real silver bullet. Then, it may be that the "Lone Ranger show" (on radio from 1933 and later on television) had something to do with it, since he used silver bullets (and indeed had a horse called Silver) and typically arrived out of nowhere to perform miraculous feats.
NB.
"No Silver Bullet" is a classic paper of software engineering written by Fred Brooks in 1987. Brooks argues that there will be no more silver bullets, i.e., there will be no more technologies or practices that will create a 10-fold improvement in software engineering productivity over 10 years. The central argument has been interpreted to mean that there will be no more easy answers to software engineering problems.
Synonym: magic bullet.
Example:
"Dr Erlich's Magic Bullet", a film of 1940 (Edward G Robinson in the title role) about the work of German scientist Paul Ehrlich to find a cure for syphilis, was presumably responsible for the large rise in the number of examples of "magic bullet" that appeared in American newspapers that year.

simon-pure

• simon
• pure
• the real Simon Pure
• real Simon Pure

[sye-mun-PYUR]
1. Of untainted purity or integrity.
2. That which is genuine.
3. Pretentiously or hypocritically pure.
Example:
Alfred is a simon-pure Republican, rocked in his cradle to the stirring rhythms of G.O.P. speeches, grown to a man sure to vote the party line.
Etymology:
British dramatist and actress Susannah Centlivre (1669-1723) introduced the character of Simon Pure in her 1718 comedy "A Bold Stroke for a Wife". In that play, Colonel Fainall wants to marry Anne Lovely, but to do so he must win the consent of Anne's guardian, a Quaker gentleman named Obadiah Prim. Fainall tries to gain the needed approval by impersonating a Quaker preacher named Simon Pure. Unfortunately for the scheme, the real Simon Pure appears and proves himself to be the genuine article. People adopted the phrase "the real Simon Pure" (which in turn gave rise to the adjective "simon-pure") from the play to refer to things true or genuine.


simpatico
[sim-PAH-tih-koh]
1. Agreeable, likeable.
2. Being on the same wavelength; congenial, sympathetic.
Example:
As business partners, Jake and Mark haven't always been simpatico, but they complement each other's talents and compensate for each other's faults.
Etymology, more examples:
"Simpatico," which ultimately derives from the Latin noun "sympathia," meaning "sympathy," was borrowed into English from both Italian and Spanish. In those languages, the word has been chiefly used to describe people who are well-liked or easy to get along with; early uses of the word in English reflected this, as in Henry James's 1881 novel "The Portrait of a Lady", in which a character says of another's dying cousin, "Ah, he was so simpatico. I'm awfully sorry for you." In recent years, however, the word's meaning has shifted. Now we see it used to describe the relationship between people who get along well or work well together.


simulacrum

• counterfeit
• fake

[sim-yuh-LAK-rum]
1. An image, a representation.
2. An insubstantial form or semblance of something; a trace.
Examples:
1) After the numerous changes put in place by his editor, the final piece seemed to be a mere simulacrum of the essay Daniel had submitted.
2) Incorporating simulacra of historic buildings and exotic landscapes the Emperor saw on his extensive travels through his dominions, the villa is high-style multiculturalism. (Martin Filler, "New York Times", December 3, 1995)
3) It becomes harder... to distinguish the genuine from its simulacrum. (Wayne Curtis, "The Tiki Wars," The Atlantic, February 2001)
4) The Wilson who at last recovered some of his health was a pale simulacrum of the man he had been. (Louis Auchincloss, "Woodrow Wilson")
5) His radiator pipe and fire hose, for example, are like washed out ghosts of real things, waxen simulacra of themselves. (Harvey Blume, "Bits of Beauty," The Atlantic, June 3, 1999)
Etymology, related words, synonyms:
It's not a figment of your imagination; there is a similarity between "simulacrum" and "simulate". Both of those English words derive from "simulare", a Latin verb meaning "to imitate; to make like, to put on an appearance of", from "similis" ("like"). It is related to "simulate" and "similar". In its earliest English uses, "simulacrum" named something that provided an image or representation (as, for instance, a portrait, marble statue, or wax figure representing a person). Perhaps because a simulacrum, no matter how skillfully done, is not the real thing, the word gained an extended sense emphasizing the superficiality or insubstantiality of a thing. Today, the word is used as a synonym of "counterfeit" or "fake", but to be fair, a "simulacrum" is generally not intended to deceive or defraud; rather, the word implies that something completely lacks substance or reality.


sindonology

• sindonologist

A term referring to the studies of the Turin Shroud, which is a sacred relic of Christendom.
Example:
There is a vast international Turin shroud culture and industry. It has its own "-ology" - sindonology, the study of the shroud.
Etymology:
From Greek "sindon" - a shroud. The experts who study the shroud are called "sindonologists".


sine qua non

• sine
• qua
• non

[sin-ih-kwah-NON; -NOHN; sy-nih-kway-]
An essential condition or element; an indispensable thing.
Examples:
1) Women's enfranchisement was crucial to them - indeed, a sine qua non, since all other progress for which they worked, such as higher education and entrance into the professions, would be meaningless if women continued to be second-class citizens. (Lillian Faderman, "To Believe in Women")
2) "Of the various attributes we fiction-writers require," he said, "one of the most important is detachment. Of course tenacity of purpose is the sine qua non, otherwise we'd never keep on with it for the year or two years or longer that it takes to finish the work." (Barry Unsworth, "Sugar and Rum")
3) However we choose to define a classic, a sine qua non is that the material lend itself to reinterpretation in the light of changing circumstances. (Matthew Gurewitsch, "A Country of Lesser Giants," New York Times, April 4, 1999)
Etymology:
"Sine qua non" is from the Late Latin, literally "without which not."


sinecure
[SYE-nih-kyoor, SY-nih-kyur; SIN-ih-]
An office or position that requires or involves little or no responsibility, work, or active service and that usually provides an income.
Examples:
1) The organization recently restructured its workforce, eliminating several positions that had become mere sinecures.
2) I was fortunate to receive the. . . offer, which in practical terms was a sinecure. (David Freeman, "One of Us")
3) Julian Poe, a wealthy old Estonian, offers what looks like a sinecure: Bennett will live in comfort in Monte Carlo and pretend to be Poe, thus enabling Poe to fulfill his residency requirement in Monte Carlo while continuing to live in Provence without paying French taxes. ("Eat, Drink and Be Wary," New York Times, June 9, 1996)
4) When they married, Pu Yi was, officially, employed as a gardener at the Peking Botanical Gardens. In fact this sinecure... only lasted three years, during which time he did very little actual gardening. ("Obituary: Li Shuxian," Independent, June 11, 1997)
Etymology:
"Sinecure" is from Medieval Latin "sine cura" ("without care (of souls)"), from Latin "sine" ("without") + "cura" ("care"). Originally the term signified an ecclesiastical benefice without the care of souls - that is, a clerical office in which the job-holder did not have to tend to the spiritual care and instruction of church members. Such sinecures were virtually done away with by the end of the 19th century, but by then the word had acquired a broader sense referring to any paid position with few or no responsibilities.


sit in the cat bird seat

• sit in the catbird seat
• sit
• cat bird seat
• catbird seat
• cat bird
• catbird
• seat
• cat
• bird

To be in an advantageous position.
Etymology: Phrase coined by Red Barber (a sports announcer) by James Thurber in his book, The Catbird Seat.

sit on the fence

• sit
• fence

This expression means "not taking sides".
Example:
"So who do you think has a better chance at making the track team, Marco or me?" Leo asked George. Both Leo and Marco stared at George, waiting for a response.
"You're both pretty fast!" George said, trying not to hurt anyone's feelings.
"Don't sit on the fence," Leo said. "Make a decision!".

sitcom

• SITCOM
• SITCOMs
• Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage
• Single Income
• Two Children
• Oppressive Mortgage
• Single
• Income
• Children
• Oppressive
• Mortgage

1. A situation comedy.
Example:
Michael met Tracy when they starred together in the American television sitcom Family Ties. ("Best". - London: Periodical Publishers Assoc., 1991)
2. SITCOM; also: SITCOMs - stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids; the natural evolution of upwardly-mobile couples who have children and then one spouse stops working to raise the kids. Example:
People cash out to work at home partly because corporations aren't offering quality child care. The two-income family may still be the time-pressed norm, but according to Barron's, SITCOMs are on the rise. ("Popcorn-Speak," The Dallas Morning News, May 14, 1996) History: This word appeared originally in Gareth Branwyn's "Jargon Watch column" ("Wired magazine") in 1996.



sitting duck

• sitting
• duck
• dead meat
• dead
• meat

An easy target; someone or something who is defenseless, vulnerable, or in a precarious situation; vulnerable, easy prey.
Examples:
1) The sweet old lady was a sitting duck for the aggressive salesman. 2) Out in the open field, the soldiers were sitting ducks for enemy snipers.
Etymology:
A duck on the ground, a "sitting duck", is far easier to shoot than a flying duck. It wasn't until this century and in some states well into this century that it became illegal to shoot ducks on the ground. Other sources state the phrase was first used by soldiers in World War Two. Synonym: dead meat.


sk8
(SMS) skate


sk8r
(SMS) skater

skedaddle

• escape
• scram
• bolt
• get out
• run
• clear out
• get
• hotfoot
• hightail
• scram
• vamoose
• run away
• beat it
• hightail it
• hotfoot it
• make tracks

(Amer., informal) to leave hastily, run away, leave in a hurry
Example:
Meet me at the tunnel entrance at 21.45 and on my signal we'll skedaddle!
Etymology:
What we do know for certain is that this archetypal expression suddenly appears at the beginning of the Civil War. Out of the blue, it became fashionable in 1862, with lots of examples appearing in American newspapers and books. The focus of all the early examples is the War; without doubt it started out as military slang with the meaning of fleeing the battlefield or retreating hurriedly. Its first appearance in print, in the "New York Tribune" of 10 August 1861, made this clear: "No sooner did the traitors discover their approach than they 'skiddaddled', (a phrase the Union boys up here apply to the good use the seceshers make of their legs in time of danger)". However, it quickly moved into civilian circles with the broader sense of leaving in a hurry. It crossed the Atlantic astonishingly quickly, being recorded in the "Illustrated London News" in 1862 and then being put in the mouth of a young lady character by Anthony Trollope in his novel "The Last Chronicle of Barset" in 1867: "'Mamma, Major Grantly has - skedaddled.' 'Oh, Lily, what a word!'" So far so good. Where it comes from is almost totally obscure. Was it Greek, as John Hotten argued in his "Dictionary of Modern Slang" in 1874, derived from "skedannumi", to "retire tumultuously", perhaps "set afloat by some Harvard professor"? It sounds plausible, but probably not. The "English Dialect Dictionary", compiled at the end of the nineteenth century, argues that it's from a Scottish or Northern English dialect word meaning to spill or scatter, in particular to spill milk. This may be from Scots "skiddle", meaning to splash water about or spill. Jonathon Green, in the "Cassell Dictionary of Slang", suggests this transferred to the US through "the image of blood and corpses being thus 'spilled and scattered' on the battlefield before the flight of a demoralised army".
Synonyms:
escape, scram; bolt, get out, run; clear out, get, hotfoot; hightail, scram, vamoose;
beat it, hightail it, hotfoot it, make tracks


skive

• skive off
• shirk
• skiver

1. To slice or cut off in thin layers, shave, pare; remove the surface of.
Example: "Skive leather"
2. (automob.) The action of cutting into something or cutting away rubber from an injury in preparation for a section repair.
3. The iron lap used by diamond polishers in finishing the facets of the gem.
Etymology:
Probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse "skIfa" - "to slice".
4. (British slang) To avoid work or duty by staying away or leaving early.
Synonym: skive off, shirk.
Example:
There is no way that I could skive a session, even if I wanted to, wearing my yellow and tartan suit! ("Linford Christie: an autobiography". - Christie, Linford and Ward, Tony. - London: Arrow Books Ltd, 1990)
5. (British slang) An instance of shirking.
Example:
So er I reckon she just want a skive from work to be honest! (KD8, <http://thetis.bl.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=skive>)
History:
It seems to have been military slang from the time of the First World War and the common assumption is that the British army in France borrowed it from French "esquiver" - "to slink away". The usual caveats apply, since that origin is informed guesswork. The reason why the purported origin is interesting is that there's another meaning of "skive" - to split or cut a material such as leather into slices or strips, or to shave or pare a material to reduce its thickness. The word isn't that old (only recorded from the 1820s) but almost certainly goes back to Old Norse. So there is an association with leather.
And "skiver", before it became a term for a person avoiding work by suddenly remembering an urgent appointment elsewhere, was a person involved in various trades that were linked to leather, such as shoemaking.


skivvies

• skivvy
• skibby
• skivey

Sing. - skivvy, pl. - skivvies
1. (British, derogatory) female servant, chambermaid.
Also: skivey.
Synonym: slavey.
2. (Amer. informal, usually plural) Men's underwear consisting of cotton T-shirt and shorts; male underwear in general; (informal, usually sing.) a man's cotton T-shirt, a "skivvy shirt".
3. (Austr.) a long- sleeved roll-neck lightweight T-shirt worn by both men and women.
Etymology, examples, related words:
Most suggest it's a term from the early 1930s, based on the earliest example given in the OED's entry. But at least one example appeared in December 1918 in the "Evening State Journal" of Lincoln, Nebraska, as part of a humorous piece under the headline "Boys Will Be Boys - Even in the Marine Corps": "'Well, boys, I believe I'll play a little golf today and not go to the office at all. I'm all run down and need a little hard physical labor,' declares an athlete in the act of putting on his 'skivvies.'" Some works say it derives from a trademark. That seems to be wrong. The word has been briefly trademarked several times, but the earliest in the US Trademarks Registry is dated 1954 (by Norwich Mills Inc, Norwich, New York) and by then the word had been in public use for some time. Most examples suggest that the general male underwear meaning came along after the one for a vest, or undershirt. But that 1918 citation is in the plural, which may indicate it was already a fairly broad term. The early examples all indicate it was US military slang. One suggestion often touted is that it comes from "skibby", a west-coast World War Two term for a Japanese. A lot of people quote this as fact, so it may be worth a digression to look into what is in any case an interesting word. Damon Runyon described it in an article in 1942: "'Skibby' is what Japs are called to this day by most Californians even in polite circles, and it is unlikely that the California home-grown soldiers will dismiss it for the more polite 'Charlie' and 'Tojo' that the dispatches from the Far East would have us believe are now terms for the enemy. It is not at all uncommon to see 'Skibby' in the local public prints." That was certainly true. But the term is much older - he wrote his comment because he had been criticised by servicemen who remembered it from the Philippines in the early 1900s. To them it meant a Japanese prostitute. That comes from Japanese "sukebei" ("randy" or "lecherous"), a word that Japanese prostitutes may have used as part of a greeting along the lines of "Hello, sailor, are you horny tonight?". It was later generalised to mean any Japanese, though it remained derogatory and was deeply resented by those so described. If "skivvies" did come from that Japanese word, the dating of the first citation and the context of early examples shows it must have entered the language through US military slang from its first meaning, "prostitute". Though the association is obvious enough in one way, linguistically speaking it's not clear how one gets from Japanese prostitutes to American male underwear; however, we have no alternative.

skul
(SMS) school


skulduggery

• skullduggery

Also: skullduggery
[skul-DUG-uh-ree]
Devious, dishonest, or unscrupulous behavior or activity; an instance thereof.
Examples:
1) And then the inquests, and the coroner's reports, and the hints of diplomatic cover-ups, and skulduggery in high places. (Hilary Mantel, "Eight Months on Ghazzah Street")
2) Laptop theft was the third most common electronic skulduggery, behind viruses (84 percent) and unauthorized employee use of computers and software (78 percent), according to the survey by the Computer Security Institute in San Francisco. (Michael Cooper, "Low Tech Joins the Fight Against High-Tech Theft," New York Times, April 23, 1998)
3) For instance, the Federal Trade Commission already goes after some kinds of Internet skulduggery, like selling products that promise more than they deliver. (David Stout, "New Internet Anti-Fraud Center Announced by Attorney General," New York Times, May 8, 2000)
Etymology:
1856, apparently an alteration of Scottish "sculdudrie" - "adultery" (1713), "sculduddery" - "bawdry, obscenity" (1821), a euphemism of uncertain origin.


skulk
[SKULK]
1. To move in a stealthy or furtive manner.
2. To hide or conceal something (as oneself) often out of cowardice or fear or with sinister intent.
3. (Chiefly British) Malinger.
Example:
During the thunderstorm, we realized that we hadn't seen our dog in a while; when we searched, we found her skulking under the bed.
Etymology:
The closest Scandinavian relative of "skulk" is Norwegian dialect "skulka," which means "to lie in wait" or "lurk."


slake
[SLAYK]
1. To satisfy, quench, extinguish; as, to slake thirst.
2. To cause to lessen; to make less active or intense; to moderate; as, slaking his anger.
3. To cause (as lime) to heat and crumble by treatment with water.
Synonym: hydrate.
4. To become slaked; to crumble or disintegrate, as lime.
Examples:
1) What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake that thirst with the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier! (Mark Twain, "A Tramp Abroad")
2) My companions never drink pure water and the... beer serves as much to slake their thirst as to fill their stomachs and lubricate conversation. (Philippe Descola, "The Spears of Twilight")
3) She had the money he gave her (never enough to slake her anxieties). (Nuala O'Faolain, "Are You Somebody")
Etymology, more examples:
O.E. "slacian" ("slacken an effort"), from "slæc" ("lax"); Middle English "slaken" ("to become or render slack," hence "to abate"). Sense of "allay" (in ref. to thirst, hunger, desire) first recorded c.1325.
"Slake" is no slacker when it comes to obsolete and archaic meanings. Shakespearean scholars may know that in the Bard's day "slake" meant "to subside or abate" ("No flood by raining slaketh...." - "The Rape of Lucrece") or "to lessen the force of " ("It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart." - "Henry VI", Part 3). The most erudite word enthusiasts may also be aware of earlier meanings of "slake," such as "to slacken one's efforts" or "to cause to be relaxed or loose." These early meanings recall the word's Old English ancestor "sleac," which not only meant "slack" but is also the source of that modern term.


sleuth

• sleuthhound

[SLOOTH]
1. (Intransitive verb) To act as a detective; search for information.
2. (Transitive verb) To search for and discover.
Example:
After several employees complained of nausea, a shrewd bit of medical sleuthing turned up the culprit: a bacterium in the drinking water.
Etymology:
"They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" Those canine tracks in Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" set the great Sherlock Holmes sleuthing on the trail of a murderer. It was a case of art imitating etymology. When Middle English speakers first borrowed "sleuth" from Old Norse, the term referred to "the track of an animal or person." In Scotland, a "sleuthhound" was a bloodhound used to hunt game or track down fugitives from justice. In 19th century U.S. English, "sleuthhound" became an epithet for a detective and was soon shortened to "sleuth." From there, it was only a short leap to turning "sleuth" into a verb describing what a sleuth does.


slipshod

• shabby
• careless
• slovenly

1. wearing loose shoes
2. shabby
3. careless, slovenly
Example:
After two errors of fact were discovered in the young reporter's article, John gave him a lecture to remind him that slipshod journalism would not be tolerated.
History, synonyms:
The word "shod" is the past tense form of the verb "to shoe"; hence we can speak of shod horses and shod feet. When the word "slipshod" was first used in the late 1500s, it meant "wearing loose shoes or slippers" - such slippers were once called "slip-shoes" - and later it was used to describe shoes that were falling apart. By the early 1800s, "slipshod" was used more generally as a synonym for "shabby" - in 1818, Sir Walter Scott wrote about "the half-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library". The association with shabbiness later shifted to an association with sloppiness, and by the end of the century the word was used to mean "careless" or "slovenly".


slow city

• slow
• city

A town or city which promotes a high-quality environment and healthy eating based on locally grown and prepared food.
Examples: 1) ...Town councillor Andrea Mearns said Mold had many of the things needed to become a slow city. These included a strong sense of culture, food shops, cafes and restaurants, a clean environment, a strong agricultural base and scores of artisan food producers. (icWales <http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/farming/farming/ tm_objectid=16727271&method=full&siteid=50082& headline=towns-out-to-win-slow-food-capital-status-name_page.html>, 21st February 2006) 2) In February 2006, the towns of Mold in Flintshire and Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire were battling to become Wales's first slow city. Contrary to what might be expected, being a slow city has nothing to do with concepts such as traffic-calming, but relates to healthier living through a cleaner environment and healthier food. History: Contrary to what it suggests, the term slow city does not refer to larger cities in the conventional sense, but usually applies to towns and smaller cities (in fact membership of the slow city movement is usually restricted to places with a population of under 50,000).
A slow city is a place which strives to maintain a high-quality living environment. This is achieved in a variety of ways, including maintaining and expanding parks and green' areas, protecting historic buildings, removing eyesores such as advertising posters, neon signs or ugly TV/phone aerials, and prohibiting car alarms and other noise pollution. Other priorities include recycling and the use of alternative energy sources. The most central aspect of being a slow city, however, is the promotion of healthy eating through locally grown and prepared foods. In an attempt to counter the modern obsession with "fast food", slow cities are places which don't have a McDonald's" restaurant or chip shop on every corner.
Cittaslow was inspired by the slow food movement, founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, an Italian food and wine journalist who objected to the encroachment of fast food chains in towns and cities across the world. Petrini promoted the concept of slow food, carefully prepared food cooked according to traditional methods and using organic ingredients. The first slow cities to be officially recognised were in Italy, around six years ago, when a league of over thirty towns and cities came together to form a movement now known as Cittaslow (a name based on a combination of Italian "città" ("town or city") and "slow". Ludlow in Shropshire was the first British town to be formally approved as a slow city, followed by Aylsham in Norfolk. Other UK towns applying for the right to display the slow city emblem (a snail crawling past a group of buildings) include Canterbury in Kent and Diss in Norfolk.

slugabed
[SLUG-uh-bed]
A person who stays in bed after the usual or proper time to get up; sluggard.
Example:
Rather than be a slugabed for her entire vacation, Jeanne made it a goal to rise at 6:00 AM and go for a jog every morning.
History:
The first known usage of "slugabed" in English can be found in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (1592), when Juliet's nurse attempts to rouse the young heroine by chiding, "Why, lamb! why, lady! Fie, you slug-abed!" The first half of the word, "slug," is a now-rare verb once used in English to mean "to be lazy or inert" or "to move slowly." Experts believe this word to be of Scandinavian origin, and the same thing can be said of the noun "slug," which can mean "sluggard" or "lazy person" as well as refer to the slow-moving gastropod. The second half of our featured word, "abed," is a word still used in English today to mean "in bed."



small beer

• small
• beer

1. Weak beer.
2. Insignificant matters; something of little importance; unimportant; trivial.
Examples:
1) We dined early upon stale bread and old mutton with small beer. (Ferdinand Mount, "Jem (and Sam)")
2) "I was not born for this kind of small beer," says Joan the wife of the colonial governor, who imagines leading armies or "droves of inflamed poets." (Nancy Willard, "The Nameless Women of the World", New York Times, December 18, 1988)
3) Call me a geek, but for biologists, marvels like the parasitic flatworm are on tap every day, making the reveries of Hollywood seem like small beer. (Jerry A. Coyne, "The Truth Is Way Out There", New York Times, October 10, 1999)
4) The player was fined $10,000 by the league for his comments about the opposing pitcher, but that's small beer when you consider his $15 million salary.
History, more examples:
"Small beer" is beer of only slight alcoholic strength; the other senses are derivative.
"Small beer" dates from Shakespeare's day. The Bard didn't coin it (he would have been just a child in 1568, the date of the first documented instance of "small beer"), but he did put the term to good use. In "Henry VI", Part 2, for example, the rebel Jack Cade declares that, when he becomes king, he will "make it felony to drink small beer." In "Othello", Desdemona asks Iago to describe a "deserving woman." Iago responds by listing praises for ten lines, only to conclude that such a woman would be suited "to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer"; in other words, to raise babies and keep track of insignificant household expenses. Desdemona quickly retorts, declaring Iago's assertion a "most lame and impotent conclusion."


smarmy

• unctuous
• slick
• smarm

[SMAR-mee]
1. Revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, or false earnestness.
Example:
"I was so disappointed to hear you didn't get that promotion," said Kit, using a smarmy tone of voice that made me fume.
2. Of low sleazy taste or quality.
Etymology, synonyms, related words:
Something "smarmy" will often ooze with self-satisfaction and insincerity. Much like its synonyms "unctuous" and "slick," "smarmy" has a history that starts with a meaning of literal slipperiness or oiliness. The verb "smarm" appeared in English in the mid-19th century. Etymologists don't know where it came from, but they do know that it meant "to smear," "to gush," or sometimes "to make smooth or oily." A few decades later, use of "smarm" was extended to sometimes mean "to use flattery." The adjective "smarmy" appeared in the early 20th century. At first meaning "insincerely flattering" or "smug," it later took on an additional meaning: "sleazy."


smart alec

• smart aleck
• Clever Dick
• Clever
• Dick
• smart
• alec
• aleck
• smart arse
• arse
• know-all
• Mr. Know-All
• know-it-all
• Mr. Know-It-All
• Mrs. Know-It-All
• Mrs. Know-All
• Miss Know-It-All
• Miss Know-All
• wiseacre
• Solomon
• wise-guy
• wiseguy
• weisenheimer
• wisenheimer
• wise
• guy

Also: Smart Alec, Smart Aleck.
One who is ostentatious in the display of knowledge or skill, often despite basic ignorance or lack of ability.
Examples:
1) Some smart alec in the audience kept making witty remarks during my talk.
2) He's just some smart-alec journalist.
Etymology:
For many years, Smart Alec or Smart Aleck was thought to be no more than a generic character, first cousin to Clever Dick. The problem with seeking his original is the obvious one that, with so many possible candidates, only a stroke of luck might lead a researcher to the right Alec. A plausible candidate has been put forward by Professor Gerald Cohen. He argues that the original was Alex Hoag, a celebrated and clever thief in New York in the 1840s.
Hoag worked with his prostitute wife Melinda and an accomplice called French Jack to fleece unwary visitors to the city who were looking for a little fun. The key to his activities was that they did so in close association with two police officers, who shared the loot and provided protection. Most was done by what was in effect pickpocketing, with Melinda taking the victim's pocketbook while they were otherwise engaged and surreptitiously handing it to Hoag or French Jack as they walked by. So far, so commonplace. However, his downfall came because he got into financial difficulties and tried to cheat his police protectors out of their share of the loot. One way was that Hoag lay behind a wall in a churchyard and had Melinda drop the goods over the wall to him so that the constables couldn't see the exchange.
Another of the standard frauds, practised by many, was called the panel game. George Wilkes, the assistant editor of the "Subterranean", met Hoag while Wilkes was falsely imprisoned in the infamous New York prison called "The Tombs". Wilkes described the trick in a diary of 1844, "The Mysteries of the Tombs": "Melinda would make her victim lay his clothes, as he took them off, upon a chair at the head of the bed near the secret panel, and then take him to her arms and closely draw the curtains of the bed. As soon as everything was right and the dupe not likely to heed outside noises, the traitress would give a cough, and the faithful Aleck would slily enter, rifle the pockets of every farthing or valuable thing, and finally disappear as mysteriously as he entered". The victim was then persuaded to leave in a hurry through a window by Alec banging on the door, pretending to be an aggrieved husband who has suddenly returned from a trip away.
Hoag used this trick to avoid paying off his police protectors, so that when he was caught, the police were in no mood to aid him. He was sentenced to jail, but escaped through the help of his brother, only to be recaptured following extensive police searches (by one of those odd coincidences, having been recognised by Wilkes).
Professor Cohen suggests that Alex Hoag was given the sobriquet of smart Alec by the police for being a resourceful thief who outsmarted himself by trying to avoid paying graft. It's impossible to be certain this is the true story, since the expression doesn't appear in print until 1865, but it does seem extremely plausible.
Synonyms:
smart arse, (Mr. / Miss / Mrs.) know-all / know-it-all, wiseacre, Solomon, wisenheimer / weisenheimer, wise-guy / wiseguy, Clever Dick

smart mob

• smart
• mob

A new form of social coordination made possible by the usage of modern technology, in particular the Internet and Wireless devices (e.g. mobile phones, PDAs).
Example:
An example of smart mob are the street protests organized by the Anti-globalization movement.
History:
"Smart mob" is a concept introduced by Howard Rheingold in his book "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution" (http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html).


smell a rat

• smell
• rat

To think there is something hidden or concealed.
Etymology: The allusion, according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, is to a cat smelling a rat.

smirt

• smirting
• smirter

Smirt (verb) - socialising in a romantic way whilst smoking outside a place such as a bar, restaurant, etc., where smoking is prohibited or illegal.
Smirting (noun) - socialising in a romantic way whilst smoking outside a place such as a bar, restaurant, etc., where smoking is prohibited or illegal.
Smirter (noun) - one who socialises in a romantic way whilst smoking outside a place such as a bar, restaurant, etc., where smoking is prohibited or illegal.
Examples:
1) It's called smirting, and it's almost certainly coming to a smoking zone near you soon& If you think you've already smirted because you stand in the office car park three times a day sharing smoke breaks with Eric from accounts, think again& Smirting brings you into contact with a far greater variety of people than shuffling about on a dancefloor ever could& (The Sunday Times, 26th February 2006)
2) Outcast "smirters" have a new way to find light of their lives& (San Diego Union-Tribune, 18th April 2004)
3) Smoking might damage your health, but could do wonders for your love life, it seems, as increased concern for a smoke-free environment has inadvertently given birth to the concept of smirting.
History:
"Smirting" is a blend of the words smoking and flirting, where flirting is behaving towards someone in a way that shows sexual or romantic interest in them'. The term evolved in Ireland in 2004 as a consequence of the legislation banning smoking in bars, emanating from the Temple Bar area in Dublin, a major centre for nightclubs, restaurants and bars. With smoking bans now also in place in many US states and parts of Australia and New Zealand, the term smirting and its derivatives have also found their way into American and Australian English.
"Smirting" is the new label given to the scenario of being in a pub or restaurant where smoking is forbidden, going outside for a quick cigarette, and taking the opportunity to do a bit of flirting in the cool night air with a fellow smoker. Even though we theoretically live in an enlightened world where smoking is out of fashion and no longer supposed to be cool', in places like the Republic of Ireland, where a complete ban on smoking in bars, pubs and restaurants has been in force since 2004, going outside for a quick smoke is rapidly overtaking speed-dating as the new way to spice up your love life. The craze has swept through Ireland since the ban, with enterprising pubs and bars introducing outside areas for smokers to gather.
Advocates of smirting claim that it holds many advantages over trying to strike up a conversation at a crowded bar. Simply asking someone for a light avoids any introductory awkwardness, and the five-minute life-span of a cigarette means that you can simply go back inside or carry on chatting, depending on how you feel about the other smoker. In Ireland, smirting has to some extent caused the smoking ban to backfire, with evidence of a rapid increase in the number of social smokers all over the country, so it probably won't take long for non-smokers to realise they're missing out on all the fun and start stepping outside for "a breath of fresh air" in the hope of some passive smirting!
With the introduction of the smoking ban in Scotland on 26th March 2006, and throughout the rest of the UK from the summer of 2007, smirting is likely to become a popular route to romance in Britain too, and so has the potential to gain currency in the English lexicon. There is already evidence for a related intransitive verb smirt, and those who enjoy the pastime are often described as smirters.

smorgasbord
[SMOR-gus-bord]
1. A luncheon or supper buffet offering a variety of foods and dishes.
2. An often large heterogeneous mixture; melange.
Example:
With several new stores recently opening, the town's main street now offers a smorgasbord of shopping options.
History:
Although "smorgasbord" might make us think of a variety of foods, the Swedish word "smorgas" refers to a particular food item, an open sandwich or, alternatively, a slice of bread covered with butter, which is a staple of the traditional Swedish smorgasbord. (The word "smor" means "butter," and "gas" can mean "a lump of butter" as well as "goose.") "Smorgas" teamed up with the Swedish word "bord," meaning "table" or "board," to form "smorgasbord," which first appeared in English in the later part of the 19th century. By the mid-20th century "smorgasbord" was being used outside of food-related contexts to refer to something that comprises a mixture or assemblage of different parts.


snail mail

• snail
• mail

Letters sent through the post office; mail that is carried, as opposed to e-mail.
Examples:
1) It can take a week to send a letter by snail mail. 2) I sent the payment by snail mail so you should get it by next Friday.
Etymology: A 'snail' is a very slow-moving creature. This slang phrase mocks the slowness of regular mail and implicitly compares it to the speed of e-mail.

snam

• SNAM
• social-networking spam
• social-networking
• social network
• spam
• social
• networking
• network

Meaning, etymology, example:
Mail generated by one's membership of a social-networking system (hence "social-networking spam" or "snam"). The word is explained in "Fast Company" magazine: "The first step in joining one of the social-networking services is inviting everyone you know to be part of it. That generates an initial wave of snam as everyone in your address book receives an impersonal message asking them to create an account and fess up to being associated with you. The second wave of snam consists of the resulting requests: Would you pass this message along to someone you know? Is your department hiring? Are you unhappy with your current ad agency and willing to meet with us?" (for the full article, see <http://quinion.com?D27G> ). Of snam, Mr Means comments wisely that "I'm not sure if Internet users are interested in differentiating the types of spam they receive, so I don't believe the word will catch on, except possibly among the people who engage in social networking via e-mail." Much the same goes for spim.
Synonym:
social-networking spam
2. Server Net Access Manager
Example:
Server Net Access Manager is a nifty utility you can use to schedule and simplify your access to the Internet or to another computer.



snickersnee
[SNIK-er-snee]
A large knife.
Example:
The Lord High Executioner in "The Mikado" is someone who couldn't bring himself to execute a fly with a newspaper let alone a fellow human being with a razor-sharp snickersnee. ("Canberra Times", November 30, 2003)
Etymology:
Back when pirates were swashbuckling around the seven seas, someone who got into "steake or snye" was engaging in cut-and-thrust sword and dagger fighting. "Steake or snye," which came from a Dutch term meaning "to thrust or cut," was eventually modified into "snick or snee," but the meaning of the phrase remained the same. By around 1775, the phrase had been compressed into the single word "snickersnee," which was used both as a verb for the act of such fighting and as a noun naming the knife used in such clashes.


snivel
[SNIV-ul]
1. To run at the nose; to snuffle.
2. To cry or whine with snuffling.
3. To speak or act in a whining, sniffling, tearful, or weakly emotional manner.
Example:
Mom told Jenny to stop sniveling about how mistreated she was and just do her chores.
History:
There's never been anything pretty about sniveling. "Snivel," which originally meant simply "to have a runny nose," was probably "snyflan" in Old English. It's likely related to "sniffle," not surprisingly, and also to an Old English word for mucus, "snofl." It's even related to the Middle Dutch word for a cold, "snof," and the Old Norse word for "snout," which is "snoppa." There's also a connection to "nan," a Greek verb meaning "flow." Nowadays, we mostly use "snivel," as we have since the 1600s, to refer to self-pitying whining, whether or not such sniveling is accompanied by unchecked nasal flow.


snowbird

• snow-bird

1. any of several birds (as a junco or fieldfare) seen chiefly in winter;
2. one who travels to warm climes for the winter.
Example:
Now that they are retired, the Johnsons have become snowbirds, closing up their New England home each winter and heading south.
Etymology:
"Snowbird" has been applied to the human species since the early 1900s. It was first used to describe men who enlisted in the armed forces to get food and clothing during the winter months and then deserted as the benign spring weather approached. Not long after, northern laborers soon caught on to this way of living, and many could be seen flocking down south to work as the cold, harsh winter set in up north. Today, northern birds of all kinds, from the vacationer to the retiree, can be seen migrating as soon as the first frost arrives.


sobriquet
[SO-brih-kay; -ket; so-brih-KAY; -KET] A nickname; an assumed name; an epithet.
Examples:
1) In addition to his notorious amours, he became distinguished for a turbulent naval career, particularly for the storms he weathered, thus bringing him the sobriquet "Foulweather Jack". (Phyllis Grosskurth, "Byron: The Flawed Angel")
2) At a small reception on the occasion of my twenty-fifth anniversary in this position, my good friend Izzy Landes raised a glass and dubbed me the Curator of the Curators, a sobriquet I have worn with pride ever since. (Alfred Alcorn, "Murder in the Museum of Man")
3) There was an omnivorous intellect that won him the family sobriquet of Walking Encyclopedia. (Eric Liu, "The Accidental Asian")
History:
"Sobriquet" is from the French, from Old French "soubriquet" ("a chuck under the chin, hence, an affront, a nickname").


social networking

• social
• networking
• social network
• social networker
• network
• networker

1. A social structure between actors, mostly individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. (The term was first coined in 1954 by J.A.Barnes in: Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, "Human Relations").
2. Internet sites which help users meet like-minded people with similar interests and backgrounds; Internet applications to help connect friends, business partners, or other individuals together using a variety of tools. (The first social networking website was SixDegrees.com </wiki/SixDegrees.com>, which began in 1997.)
Related words: social network, social networker
Examples:
1) Social network theory in the social sciences began with the urbanization studies of the "Manchester School" (centered around Max Gluckman), done mainly in Zambia during the 1960s.
2) It was not until 2001 that websites using the Circle of Friends online social networks started appearing.



soft target

• soft
• target

An object not protected against enemy attack; a place or person that can easily be attacked.
Examples:
1) Most experts describe embassies and hotels as "soft targets".
2) Women who carry cash about in the streets, as they very often have to, are a very soft target.


soi-disant

• soi
• disant

[swah-dee-ZAHNG (the final "NG" isn't pronounced, but the vowel is nasalized]
Self-proclaimed, so-called.
Example:
Meredith is a soi-disant gourmet, but her cooking doesn't approach the quality demonstrated by the chefs she is so quick to criticize.
History, more examples:
"Soi-disant," which in French means literally "saying oneself," is one of hundreds of French terms that entered English in the 17th and 18th centuries, during the period known as the Enlightenment. Even as political antipathies between France and England were being played out on battlefields in Europe and America, English speakers like Lord Chesterfield (a patron of letters and an intimate of Voltaire) were peppering their correspondence with French. "Soi-disant" first began appearing in English texts in 1752 as a disparaging term for someone who styles or fancies him- or herself in some role (for example, a "soi-disant expert").


soigne

• well-groomed
• sleek

[swahn-YAY]
1. Dressed with great care and elegance.
Synonyms: well-groomed, sleek
2. Elegantly maintained or designed.
Example:
Wearing a fetching evening gown, Alyssa looked soigne and sophisticated and ready for a night on the town.
Etymology, more examples:
Not surprisingly, "soigne" comes from French, where it serves as the past participle of the verb "soigner," meaning "to take care of." It first appeared in English in the 19th century and can be used to describe such things as an elegant wardrobe, a fancy restaurant, or the extravagant meal one might enjoy at such a restaurant. It can also be used to describe people, as in a recent article on fashion designer Donna Karan: "Though her name is really pronounced 'Karen,' people said it with a glamorous continental inflection; it suited their image of a fashion designer: aloof, soigne, different from you and me." (Josh Patner, "The New York Times", April 11, 2004)


soiree
[swah-RAY]
1. A party or reception held in the evening.
2. To entertain at an evening party.
Example:
The soiree would scarcely break up before two; and by this hour the vehicle was to be at the door, when, in the confusion occasioned by the departure of the company, Madame L. could easily enter it unobserved. (Edgar Allan Poe, "The Spectacles")
Etymology:
In French, "soiree" means "evening party," or simply "evening." The French word comes from the Latin adverb "sero" (meaning "at a late hour"), which comes from the Latin adjective "serus" (meaning "late"). English speakers began using "soiree" early in the 19th century, and, later in the century, some began to use the word as a verb. The verb use of the word never became firmly established, but the sophisticated noun "soiree" remains a popular alternative to the comparatively prosaic "party."


sojourn
[SOH-juhrn; so-JURN]
1. To stay as a temporary resident; to dwell for a time.
2. A temporary stay.
Examples:
1) Though he has sojourned in Southwold, wandered in Walberswick, dabbled in Dunwich, ambled through Aldeburgh and blundered through Blythburgh, Smallweed has never set foot in Orford. (Smallweed, "The trouble with hope," The Guardian, April 14, 2001)
2) Yet he is now an accomplished student and speaker of English, a literary editor and television producer, someone who has sojourned in Paris and attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. (William H. Gass, "Family and Fable in Galilee," New York Times, April 17, 1988)
3) As chance would have it, Degas's five-month sojourn in New Orleans coincided with an extraordinarily contentious period in the stormy political history of the city. (Christopher Benfey, "Degas in New Orleans")
4) During that long sojourn in Sligo, from 1870 to 1874, he had lessons from a much loved nursemaid, Ellie Connolly; later he received coaching in spelling and dictation from Esther Merrick, a neighbour who lived in the Sexton's house by St John's, and who read him quantities of verse. (R. F. Foster, "W.B. Yeats: A Life")
Etymology:
"Sojourn" comes from Old French "sojorner", from (assumed) Vulgar Latin "subdiurnare", from Latin "sub-" ("under, a little over") + Late Latin "diurnus" ("lasting for a day"), from Latin "dies" ("day").


solatium
[so-LAY-shee-um]
A compensation (as money) given as solace for suffering, loss, or injured feelings.
Example:
The judge awarded a substantial solatium to all of the bus passengers who were traumatized as a result of the accident.
History:
In legal circles, a solatium is a payment made to a victim as compensation for injured feelings or emotional pain and suffering (such as the trauma following the wrongful death of a relative), as distinct from payment for physical injury or for damaged property. Like many legal terms, "solatium," which first appeared in English in the early 19th century, is a product of Latin, where the word means "solace." The Latin noun is related to the verb "solari," which means "to console" and from which we get our words "solace" and "console."


solecism
1. A nonstandard usage or grammatical construction; an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence; also: a minor blunder in speech.
2. Any inconsistency, mistake, or impropriety; something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order.
3. A breach of good manners, etiquette, or decorum.
Examples:
1) In traditional Japanese households, it is a solecism to keep on your shoes upon entering.
2) An accurate report of anything that has ever been said in any parliament would be blather, solecism, verbiage and nonsense. ("Hansard of the Highlands," Times (London), February 17, 2001)
3) Her English is good, apart from a few stubborn idiosyncrasies of preposition and tense, but these are music to me, sung solecisms - how else to describe "I am already loving you," her first declaration of feeling for me, now two years old? (Ronan Bennett, "The Catastrophist")
4) In those days smoking in the streets was an unpardonable solecism. (Edmund Yates, "Recollections")
5) ... Another of her fabrications or flat-footed solecisms or, at any rate, a simple indication of the boundless ineptitude with which she manages Leonardo's affairs. (R.M. Berry, "Leonardo's Horse")
Etymology:
Soloi, where a dialect regarded as substandard was spoken, had a reputation for bad grammar. That city, located in Cilicia, an ancient coastal nation in Asia Minor, was populated by Athenian colonists called "soloikos" (literally "inhabitant of Soloi"). According to historians, the colonists of Soloi allowed their native Athenian Greek to be corrupted and they fell to using words incorrectly. As a result, "soloikos" gained a new meaning: "speaking incorrectly". The Greeks used that sense as the basis of "soloikismos", meaning "an ungrammatical combination of words". That root in turn gave rise to the Latin "soloecismus", the direct ancestor of the English word "solecism". Nowadays, "solecism" can refer to social blunders as well as sloppy syntax.


solidus

• slash
• diagonal
• slant
• virgule
• shil
• sh
• s
• /

[SAH-luh-dus]
1. An ancient Roman gold coin introduced by Constantine and used to the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
2. A mark / used typically to denote "or" (as in and/or), "and or" (as in straggler/deserter), or "per" (as in feet/second).
Example:
In her latest thriller, the author manipulates her readers into believing there are two killers until the final page, where she connects their two names with a solidus.
History, synonyms, related words:
Call it a solidus, or call it a slash/diagonal/slant/virgule - whatever you call it, you are bound to run into this useful mark with some regularity. These days, one place the mark is commonly seen is in Internet addresses, but the history of the word "solidus" takes us back to a time well before computers. The ancient Roman emperor Constantine the Great borrowed the Latin term for "solid" ("solidus") for the gold coin that was the successor to the aureus. And in Medieval Latin, "solidus" designated the shilling. Before the introduction of decimal coinage, abbreviations of the shilling ("s," "sh," or "shil") were used. Eventually, the abbreviations were replaced with the simple symbol "/", which became known as a solidus.


somniferous
[som-NIF-uhr-uhs]
Causing or inducing sleep.
Examples:
1) He has gone outside the usual channels of stodgy academic journals and somniferous lectures. (David Gibson, "Separating Christ from Christianity," The Record (Bergen County, NJ), June 9, 1996)
2) And some cities are eschewing the somniferous art museum to invent newer, hipper institutions that honor our fascination with contemporary culture: technology, space flight, and even rock 'n' roll. (Heidi Landecker, "Art Transplant," Architecture, March 1998)
3) Filmed on location in England and using quotes from letters and other documents of Pilgrim leaders, this video is rich in detail and information. Its major drawback - and one that may affect its effectiveness with its intended student audience - is that it's as dull as dillweed, primarily due to a somniferous narration. (J. Carlson, "The Mayflower Pilgrims," Video Librarian, November 11, 1996)
Etymology:
"Somniferous" comes from Latin "somnifer" ("sleep-bringing"), from "somnus" ("sleep") + "ferre" ("to bring").


somnolent

• insomnia

[SOM-nuh-luhnt]
1. Sleepy; drowsy; inclined to sleep.
2. Tending to cause sleepiness or drowsiness.
Examples:
1) [I]n his case, restrained ultimately meant boring, as the audience was lulled into a somnolent state. (Teresa Wiltz, "The Hip, the Flip, the Flop," Washington Post, March 3, 2000)
2) Meanwhile, many a somnolent local authority has been stirred into action by Davidson's blunt approach. (John Lucas, "Memorials are made of these on the eve of Remembrance Sunday," Daily Telegraph, November 7, 1998)
3) Back in the somnolent heat of Bangalore he wrote a revealing novel entitled Savrola. (David Stafford, "Churchill and Secret Service")
Etymology, related words:
"Somnolent" is from Latin "somnolentus", from "somnus" ("sleep"). A related word is "insomnia" ("inability to get enough sleep, sleeplessness"): "in-" ("not") + "somnus".


sonofusion

• Cold fusion
• fusion
• tabletop fusion
• tabletop
• table-top fusion
• table-top

a process that generates nuclear reactions by creating tiny bubbles that implode with tremendous force.
Examples:
1) A possible new form of cold fusion, named 'sonofusion', is causing controversy among nuclear scientists.
2) Nuclear engineer Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, of Purdue University, said his "sonofusion" device cost less than $1,000 and in the short-term could probably be engineered as a cheap source of neutron emissions for use in portable detection devices. ("Washington Post", 8 Mar. 2004)
3) The bigger issue is the knock- on effect Taleyarkhan's ... paper could have for others in the field. If funding agencies start to think sonofusion is nonsense or simply being done badly, it could become as big a fiasco as cold fusion. ("Guardian", 11 Mar. 2004)
Synonym:
tabletop fusion
History:
"Cold fusion" is the general name given to processes that fuse atomic nuclei at or near room temperature. In theory these would provide useful energy without the complex apparatus required to emulate the nuclear fusion that powers the stars. The latter needs temperatures approaching 100 million degrees. However, if you mention cold fusion to most scientists, they tend to back off. The subject has almost been relegated to pseudoscience since the controversy concerning the experiments by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishman at the end of 1980s. But recent events suggest the idea is gaining respectability once again. The US Department of Energy is to review the evidence from more recent research which claims to provide a theoretical basis for the idea. Some types of cold fusion are certainly known to be possible, such as the one formally called muon-catalysed cold fusion. The situation is now complicated by a report by Rusi P Taleyarkhan of Purdue University which is shortly to appear in a journal of the American Physical Society. News of the article has already reached the public through articles in newspapers such as the "New York Times" and is causing controversy among specialists. For several years, Dr Taleyarkhan has been working on experiments that combine high-frequency bursts of sound waves (ultrasound) with pulses of neutrons in a process that he describes as "sonofusion" or "tabletop fusion". He claims to have detected fusion reactions taking place, though his results are disputed by other experimenters.


sonorous
[suh-NOR-uhs; SAH-nuh-rus]
1. Giving sound when struck; resonant; as, "sonorous metals".
2. Loud-sounding; giving a clear or loud sound; as, "a sonorous voice".
3. Yielding sound; characterized by sound; as, "the vowels are sonorous".
4. Impressive in sound; high-sounding.
Examples:
1) Tecumseh spoke fluently in the Shawnee tongue, adding weight to his emphatic and sonorous words with elegant gestures. (John Sugden, "Tecumseh: A Life")
2) The safety video began, optimistically, with Scott's "Great God, this is an awful place" delivered in a sonorous thespian voice and accompanying footage of well-clad individuals crashing into crevasses. (Sara Wheeler, "Terra Incognita")
3) The Web, in Locke's view, brings the revolution against the sonorous all-knowing corporate voice to its inevitable climax and resolution in favor of the plebeians. (Leslie Kaufman, "Internet Scene May Have a Lot in Common With the '60s", New York Times, April 10, 2000)
Etymology:
"Sonorous" comes from Latin "sonorus", from "sonor" ("sound").


sophomoric
[sahf-MOR-ik]
1. Conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature.
2. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a sophomore.
3. Youthful, immature.
Examples:
1) Sophomoric reasoning is rationalizing about what one understands poorly.
2) It was a politically incorrect, slapstick, sophomoric farce about a private detective - Jewish superhero named Mordechai Jefferson Carver, aka the Hebrew Hammer.
3) For a debut album, "I Am the Fun Blame Monster!" is surprisingly sophomoric.
Etymology, related words:
The history of the words "sophomore" and "sophomoric," which developed from "sophomore," proves that it has always been tough to be a sophomore. Those words are believed to come from a combination of the Greek terms "sophos" (meaning "wise") and "moros" (meaning "foolish"). But sophomores can take comfort in the fact that some very impressive words, including "philosopher" and "sophisticated," are also related to "sophos."


soporific
[sop-uh-RIF-ik; soh-puh-]
1. Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep.
2. Of, relating to, or characterized by sleepiness or lethargy.
3. A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.
Examples:
1) Hamilton's voice droned on, hypnotic, soporific, the gloom beyond the windows like the backdrop of a waking dream. (T. Coraghessan Boyle, "Riven Rock")
2) They were almost an hour behind in their daily schedule, and both women looked tired after a soporific afternoon of three executive meetings. (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "News of a Kidnapping")
3) Happily, these three lullaby books offer the sort of comforting bedtime soporific that has delivered generations of children, young and older, into deep, safe slumber. (Lisa Shea, "New York Times", January 30, 1994)
Etymology:
"Soporific" is from French "soporifique", from Latin "sopor" ("a heavy sleep") + "-ficus" ("-fic,"), from "facere" ("to make").


sough
[SAU; SUHF] 1. To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind. 2. A soft, low rustling or sighing sound.
Examples:
1) At a recent visit to Marsha's grave in Rathdrum, as the wind soughed through the towering pines nearby, Marsha's brother Pat left a silk bluebird by her headstone to honor her love of the outdoors. (David Whitman, "Fields of Fire", U.S. News & World Report, September 3, 2001)
2) In the dark of winter, tin roofs sough with rain. (Les A. Murray, "Driving Through Sawmill Towns")
3) This voice she hears in the fields, in the sough of the wind among the trees, when measured and distant sounds fall upon her ears. (Ernest Renan, "The Poetry of the Celtic Races")
4) Gunfire, cannonade, and the weeping of bereft wives and mothers might fill the air of the disunited states, but the dominant sound in greater Manhattan would be the cheerful sough of money changing hands. (Bill Kauffman, "The Blue, The Gray, and Gotham", American Enterprise, July 2000)
Etymology:
"Sough" comes from Middle English "swoughen", from Old English "swogan".



sourpuss

• sour-puss
• sour
• puss

Someone who is cranky.
Etymology: Probably derived from the ancient word "buss" which means "face," esp. the lips. Over time, the word began to be pronounced as "puss," associating it with the cat.

southpaw
[SOUTH-paw]
left-hander; especially: a left-handed baseball pitcher
Example:
With the tying run on second, the manager decided to bring out his best southpaw from the bullpen to face the next two left- handed batters.
Etymology:
"Southpaw" is of obscure origin. A popular theory holds that it comes from the onetime position of ballparks in relation to the sun. Supposedly, late 19th-century ballparks were laid out so that the pitcher looked in a westerly direction when facing the batter. The throwing arm of a left-handed pitcher would then be to the south - hence the name "southpaw". This theory of its origin is undermined, however, by the fact that the original use of "southpaw" does not involve baseball at all. Rather, the term was used as early as 1848 to describe, simply, the left hand or a punch or blow given with the left hand. Today, we often use "southpaw" as a good-natured term for a left-handed person, but the word is sometimes viewed as stigmatizing by left-handed people.


space cadet

• space
• cadet

Someone who is generally unaware, or not paying attention, or out of touch with reality; someone who seems unable to respond appropriately to reality (as if under the influence of some narcotic drug). Example:
Suzie is a real space cadet - I don't think she even knows what day it is.
Etymology:
A 'cadet' is a student, usually at a military school, and 'space' is the place outside the earth's atmosphere, where the moon and the stars are. So a 'space cadet' is someone in training to float around in empty space, doing nothing but looking at the pretty stars.


sparrow
Any of a number of small songbirds.
Example:
You know this small brownish-gray bird called sparrow.
Etymology:
O.E. "spearwa", from P.Gmc. "sparwan" (cf. O.N. "spörr", O.H.G. "sparo", Ger. Sperling, Goth. "sparwa"), from PIE "sper-" (cf. Cornish "frau" = "crow;" O.Prus. "spurglis" = "sparrow;" Gk. "spergoulos" = "small field bird", "psar" = "starling").

speak in person

• speak
• in person
• person

face to face, not by telephone, mail or e-mail.
Example:
I can't discuss such important questions if I don't see your eyes. When can we speak in person?

speed networking

• speed
• networking
• speed networker
• networker
• speed network
• network
• pink slip party
• pink slip
• party
• pink
• slip

Also: speed-networking
A method of making a potential business contact by briefly talking to a series of people at an organised event and exchanging contact details.
Example:
...Speed networking, as it's more often known, is a relatively new urban trend, increasingly popular in a world where social "capital" - who we know and how they can help us - is prized. (The Guardian, 7th February 2005)
History, related words:
Speed networking is based on the idea that the usual way businesses, especially small businesses, gain new contacts or clients is by so-called networking - meeting to talk to people and exchange ideas. Traditional networking events, like conferences, are often not very productive because people tend to gravitate towards those they already know, and wouldn't normally walk up to absolute strangers, even though there are likely to be people in the room who would make promising contacts. In a dedicated speed networking event, people are given a structured environment in which they can talk to people they wouldn't otherwise have come into contact with, and can quickly decide whether there is a mutual interest without the need for polite or unnecessarily long conversations. The exact arrangements vary, but in a typical speed networking event, people are given five minutes or less to talk to a potential contact, and are then moved on - often to the sound of a buzzer. At the end of the meeting, business cards can be exchanged, thereby sowing the seeds for a new commercial relationship. Speed networking has in recent months proven very popular on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to the establishment of dedicated websites such as speed-networking.net <http://www.speed-networking.net/>. A related countable noun speed networker describes participants, although there is as yet only limited evidence for an intransitive verb speed network. Speed networking is of course modelled on speed-dating, a term that emerged in 1999, originating from a Los Angeles Jewish community. The more recent idea of combining business networking and speed-dating to form speed networking is also thought to have started in the US, though it seemed to emerge almost simultaneously in the UK as an innovative way to forge new business contacts. Another recent expression in a related context is pink slip party, used mainly in the US to refer to an organised event where unemployed people have the opportunity to meet potential employers. Pink slip in the expression refers to an official notice given to an employee detailing the termination of an employment. It also occurs informally as a transitive verb, pink-slip, meaning to give a termination of employment notice'.



speed-dating

• speed
• dating
• speed dater
• dater
• speed-date
• date

A method of meeting a potential romantic partner by briefly talking to a series of individuals at an organised event, and indicating whether you are interested in seeing any of them again Example: But now British men and women who lack the time to conduct a gentle courtship have a new way to find a partner. Welcome to the world of speed-dating, where young singles can meet a prospective partner on a dating conveyor belt' that allows them three minutes to decide if this is Mr or Ms Right. (The Observer, 26th January 2003) History, related words: Proponents of speed-dating argue that it only takes a few minutes to decide whether someone is romantically compatible, and that first impressions are usually permanent! The original idea of speed-dating is based on an organised event in which a group of men and women are rotated to meet each other for no more than eight minutes. They are then forced to move on to the next person when the minutes are up. At the end of the session, they indicate whether they are interested in any of the individuals they have met, and if there is a match, contact details are forwarded between them. The idea reputedly has a scientific basis: eight minutes is allegedly more than enough time to determine whether the range of a mate's hormones is complementary to your own, this being a key factor in so-called first impressions'. The speed-dating concept has been in existence since 1999, and originates with a Los Angeles rabbi, Yaacov Deyo, who introduced the idea in his Jewish community to help Jewish singles meet each other. The idea quickly spread outside of Jewish communities and across the United States, and in the following year reached London. The craze of speed-dating then took off rapidly in the UK with the establishment of dedicated websites (e.g. www.speeddater.co.uk <http://www.speeddater.co.uk>) and the company Speed Dater Ltd, who continue to stage events in London and across the United Kingdom.
Media and online interest in the craze has rapidly spawned the derivatives speed dater for referring to participants, and speed-date as a compound verb. There's also evidence for speed date used as a noun, referring to the event itself, or to a partner at such an event. Though the original concept was of an eight-minute encounter between participants, typical events in 2003 only allow three minutes per person - less time than it takes to boil an egg!


spermodynamics
Male fertility measuring, which is based on techniques used to measure airflow.
Examples:
1) Dr Richard Green, of Glasgow University, said: "We can produce a reading from a sample in a few minutes, one that reveals just how potent the donor is likely to be. Essentially, we have developed a new science - spermodynamics. The device is important as it means we can quickly spot if it is a woman or man who is the source of an infertility problem and take action to help." (The "Mirror", 8 Mar. 2004)
2) Called spermodynamics, this technique will outdate the current method that is used for fertility testing, which is seen as subjective. The Computer Aided Sperm Analyser (Casa) works by flashing laser pulses through a sperm sample, as the movement of each sperm is measured, giving a result in minutes.
Etymology, history:
It's not every day that a researcher claims to have invented a new science, but that is the bold statement made recently by Dr Richard Green of Glasgow University's department of aerospace engineering. In a cross-disciplinary association that's unusually broad even by the standards of these collaborative days, his group worked with fertility experts at Sheffield University to apply techniques of their craft to the problem of determining the potency of sperm. The previous test required three separate checks by an andrologist that were time-consuming and subjective. But aerospace engineers, who have long used automated methods for counting smoke particles in the air flow inside wind tunnels, have now applied the techniques to fertility investigations by zapping the sample with a laser and so tracking the movement of individual sperm. Dr Green is clearly a master of the neologism; not only has he coined "spermodynamics" for the new process, but he is quoted as saying that "in a sense, we are providing a man with a reading of his 'vigourosity'".



sphairistike

• sticky
• lawn tennis
• lawn
• tennis
• tenyes

A ball game that developed into lawn tennis.
Example:
To get his new product off the gound with an eye-catching name, Wingfield dipped into Greek history and came up with "sphairistike" (meaning "ball-game"), an obsure outdoor sport of the ancients.
History, synonyms:
This is the name of an ancient Greek ball game that Major Walter Wingfield borrowed for the recreation he patented in 1874, in part a conflation of elements borrowed from earlier games: the net from badminton, the ball from fives, and the scoring from racquets. The word itself is originated from the Greek words meaning "sphere" and "stick", loosely meaning "ball-game", and an earlier version was known by the French as "Jeu de Paume". Most converted it into a three-syllable word that roughly rhymed with "pike". This was soon abbreviated either to "sticky" or the mock-French "stick?". However, in his patent, Major Wingfield also called it "lawn tennis", a name he chose to distinguish it from the much older indoor game often called court tennis. A modified version of his game immediately became hugely popular under his alternative name, though it was soon abbreviated just to "tennis", so that the aficionados of the older game in snobbish retaliation started to call theirs "real tennis", a term later mistakenly converted to "royal tennis" in Britain and some other countries.
The word "tennis" had been used to describe other versions of the game since about 1500, and even earlier as "tenyes" (1300's) possibly from the French "tenez", from "tenir" - "to hold or receive" (the serve). Interestingly, the language and history writer Bill Bryson maintains that Arthur Balfour, prior to becoming British Prime Minister, suggested the name "Lawn Tennis". Arguably it was the 'portability' of the sphairistike equipment set that was responsible for the game's speedy introduction (by Mary Outerbridge) to the USA, also in 1874. She obtained a "sphairistike" set while on holiday in Bermuda and took it back to her Staten Island home. Meanwhile, the Wimbledon Club adopted "lawn tennis" after hosting a tennis event ostensibly to raise money for a pony-drawn roller for its croquet lawns in 1877.


spick and span

• spick
• span
• span-new
• new

quite new; that is, as new as a spike or nail just made and a chip just split; brand-new.
Example: a spick and span novelty
Etymology & History:
The oldest form seems to have been "spann-nyr", which is Old Norse for a fresh chip of wood, one just carved from timber by the woodman's axe, so the very epitome of something new. ("Nyr" is our modern "new", while "spann" is a chip, the source of our "spoon", an implement that was originally always made from wood, so that "wooden spoon" is a retronym.) By about 1300 the Old Norse phrase had started to appear in English in the form "span-new", a form that lasted into the nineteenth century. This evolved by the sixteenth century into an elaborated form similar to the modern one: "spick and span new", still with the old sense of something so new as to be pristine and unused. "Spick" here is a nail or spike. This form seems to have been inspired by a Dutch expression, "spiksplinternieuw", which referred to a ship that was freshly built, so with all-new nails and timber. It is first found in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives in 1579, "They were all in goodly gilt armours, and brave purple cassocks apon [upon] them, spicke, and spanne newe." By the middle of the following century, it had been shortened to our modern "spick and span". It had also shifted sense to our current one, for something so neat and clean that it looks new and unused. Samuel Pepys is the first recorded user, in his diary for 15 November 1665: "My Lady Batten walking through the dirty lane with new spicke and span white shoes." In modern times, it was borrowed in the United States by Procter and Gamble as a trademark for a household cleaning product, "Spic and Span", whose spelling has led some people to wonder whether it might be a disguised racial slur, from the derogatory term "Spic" for a Hispanic person. That's certainly not true, but the trademark (and the slang term) have together encouraged an alternative spelling of "spic" in the phrase.
Synonym: span-new


spiel

• bonspiel

[SPEEL]
Noun
1. A voluble line of often extravagant talk; pitch.
2. (Scottish English) A a shortened form of "bonspiel," a name for a match or tournament of the icy game of curling.
Verb
3. Talk extravagantly.
4. Play music.
Examples:
1) We let the time-share salesman give us his opening spiel, but when he got to the high-pressure sales tactics, we cut him short and made it clear that we were not interested.
2) He said, critics spiel away about technical accomplishment. (J.Fowles, "The collector")
Etymology:
Namelt the verb meaning "to play music", in fact, was the word's original definition - one it shares with its German root, "spielen."


spifflicate

• spiflicate
• destroy

Also: spiflicate
To treat roughly or severely.
Synonym: destroy.
History:
The dictionary senses given for this now rather rare word hardly do justice to a slang term that has had several meanings. Its origins lie in the eighteenth century in Britain, though where its first users got it from remains a mystery. The experts hazard a guess that it was probably a fanciful conflation - suggestions include "stifle" + "suffocate" and "spill" + "castigate". You can spell it with one "f" or two, as the fancy takes you, though when it first appeared it had only one. Over half a century, it rapidly developed from its initial sense of "confound, silence or dumbfound", through "handle roughly or treat severely", to "crush, destroy or kill". T W E Holdsworth borrowed the last of these in Campaign of the Indus of 1840: "Of the enemy, about 500 were killed, and more than 1500 made prisoners; and of the remainder, who made their escape over the walls, the greater part were cut down by the Dragoons, or spifflicated by the Lancers." Despite these gory associations, by about 1900 it had softened in Britain into a jokey term for some unspecified but vaguely unpleasant punishment with which one might threaten a naughty child ("I'll spifflicate you if you won't be quiet!"). In America at around the same date, the word took on another sense still, that of being drunk. An early example is from the sporting section of the "Washington Post" of July 1904: "They forced his teeth open, and, while a couple of them sat on his chest, they poured about a quart of corn liquor into his system. He was so spifflicated before they let him up that they had to lift him bodily and plant him in a seat."


spim

• spIM
• SPIM
• IM spam
• IM
• spam
• Strategic Physical Information Model

1. a simul