t
(SMS) tea


ta
(SMS) thanks again


tabby
A domestic cat with a striped and mottled coat.
Etymology: The silks created by weavers in Baghdad, Iraq, were inspired by the varied colors and markings of cat coats. These fabrics were called "tabby" by European traders.

tabloid
In 1878, Henry Wellcome went into partnership with his fellow American Silas Burroughs to set up a pharmaceutical business in London. They needed a word for the highly compressed pills that his firm produced. "Tablet" wouldn't serve, as it was a much older term (literally a little table) used since the sixteenth century to mean any kind of solid medicine made up in small flat rectangles. Wellcome created "tabloid" from "tablet" plus the ending "-oid" that meant "having the form or likeness of"; this was registered as a trademark in 1884. As well as drugs, the company used the brand name for other products, such as photographic chemicals and tea (though presumably not sold in tablet form). The problem came near the end of the century when people started to use the word for anything of compressed compass, for example for the Daily Mail, a newspaper in half-pint format that had been first published in May 1896 under the slogan "The penny newspaper for one halfpenny". This was the precursor of all modern tabloids, with an emphasis on short stories simply told, on sport and human interest topics, and with the innovation of a women's page. The first recorded use of "tabloid" for this style of journalism is from the very beginning of the twentieth century, from the Westminster Gazette of 1 January 1901. In 1903, Burroughs Wellcome sued Thompson and Capper, a Manchester firm, for using their trademark without permission. In its defence, that firm pointed out that "tabloid" was by then widely used, mentioning recent issues of Punch, Tatler, Nature, and the Daily Mirror (another tabloid, founded that year), which had employed phrases such as, e.g., "opera in tabloid", "tabloid melodrama", "knowledge in tabloid form", "tabloid missives" and "modern art in tabloid". Burroughs Wellcome, it was argued, had thereby lost all rights to "tabloid" and that the action was "an attempt on the part of the plaintiff to prevent the proper development of the English language". Burroughs Wellcome won; the judge agreed that the word had indeed acquired a secondary sense of "a compressed form or dose of anything", but that it didn't interfere with the firm's trademark rights. These days, of course, the sense of a type of tablet has long since passed out of use and "tabloid" refers solely to a small-format popular newspaper. Except, of course, when it's a broadsheet in disguise.


tabula rasa

• tabula
• rasa

[tab-yuh-luh-RAH-zuh]
1. The mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions.
2. Something existing in its original pristine state.
Example:
Our newly built house, with its unpainted walls, is a tabula rasa awaiting our decorative touches.
History:
Philosophers have been arguing that babies are born with minds that are essentially blank slates since the days of Aristotle. (Later, some psychologists took up the case as well.) English speakers have called that initial state of mental blankness "tabula rasa" (a term taken from a Latin phrase that translates as "smooth or erased tablet") since the 16th century, but it wasn't until British philosopher John Locke championed the concept in his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" in 1690 that the term gained widespread popularity in our language. In later years, a figurative sense of the term emerged, referring to something that exists in its original state and that has yet to be altered by outside forces.


tacit

• implied

an adjective meaning "expressed without words"
Synonym: implied
Etymology:
The word is a descendent of the verb "tacere," meaning "to be silent". "Tacit" has been used since 1576.

taciturn
temperamentally disinclined to talk
Example:
Upon hearing that soft-spoken Calvin Coolidge - arguably the most taciturn president in U.S. history - had died, Dorothy Parker quipped, "How could they tell?".
Etymology:
We first find "taciturn" in a satiric drama written in 1734 by James Miller, a British clergyman educated at Oxford. A character describes a nephew thus: "When he was little, he never was what they call Roguish or Waggish, but was always close, quiet, and taciturn." It seems we waited unduly long to adopt this useful descendent of the verb "tacere", meaning "to be silent" - we were much quicker to adopt other words from the "tacere" family. We've been using "tacit", an adjective meaning "expressed without words" or "implied," since 1576. And we've had the noun "taciturnity", meaning "habitual silence", since at least 1450.


taciturnity
habitual silence
Etymology:
The word is a descendent of the verb "tacere," meaning "to be silent". "Taciturnity" has been used since at least 1450.


tag along

• tag
• along

1. To follow someone around.
2. A person who follows someone around.
Examples:
1) You're going to the new coffee shop? Do you mind if I tag along? 2) My little brother is such a tag along - he follows me everywhere I go!
Etymology:
A 'tag' is a piece of paper that hangs from something - for example, there is a 'tag' on a new pair of pants to tell you how much they cost. 'Along' means 'with' or 'beside'. So to 'tag along' means to go with somebody but to follow their lead, to 'hang' on them as they go about their business.


take at one's word

• take smb. at his word
• take at
• word
• take
• take up on
• take smb. up on smth.
• take up

To believe everything someone says; to act on what is said.
Example:
If you say you never watch TV, I'll take you at your word and throw this TV-set out of the window.
Synonym: take (smb.) up on (smth.)

take it on the chin

• take it on
• chin
• take it
• on the chin
• take

1. To be badly beaten or hurt.
Example:
Our football team really took it on the chin today. they are all bumps and bruises. Mother and I took it on the chin in the card game.
2. To accept without complaint something bad that happens to you; accept trouble or defeat calmly.
Example:
A good football player can take it on the chin when his team loses.
Synonym: take things on the chin

take its toll

• take
• toll

To be damaging or harmful, cause loss or destruction.
Examples:
1) The civil war has taken its toll on both sides.
2) The heavy truck traffic has taken its toll on the highways.
3) His new job and the long hours have begun to take their toll on his health.
Etymology:
This expression transfers the taking of "toll", a tribute or tax, to exacting other costs. [Late 1800s.]
Incidentally, though the tolling of bells is often associated with death (remember John Donne: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee"), the verb comes from another source, probably a special use of the dialect "toll", meaning "to drag or pull", which was transferred from the pulling of the bell rope to the sound of the bell.



take public

• take the company public
• take
• company
• public

sell shares in a company to the general public
Examples:
1) We decided it was necessary to take our company public in order to raise money to expand our facilities.
2) After dinner he made an announcement he would soon regret: he was going to take the company public.
Synonym:
take the company public
Explanation:
In American business, there are single proprietor businesses, partnerships, and Corporations. Small businesses are usually one of the first two. When the business starts to get bigger, the owner incorporates and sells the stock in the company, or takes (the company) public. It has its advantages and disadvantages.


take the bull by the horns

• take by
• take
• bull
• horns
• horn

To deal with a problem directly and resolutely; to confront a problem or challenge.
Examples:
1) I took the bull by the horns and finished the assignment a week early. 2) If you don't take the bull by the horns and ask your boss for a raise, you'll never get one.
Etymology: This phrase comes from astrology. Taurus, the bull, has a reputation for trouble and difficulty. If you grab the horns of this difficult beast and bring it under control, it's like dealing directly and forcefully with your problems.


take things on the chin

• take things
• on the chin
• take things easy
• take it easy
• take
• thing
• things
• chin
• easy

To accept without complaint something bad that happens to you; accept trouble or defeat calmly.
Example:
The doctor says I'm supposed to take things on the chin for a while.
Synonyms: take things easy, take it easy


take up on

• take smb. up on smth.
• take smb. up on
• take up
• take smb. up
• take
• take smb. at his word
• take at one's word
• word

1. To accept something from somebody; to accept somebody's offer or wager. Example:
You've offered to help me, and I'll take you up on that sometime.
2. To take someone at his word.
Example:
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken up on.


take-home pay


talisman
[TAL-iss-mun]
1. An object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune.
2. Something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects.
Example:
When the pop quiz was announced, Sam reached for his lucky penny, hoping the talisman would bring him success.
Etymology:
The Englishmen might have borrowed "talisman" from French, Spanish, or Italian; all three include similar-looking words for a lucky charm. Those three terms derive from a single Arabic word for a charm, "tilsam." "Tilsam" in turn can be traced to the ancient Greek verb "talein," which means "to initiate into the mysteries."


talk trash

• talk
• trash

To use bad words while competing; to try to intimidate an opponent with foul language.
Examples:
1) He's always talking trash on the basketball court. 2) The other team was talking trash the whole game, but we beat them anyway.
Etymology: This phrase comes from basketball. 'Trash' refers to worthless or dirty things, and 'talk' refers to speech. Some players curse and say bad things in order to distract or intimidate the other team.

tamale

• chili
• guacamole
• chipotle

[tuh-MAH-lee]
Cornmeal dough rolled with ground meat or beans seasoned usually with chili, wrapped usually in corn husks, and steamed.
Example:
As... the Swedish winter grew bitter and dark, I desperately needed comfort food. Enchiladas and tamales would have done just fine. (Edward Barrios Acevedo, Scripps Howard News Service, March 31, 2005)
Etymology, related words:
"Tamale" gives you one; it came to English (by way of Mexican Spanish) from the Nahuatl - a group of languages spoken by native peoples of Mexico and Central America - "tamalli," a word for steamed cornmeal dough. Add to the menu "chili" (from "chilli," identifying all those fiery peppers); "chocolate" (from "chocolatl," first used for a beverage made from chocolate and water); "guacamole" (from "ahuacatl," meaning "avocado," plus "molli," meaning "sauce"); and "tomato" (from "tomatl"). Top it all off with a word that's new to the English dictionary: "chipotle" (a smoked and dried pepper), from "chilli" + "poctli" (meaning "something smoked").


tanorexia
The state of always feeling "not tan enough"; the condition of being addicted to tanning.
Example:
Females in their teens and twenties have been swallowed into a new beauty craze  tanorexia.
Etymology:
The term can be traced back at least to the mid-1990s; though it is known from American sources, the majority are British. The obvious pun on "anorexia" does make a kind of sense, since the Greek root of the latter word is "orexis" ("appetite"), so that "tanorexia" might be thought of as an excess appetite for tanning. The word has been coined by doctors alarmed at the spiralling numbers of youngsters putting themselves at risk of skin cancer as they chase the perfect skin colour.


tantamount

• tantamount

[TANT-uh-mount]
equivalent in value, significance, or effect
Example:
The boss had told Morris that he was being reassigned to the shipping department, and he knew that it was tantamount to a demotion.
History:
"Tantamount" comes from the Anglo-French phrase "tant amunter," meaning "to amount to as much." This phrase comes from the Old French "tant," meaning "so much" or "as much," and "amounter," meaning "to ascend" or "to add up to." When "tantamount" first entered English, it was used similarly to the Anglo-French phrase, as a verb meaning "to be equivalent." "His not denying tant-amounteth to the affirming of the matter," wrote clergyman Thomas Fuller in 1659, for example. There was also a noun "tantamount" in the 17th century, but the adjective is the only commonly used form of the term nowadays.


tapping the Admiral

• tap the Admiral
• tapping
• the Admiral
• tap
• Admiral
• suck the monkey
• sucking the monkey
• suck
• monkey
• sucking

(Royal Navy slang)
1. surreptitious drinking
2. getting an unauthorized drink of rum via a surreptitious straw
3. take a small quantity of strong drink
Etymology & Synonym:
Various versions exist of this wild tale but all purport to describe what happened to the body of Admiral Nelson after his death at the battle of Trafalgar. His remains, it is said, were put in a cask of rum to preserve them on the voyage back to Britain. Sailors who would do anything for a drink bored a hole in the cask with a gimlet and drew off quantities of the rum through a straw. So many did so that when the body arrived in London the cask was found to be nearly empty. Though Nelson's body was preserved in this way, albeit in brandy not rum, the story is clearly a folk legend. Similar ghoulish tales have been told in many circumstances, including one of a couple who bought a house that had once been an inn and who were delighted to find that one of the old casks in the cellar still held rum. Only after they had emptied it and cut the cask in two to make plant containers for the garden did they find the well-preserved remains of a man inside. Jan Harald Brunvand, the American academic who has made a lifelong study of such legends, has told versions in one of his books, including a related one dating back six hundred years about some tomb robbers in Egypt. Other tales tell of containers holding similarly preserved bodies of monkeys or apes that spring a leak on their way from Africa to museums; the leaking spirits are consumed with a gusto that turns to horror when the truth of the situation emerges. Though the story about Lord Nelson is folklore, like all good tales it's grounded in an acute understanding of the cupidity of human beings, provides a moral lesson, and is based on real situations. Important persons who died at sea in centuries past did indeed have their corpses preserved in a barrel of spirits so they could be brought home for proper burial (embalming didn't arrive until the 1860s and even then wasn't available at sea). A related expression, "suck the monkey" was current in the London docks in the 19th century to describe the practice of boring a hole in a cask of spirits to steal the contents; this might conceivably have built on the tale about monkeys' bodies preserved in casks of spirits, though it is more likely to have had a different origin. The expression "tapping the Admiral" appeared in the Royal Navy in the late 19th century. We may deride the folk tale about sailors sipping from the cask containing Nelson's body, but it does seem to be the origin of the expression.


tarradiddle

• taradiddle
• diddle
• didrian

[tair-uh-DID-uhl]
Also: taradiddle
1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.
3. (archaic) the act or time of tarrying; delay; lateness
Examples:
1) Oh please! Even in the parallel universe, tarradiddles of this magnitude cannot go unchallenged. ("Taxation in the parallel universe", Sunday Business, June 11, 2000)
2) Mr B did not tell a whopper. This was no fib, plumper, porker or tarradiddle. There was definitely no deceit, mendacity or fabrication. ("Looking back", Western Mail, May 11, 2002)
3) And after two days' tarriance there, they returned.
Etymology:
The true origin of "taradiddle" is unknown, but there's a lot of balderdash about its history. Some folks try to connect it to the verb "diddle" (meaning "to cheat"), but that hasn't been proven and may turn out to be poppycock. One may hear some tommyrot about it coming from the Old English verb "didrian", which meant "to deceive", but that couldn't be true unless "didrian" was somehow suddenly revived after eight or nine centuries of disuse. No one even knows when "taradiddle" was first used, though it must have been long before it showed up in a 1796 dictionary of colloquial speech (where it was defined as a synonym of "fib").


tarred with the same brush

• be tarred with the same brush
• tar with the same brush
• painted with the same brush
• be painted with the same brush
• paint with the same brush
• tarred with
• the same brush
• tarred
• same brush
• tar with
• tar
• same
• brush

1. Not better, not at all more desirable
2. Include in the same group, generalize
Synonym:
painted with the same brush
History, examples:
There's nothing directly racist in its history, though there are such huge sensitivities in the United States and elsewhere over any expression that sounds as though it might be (as, for example, with words and phrases such as "niggardly", "call a spade a spade", and so on). As it happens, it doesn't have anything directly to do with tarring and feathering, either, which is an American vigilante punishment known from the eighteenth century (it's first recorded in Boston) and wasn't usually a punishment of blacks by whites but of whites by other whites. The origin is the verb "to tar", meaning to defile or dirty, known from the early years of the seventeenth century. The idiom appears in print first in 1818, in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, "Rob Roy": "They are a' tarr'd wi' the same stick - rank Jacobites and Papists." Our modern form appears in William Cobbett's "Rural Rides" in 1823: "'You are all tarred with the same brush', said the sensible people of Maidstone." The idea behind it is that two individuals who have been liberally daubed or painted with the same tar brush look much the same and so appear to have the same characteristics. The links of the colour black with matters that were detestable, dishonourable or evil also added to the negative sense.

tatterdemalion
[tat-uhr-dih-MAYL-yuhn; -MAY-lee-uhn]
1. A person dressed in tattered or ragged clothing.
Synonym: ragamuffin.
2. Tattered; ragged.
Examples:
1) Last time peasant blouses surfaced, in the 1960s and '70s, they were part of an epidemic of Indian bedspread dresses, homemade blue-jean skirts, Army surplus jackets, Greek bookbag purses and love beads, the whole eclectic tatterdemalion mix meant to express egalitarian sentiments and countercultural solidarity with underdogs everywhere. (Patricia McLaughlin, "The peasant look," Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, April 25, 1999)
2) I was expecting a wild hair, clanking jewelry, a tatterdemalion velvet cape from whose folds wafted the scent of incense, a house full of candles, dream catchers, cats, and bad art. (David Rakoff, "Fraud")
3) To my ear, though, the prose has the tatterdemalion feel of something hooked together by commas, tacked together by periods. (Brad Leithauser,"Capturer of Hearts," New York Times, April 7, 1996)
Etymology:
"Tatterdemalion" derives from "tatter" + "-demalion", of unknown origin, though perhaps from Old French "maillon" - "long clothes, swadding clothes" or Italian "maglia" - "undershirt."


tattoo
[ta-TOO]
1. A rapid, rhythmic drumming or rapping.
2. A beat of a drum, or sound of a trumpet or bugle, giving notice to soldiers to go to their quarters at night.
Examples:
1) A display of military exercises given as evening entertainment. Joss blew out her breath, stamped her feet in a short tattoo, and sat jiggling one leg. (John Casey, "The Half-life of Happiness")
2) There are more golf courses per person in Naples than anywhere else in the world, and in spite of the hot, angry weather everyone around the hotel was dressed to play, their cleated shoes tapping out a clickety-clickety-clickety tattoo on the sidewalks. (Susan Orlean, "The Orchid Thief")
3) With a steady tattoo of bad news beginning to offset what had been one of the most vibrant parts of the U.S. economy, "we are less optimistic than we were two months ago about the speed of the bounce back," Mr. Williams said. (Eduardo Porter, "California's Economic Slowdown Is Expected to Last Much Longer," Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2001)
Etymology:
"Tattoo" is an alteration of earlier "taptoo", from Dutch "taptoe" - "a tap(house)-shut," from "tap" ("faucet") + "toe" ("shut") - meaning, essentially, that the tavern is about to shut.
Trivia: The more familiar tattoo, "an indelible mark or figure made by puncturing the skin and introducing some pigment into the punctures," derives from entirely different roots. That tattoo comes from Tahitian "tatau".


tawdry

• tawdry lace
• lace

[TAW-dree]
1. Cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality.
Example:
Tom and Pam found themselves in an unfamiliar section of the city, walking by tawdry storefronts and shady bars.
2. Ignoble.
History, related words:
In the 7th century, Etheldreda, the queen of Northumbria, renounced her husband and her royal position for the veil of a nun. She was renowned for her saintliness and is traditionally said to have died of a swelling in her throat, which she took as a judgment upon her fondness for wearing necklaces in her youth. Her shrine became a principal site of pilgrimage in England. An annual fair was held in her honor on October 17th, and her name became simplified to St. Audrey. At these fairs various kinds of cheap knickknacks were sold, along with a type of necklace called "St. Audrey's lace," which by the 17th century had become altered to "tawdry lace." Eventually, "tawdry" came to be used to describe anything cheap and gaudy that might be found at these fairs or anywhere else.


tbc

• 2bc

(SMS) to be continued


tear up the pea patch

• tearing up the pea patch
• tear up
• pea patch
• tear
• pea
• patch
• rage
• storm
• brawl
• riot
• kick up
• kick up a row
• row
• make a row

go on a rampage; behave outrageously / violently; get / be violent; be in a rage, be ranting and raving, be mad with rage
Synonyms:
rage, storm; brawl, riot, kick up a row, make a row
Example:
Changes will have to be introduced carefully. Please avoid "tearing up the pea patch".
History:
Sportscaster Walter "Red" Barber was from the South, and most Southern boys lard their speech with homely colloquial phrases. Black-eyed peas are a favourite Southern dish, and almost everyone has a pea patch. If a stray dog or cow broke through the fence and got into one of these pea patches, a great deal of damage was done. One might hear such an expression as 'That critter is tearing up the pea patch!' It is an old expression down South and 'Red' Barber didn't create it. He popularized it. In describing a 'rhubarb' (baseball slang for a fight among players of opposing teams) Barber would exclaim, "They're tearing up the pea patch!" His listeners got the picture right away. The first appearance of the expression in print was in a famous short story "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber, published in the New Yorker in 1942: "In the halls, in the elevator, even in his own office, into which she romped now and then like a circus horse, she was constantly shouting these silly questions at him. 'Are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch? Are you tearing up the pea patch?' "



techie

• technology

[tEk-ee]
Someone who knows a lot about technology and computers; a computer programmer or enthusiast.
Examples:
1) My pal Eddy is a techie at Distance Learning, Inc. 2) Our computer firm is looking for a few techies to finish a big programming project.
Etymology:
'Tech' is a common short form of 'technology', and the '-ie' at the end signifies that the word applies to a person. This term emerged in the early 1980s, as computers became increasingly popular.


tecticolous

• tecticole

Plants or invertebrates (animals without backbones) growing or living on roofs.
Example:
In 2002, "English Nature" commissioned a survey of tecticolous invertebrates on a number of roofs in the London area.
Etymology:
The word "tecticolous" and its derivative "tecticole" is coined by a botanist R.M. Payne (2000, from the Latin "tectum" - "a roof"), as an analog to the similar terms "rupestral" for plants growing on rocks and "viatical" for plants growing on roads.

teenie weenie

• teenie
• weenie

Very small.
Example:
The teenie-weenie plot was uncovered by French dadaist Toulouse Le Grandfig.


teetotaler

• Teetotalism

[TEE-TOH-tuh-lur]
One pledged to entire abstinence from all intoxicating drinks.
Examples:
1) Her son, in his idealized recollections, would describe her as a near teetotaler, hardly venturing beyond a lady-like glass of champagne. (A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax, "Bogart")
2) Her father, previously a teetotaler, had begun drinking, and his health had taken a turn for the worse. (Stephen A. Black, "Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy")
Etymology, related words:
"Teetotaler" is from "tee" (the letter "t", as in "total") + "total" + "-er". "Teetotalism" is the principle or practice of complete abstinence from alcoholic drinks.


teetotum

• jenny-spinner
• whirligig
• scopperil
• dreidel
• jenny
• spinner

A small spinning top.
Example:
"We spun round and round for a few seconds, like a teetotum, I steering the whole time for all I was worth, and then the current dragged the canoe ignominiously down river, tail foremost." (Mary Kingsley, "Travels in West Africa")
History & Etymology:
Strictly and originally, it wasn't just any spinning top, but one with four sides, each with a letter on it that decided the outcome of a player's turn in a game. The letters were conventionally TADN, the initials of Latin words, one being "totum", take everything from the pot. This supplied the old name of the device, the initial "T", expanded to "tee", being added later. The other letters stood for "aufer", take one stake from the pot, "depone", put one stake into the pot, and "nihil", do nothing. The letters were later changed to fit English words, but the old name remained, though it can sometimes mean a four-sided die instead. Despite its form, "teetotum" has no connection with "teetotal". It is an ancient device, once common in adult gambling, but by the nineteenth century was largely restricted to children's games. The device was so familiar that it was commonly used to refer to the act of spinning around. It appears in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass": "'Are you a child or a teetotum?' the Sheep said, as she took up another pair of needles. 'You'll make me giddy soon, if you go on turning round like that.'" It isn't surprising that the word should have taken on the broader sense of spinning top, losing the connection with a game of chance.
Synonyms:
The toy has had many local or dialect names, such as "jenny-spinner", "whirligig", and "scopperil", the last of these once known in the Midlands and North of England; these names often referred to an improvised top, perhaps made from a button with a piece of wood through it, rather than to a method of playing a game of chance. Jews will know "dreidel" (from a Yiddish word related to German "drehen", to turn), similarly a four-sided spinning top that was used especially for a children's game played at Hanukkah. This has the Hebrew letters nun, gimel, he and shin on it. The letters spell out the initials of the Hebrew phrase "a great miracle happened there" (the miracle being the tiny amount of oil that burned for eight days in the Temple in Jerusalem) but in the game meant "do nothing", "take all", "take half" and "put in".


telegenic
[tel-uh-JEN-ik]
Well-suited to the medium of television; especially: having an appearance and manner that are markedly attractive to television viewers.
Example:
The advertising agency is always on the lookout for telegenic people for its commercials.
Etymology, related words, more examples:
"Telegenic," which first appeared in print in 1939, is essentially a compound formed out of "television" and "photogenic." "Photogenic" is also the word that caused the addition of a new sense to "-genic," namely "suitable for production or reproduction by a given medium", as in the occasionally seen "videogenic": "The '80s were a time that created a lot of videogenic bands who weren't necessarily compelling live artists...." (Ron Shapiro, quoted in "Entertainment Weekly", September 25, 1998). "Telegenic" may seem like a word that would primarily refer to people, but there is evidence for telegenic events (such as popular sports), objects, and responses. Occasionally, one even sees reference to a telegenic attitude or other intangible.


telegraphese
[tel-uh-graf-EEZ]
Language characterized by the terseness and ellipses that are common in telegrams.
Example:
The translator couldn't keep up with the speaker, so what we heard of the speech sounded like telegraphese.
History:
E-mail's the thing nowadays, but in the 19th century the way to send a quick message to someone far away was, of course, the telegraph. The original French namers of the telegraph ("telegraphe" in French) took a lesson from the Greeks: Greek "tele-" means "distant," and "-graphe" traces to a Greek verb meaning "to write." Later, a message sent by telegraph was dubbed in English a "telegram" (from Greek "gramma," meaning "letter"). Telegrams were a great innovation, but they were expensive. You had to pay by the word, so folks created a kind of shorthand that let them keep their missives brief. By the late 1800s, "telegraphese" was being used for any language that was as terse as the clipped and cryptic style used in telegrams.


teleological

• teleology
• teleologist

[tel-ee-uh-LAH-jih-kul]
Exhibiting or relating to design or purpose, especially in nature.
Example:
"What is the true purpose of life's voyage?" wrote John R. Illingworth in 1907, posing what he termed "the great teleological question."
History, related words:
"Teleological" (which comes to us by way of New Latin from the Greek root "tele-, telos," meaning "end or purpose") and its close relative "teleology" both entered English in the 18th century, followed by "teleologist" in the 19th century. "Teleology" has the basic meaning "the study of ends or purposes." A teleologist attempts to understand the purpose of something by looking at its results. A teleological philosopher might argue that we should judge whether an act is good or bad by seeing if it produces a good or bad result, and a teleological explanation of evolutionary changes claims that all such changes occur for a definite purpose.


temerarious
[tem-uh-RAIR-ee-uhs]
Recklessly or presumptuously daring; rash.
Examples:
1) Becket's slayers insist that the king had indeed authorized or directed murder, an interpretation fortified by Henry's known enmity toward the temerarious priest for protesting the subordination of ecclesiastical to secular authority. (Bruce Fein, "Free speech or call to violence?" Washington Times, April 10, 2001)
2) I have confessed myself a temerarious theologian, and in that passage from boyhood to manhood I ranged widely in my search for some permanently satisfying Truth. (H. G. Wells, "The New Machiavelli")
Etymology:
"Temerarious" comes from Latin "temerarius" ("rash"), from "temere" ("rashly, heedlessly").


temerity
[tuh-MER-uh-tee] Unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger; rashness.
Examples:
1) The elaborate caution with which the British commander now proceeded stands out in striking contrast with the temerity of his advance upon Bunker Hill in the preceding year. (John Fiske, "Washington's Great Campaign of 1776", The Atlantic, January 1889)
2) When English merchants had the temerity to set up a trading post or 'factory' - junior merchants were known as factors - the Dutchmen defended their monopoly by massacring them. (Anthony Read and David Fisher, "The Proudest Day")
3) Drivers with the temerity to accelerate out of turns are likely to encounter torque steer, an unsettling glitch in control as the engine fights to take charge of the steering. (Peter Passell, "Mitsubishi Diamante: Back From Down Under", New York Times, February 23, 1997)
4) Throughout the anti-trust trial its executives treated the courts and the US government with sneering contempt, coupled with a ratty annoyance that any public authority should have the temerity to interfere in its business. (John Naughton, "Gates must not win at monopoly", The Observer, October 28, 2001)
Etymology:
"Temerity" comes from Latin "temeritas", from "temere" ("blindly, rashly").


tempest in a teapot

• a tempest in a teapot
• tempest
• teapot

A tempest is a very large storm, and a teapot is quite small. We use this expression when a large commotion is made over something pretty little.
Example:
"Being Rapunzel for Halloween was my idea. Mandy stole my idea, and I'm never going to speak to her again," Janice shouted.
"Don't make a tempest in a teapot," said Janice's sister. "A costume isn't worth losing your best friend over."

temporize

• temporizing

[TEM-puh-ryz]
1. To be indecisive or evasive in order to gain time or delay action.
2. To comply with the time or occasion; to yield to prevailing opinion or circumstances; to act to suit the time or occasion.
3. To engage in discussions or negotiations so as to gain time (usually followed by 'with').
4. To come to terms (usually followed by 'with').
Examples:
1) The best Dukakis game plan would seem to be to take a leaf from Jesse's book: make no final deals, temporize, and talk it to death. (John McLaughlin, "What to do with Jesse?", National Review, October 14, 1988)
2) But when it comes to paying out claims, too many third-party providers stall, balk and temporize. (Stacie Zoe Berg, "Rx for reluctant health insurers," Insight on the News, September 22, 1997)
3) On the big issues, Reagan rejected the importuning of his senior aides. He refused to temporize on the 1981 tax cut that ended Jimmy Carter's stagflation. At Reykjavik in 1985, he turned down State Department advice for an arms deal and stood fast to open the way for the Soviet collapse. (Robert Novak, "For the Great Communicator, presidency was about big dreams," Chicago Sun-Times, June 2004)
4) The only alternative policy is to temporize, to make a series of concessions to North Korea as a way to buy time. (Charles Krauthammer, "U.S. should appease N. Korea - temporarily," Deseret News, March 9, 2003)
5) In the end, the price that was paid was tragically so much higher than it would have been if the democracies had shed their illusions that they could temporize with evil. (Mortimer B. Zuckerman, "It's time to fight back," US News & World Report, September 7, 1998)
Etymology, related words, explanation:
"Temporize" derives from Medieval Latin "temporizare" ("to pass the time"), from Latin "tempus, tempor-" ("time"). It is related to "temporary". ("Tempus" is also an ancestor of such words as "tempo," "contemporary," and "temporal.") If you need to buy some time, you might resort to temporizing - but you probably won't win admiration for doing so. "Temporize" can have a somewhat negative connotation. For instance, a political leader faced with a difficult issue might temporize by talking vaguely about possible solutions without actually doing anything. The point of such temporizing is to avoid taking definite - and possibly unpopular - action, in hopes that the problem will somehow go away. But the effect is often just to make matters worse.


tendentious
[ten-DEN-shus]
Marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view.
Synonym: biased.
Example:
I always suspected I was getting a highly tendentious version of the town's notorious family feud from my mother, who worked for one of the families for many years.
Etymology:
"Tendentious" is one of several words English speakers can choose when they want to suggest that someone has made up his or her mind in advance. You may be partial to "predisposed" or prone to favor "partisan," but whatever your leanings, you'll benefit from adding "tendentious" to your repertoire. A derivative of the Medieval Latin "tendentia," meaning "tendency," plus the English suffix "-ious," "tendentious" has been used in English as an adjective for biased attitudes since at least 1900.


tenderfoot

• tender-foot
• newcomer
• fledgeling
• fledgling
• starter
• neophyte
• freshman
• newbie
• entrant
• novice
• beginner
• tyro
• apprentice
• greenhorn
• rookie
• newbie

A tenderfoot is a person who doesn't have very much experience at something.
Example:
After Pete and Joe had pitched their tent, Pete began to hoist the food bag into a tree.
"What are you doing that for?"asked Joe.
"So the raccoons and bears don't get your breakfast, tenderfoot," replied Pete, laughing.
Synonyms:
newcomer, fledgeling, fledgling, starter, neophyte, freshman, newbie, entrant; novice, beginner, tyro, apprentice; (informal) greenhorn, rookie, newbie.

tenebrous
[TEN-uh-bruhs]
Dark; gloomy.
Examples:
1) He found the Earl, who is eight feet tall and has the family trait of a Cyclops eye, standing stock still, dressed from head to foot in deepest black, in one of the most tenebrous groves in all his haunted domains. (Peter Simple, "At Mountwarlock," Daily Telegraph, March 20, 1998)
2) We are so used to the tenebrous atmosphere that can be created in indoor theatres that it's a shock to realise that this murkiest of tragedies first saw the literal light of day at the Globe theatre. (Paul Taylor, "Cool, calm, disconnected," Independent, June 7, 2001)
3) And lurking behind our every move is the knowledge of our own mortality. It gives life its edgy disquiet, its tenebrous underside. (Douglas Kennedy, "Sudden death," Independent, July 3, 1999)
Etymology:
"Tenebrous" derives from Latin "tenebrosus", from "tenebrae" ("darkness").


tenet

• tenable

[TEN-it]
Any opinion, principle, dogma, belief, or doctrine that a person holds or maintains as true; especially: one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession.
Examples:
1) ...The tenet that all men are created equal and seen as such by the eyes of God. (Kaye Gibbons, "On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon")
2) This kind of tolerance and receptivity is itself a cardinal tenet of Enlightenment thought. (Gary B. Nash, "History on Trial")
3) Since the 1950s, the central tenet of US foreign policy and security strategy had been to "contain" the Soviet Union and communist domination and influence. (George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, "A World Transformed")
4) The central tenet of whig theory was the inevitability of progress. (William L. Bird, Jr., "Better Living")
5) Aspiring writers are often advised to follow one great literary tenet: write what you know.
Etymology, related words:
"Tenet" comes from Latin "tenet" ("he holds" - something as true), from "tenere" ("to hold"). It is believed to have been borrowed into English around 1600 from Latin writings in which it often introduced the opinions held by a particular church or sect. There are a good many "tenere" descendants in English, including some words that end in "-tain" ("abstain," "contain," "maintain," and "sustain," to name a few), and others that begin with "ten-" (such as "tenable," meaning "capable of being held," and "tenacious").


tergiversation

• equivocation
• tergiversate
• tergiversant
• tergiversator

[ter-jiv-er-SAY-shun]
1. Evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement.
Synonym: equivocation.
Example:
The tergiversation of Ken's speech left his listeners confused about where he really stood on the issue.
2. Desertion of a cause, position, party, or faith.
Etymology, related words:
The Latin verb "tergiversari" means "to show reluctance," and it comes from the combination of "tergum," meaning "back," and "versare," meaning "to turn." "Tergiversari" gave English the noun "tergiversation" and the verb "tergiversate" ("to engage in tergiversation"). "Tergiversation" is the slightly older term, having been around since at least 1570; the first known use of "tergiversate" dates from 1590. There's also the much rarer adjective "tergiversant" ("tending to evade"), as well as the noun "tergiversator" ("one that tergiversates").


termagant
['t@:m@g(@)nt]
A harsh-tempered or overbearing woman.
Example:
It emphasises that she is not the awful old termagant she has so far seemed to be.
History, more examples:
It's a long way from the Crusades to the modern sense of the word, but that's the path we must follow to explain where we got it from. In the Middle Ages, Crusaders knew almost nothing about Islam and lumped everyone non-Christian together as Saracens or pagans; they thought that Mahmound (or Mahound) and Termagant were among Islam's gods. The word appears about 1100 as "tervagaunt" in French, in the "Chanson de Roland". The Italian equivalent was "Trivagante", which may in turn have come from Latin words for a threefold wanderer; this referred to the moon, which was considered to travel between heaven, earth, and hell under the three names Selene, Artemis, and Persephone. The word was borrowed into English and became the usual name in the medieval morality plays for an overbearing, violent and turbulent character, the supposed god of the Saracens, who was always dressed in Eastern robes. He was borrowed by Shakespeare and put into the mouth of that early theatre critic, Hamlet: "I could have such a Fellow whipt for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-Herods Herod". The name had by then been generalised to mean a quarrelsome person or bully. Around the middle of the 17th century, the word changed sex to become our modern term for a quarrelsome woman. It's likely that people were confused by the Saracen's robes in the morality plays and assumed that the supposed god Termagant was really female.


terpsichorean

• terpodion

[terp-sih-kuh-REE-un]
of or relating to dancing
Example:
Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet headed south to Los Angeles Sunday afternoon after infecting this town with six days of ... terpsichorean frenzy.... (Allan Ulrich, "The San Francisco Examiner", August 10, 1987)
History, related words:
In Greek and Roman mythology, Terpsichore ([terp-SIH-kuh- ree]) was one of the nine muses, those graceful sister-goddesses who presided over learning and the arts. Terpsichore was the patron of dance and choral song (and later lyric poetry), and in artistic representations she is often shown dancing and holding a lyre. Her name, which earned an enduring place in English through the adjective "terpsichorean," literally means "dance-enjoying," from "terpsis," meaning "enjoyment," and "choros," meaning "dance." "Choros" is also the source of "choreography" and "chorus" (those "choruses" in Athenian drama consisted of dancers as well as singers). The only other word we know that incorporates "terpsis" is "terpodion," an obsolete term for a piano-like musical instrument that was invented in 1816 but never really caught on.


terra firma

• terra
• firma

[tair-uh-FER-muh]
Dry land; solid ground.
Example:
The passengers on the ocean liner looked forward to setting foot on terra firma at the end of the long voyage.
History, more examples:
The phrase comes directly from New Latin, where it literally means "solid land." When "terra firma" first set foot in English prose in the 17th century, it referred specifically to the dry land of continents or mainlands (as distinct from smaller, more water-bound landforms, such as islands), or even more specifically, to certain Italian mainland territories controlled by Venice. By the end of the 17th century, the broader sense of "terra firma" (any dry land) had also established footing. That sense remains firmly established to this day. Figurative use ("a theory built on the terra firma of facts," for example) is also common. The older senses, however, have since crumbled away.


test the waters

• test
• the waters
• waters
• water

To make a judgment about something before engaging in more involved activity; to evaluate a situation before committing to a course of action.
Examples:
1) We thought we'd test the waters before committing to a serious relationship. 2) We tested the waters and found that that there is great demand for our new product.
Etymology: Before drinking water from a water source, it is wise to make sure that the water is safe and clean. So you 'test' or evaluate the water before you actually drink it.


tetchy

• teched
• tetched
• touched

[TETCH-ee]
Irritably or peevishly sensitive.
Synonym: touchy
Example:
Jeannette knew how tetchy her old friend Doris could sometimes be, so she stifled the urge to tease her about her dirty car.
Etymology and related words:
"Tetchy" is a word that may have been coined by Shakespeare - its first known use in English occurs in "Romeo and Juliet" (1592). Etymologists are not certain how the word came about, but some have suggested that it derives from "tetch," an obsolete noun meaning "habit." The similarity both in meaning and pronunciation to "touchy" might lead you to conclude that "tetchy" is related to it, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest such a connection. The adjectives "teched" and "tetched," meaning "mentally unbalanced," are variations of "touched," and are probably also unrelated to "tetchy."


tete-a-tete

• tete

[TAYT-uh-TAYT; TET-uh-TET]
1. Private; confidential; familiar.
2. A private conversation between two people.
3. A short sofa intended to accommodate two persons.
Examples:
1) Once you have a couple of offers in hand, ask the boss for a tete-a-tete. (Michelle Cottle, "Seeking That Fair Day's Pay." New York Times, January 24, 1999)
2) George Adamski, a penny-ante guru already in the flying saucer business, lecturing on the subject and selling his own UFO photos, had his first tete-a-tete with a Venusian named Orthon, who explained by dumb show and telepathy that his saucer was powered by Earth's magnetism. (Thomas M. Disch, "The Dreams")
3) Our Stuff Is Made Of Raw garlic will give you plenty of this disulfide, but cooking gets rid of it because it is volatile enough to evaporate during cooking. This is the reason you can safely eat a soup or stew that has lots of garlic in the recipe, and still enjoy a friendly tete-a-tete with someone. (John Emsley, "Molecules at an Exhibition")
Etymology:
"Tete-a-tete" comes from the French, literally "head-to-head."


tete-a-tete


tetrapyloctomy
The act of splitting a hair four ways (lengthwise).
Example:
The Internet is probably the best environment for conspiracy theories, but on the other hand the best tool to stay informed about issues that are not published in major newspapers or broadcast networks. This came into my mind, when I got an alerting Email from a mailing list called "Tetrapyloctomy" that reminded me of watching "Wag the Dog". ("CBS Wags the Dog", <http://www.uni-giessen.de/fb03/vinci/labore/lounge/cbs.htm>)
History:
This word has found a secure of niche existence in the lexicons of academics with a sense of humour since it was invented by Umberto Eco in his novel "Foucault's Pendulum", published in English in 1989. In a mocking attempt to reform higher education, one character proposes a School of Comparative Irrelevance, whose aim would be to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary topics. In it would be a Department of Tetrapyloctomy, whose function would be to inculcate a sense of irrelevance in its students. The word combines "tetra" ("four") with "pilus" ("hair", as in "depilatory"), and the ending "-(e)ctomy" - "cutting". As the component parts come respectively from Greek, Latin and Greek it's a miscegenated linguistic sandwich.


textonym

• contranym
• retronym
• aptonym
• aptronym

A word generated by a set of key presses on a mobile phone, when the phone is in predictive mode, guessing what word you want.
Example:
Meg Kingston introduces us to the textonym... For example, keys 2-2-4-3 can signify ache, acid or cage.
Etymology, related words:
The "Feedback" column of "New Scientist" introduced us to yet another new word ending in "-nym" (from Greek "onuma" - "name") in November 2004. Not only do we have such well-established terms as synonym, antonym, eponym and pseudonym, a rush of creative energy in recent years has given us contranym, a word that means its own opposite, such as "cleave"; retronym, a term invented to clarify another word whose meaning has become ambiguous through cultural or technical evolution, such as "acoustic guitar" or "two-parent family"; and aptronym, or aptonym, the name of a individual that matches his occupation, such as a Mr Butcher who is a surgeon or a dentist named Payne. (The word is believed to have been coined by the American newspaper columnist Franklin P. Adams as a rather neat anagram of "patronym", so that the "r" belongs there. It's recorded by 1920 but only became at all common much more recently.) Now we've got textonym. For example, 7-4-6-6-3-7 brings up the words "phones", "simmer", and "sinner".


thN
(SMS) 1. then; 2. thn - thumbnail


thanatology
[than-uh-TAH-luh-jee]
The description or study of the phenomena of death and of psychological mechanisms for coping with them.
Example:
Those who work in the field of thanatology address not only the needs of the dying but the effects of death on the families as well.
Etymology:
In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death, the twin brother of Hypnos (Sleep). The ancient Greeks eventually came to use "thanatos" as a generic word for "death." "Thanatology" is a direct linguistic heir of the Greek term and it was first documented in English in the mid-1800s. In 1935, the name "Thanatos" made a comeback in English, ushered in with psychoanalytic theory and describing an unconscious tendency toward self-destruction.


thank-you-ma'am

• thank-you
• ma'am

[THANK-yoo-mam]
A bump or depression in a road; especially: a ridge or hollow made across a road on a hillside to cause water to run off.
Example:
That night on the way home, thinking of his pleasant visit, he was suddenly shaken out of his tranquility ... when his touring car hit a 'thank-you-ma'am' in the unpaved road. (Hugh Manchester, "Centre Daily Times" [State College, PA], August 22, 2000)
History:
"Thank-you-ma'am" might seem like an odd name for a bump in the road, but the expression makes a little more sense if you imagine the motion your head would make as you drove over such an obstacle. Most likely, the jarring would make you nod involuntarily. Now think of the nodding gesture you make when you're thanking someone or acknowledging a favor. The "thank-you-ma'am" road bump is believed to have received its name when someone noted the similarity of those two head bobbing motions. It's a colloquialism particular to American English, and its earliest printed use is found in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1849 prose piece, "Kavanagh": "We went like the wind over the hollows in the snow; - the driver called them 'thank-you-ma'ams,' because they make every body bow."


thaumaturgy

• thaumaturge
• thaumaturgist
• thaumaturgic

[THAW-muh-ter-jee]
The performance of miracles; specifically: magic
Example:
In J.K. Rowling's debut novel, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", Harry learns to perform feats of thaumaturgy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Etymology, related words and notions:
The magic of "thaumaturgy" is miraculous. The word, from a Greek word meaning "miracle working," is applicable to any performance of miracles, especially by incantation. It can also be used of things that merely seem miraculous and unexplainable, like the thaumaturgy of a motion picture's illusions (aka "movie magic"), or the thaumaturgy at work in an athletic team's "miracle" comeback. In addition to "thaumaturgy," we also have "thaumaturge" and "thaumaturgist," both of which mean "a performer of miracles" or "a magician," and the adjective "thaumaturgic," meaning "performing miracles" or "of, relating to, or dependent on thaumaturgy."


the Jolly Roger

• Jolly Roger
• Roger
• jolie rouge
• joli rouge
• red jack
• Old Roger

the flag indicating a pirate ship
Example:
Set all sail, clear the deck, stand to quarters, up with the Jolly Roger! (Sir Walter Scott, "The Pirate")
Synonym:
Roger.
Etymology:
1) Probably from "jolly" + the name Roger.
2) The second theory is that it comes from the French term "joli rouge", which the English corrupted into "Jolly Roger". This may be likely as there were a series of "red flags" that were feared as much, or more, than "black flags". The origin of the red flag is likely that English privateers flew the red jack by order of the Admiralty in 1694. When the War of Spanish Succession ended in 1714, many privateers turned to piracy and some retained the red flag, for red symbolized blood. No matter how much seamen dreaded the black pirate standard all prayed they never encountered the jolie rouge. This red flag boldly declared the pirates' intentions. No life would be spared. No quarter given. The term was subsequently used for the black flag with skull and bones which appeared in use around 1700.
3) There is another theory, also using "jolie rouge" as the origin for the name. Apparently a Catholic order of fierce warrior monks, known as the "Poor Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon", first used the "jolie rouge", the red flag. The link between the monks and pirates is provided by the fact that they were fighting for their cause on the open seas, effectively becoming pirates. In combat practice many merchants were surprised when a fast ship changed a fellow national flag for the more portentuous Jolly Roger, which was the desired effect.
4) Another theory proposes that the leader of a group of Asian pirates was entitled Ali Raja, "king of sea", English pirates appropriated and corrupted the term. A further theory is that the name may derive from the English word "roger", meaning a wandering vagabond: "Old Roger" was a term for the devil.
History:
The Jolly Roger is the traditional flag of European and American pirates, envisioned today as a skull over crossed bones on a black field. However, there were many variations and additional emblems on actual Jolly Rogers. Calico Jack Rackham and Thomas Tew used variations with swords. Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard) used a skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and a spear or dart in the other while standing beside a bleeding heart. Bartholomew Roberts (a.k.a. Black Bart) had two variations: a man and a skeleton, who held a spear or dart in one hand, holding either an hourglass or a cup while toasting death or an armed man standing on two skulls over the letters ABH and AMH (a warning to residents of Barbados and Martinique that death awaited them). Dancing skeletons signified that the pirates cared little for their fate. Black flag with skull and crossbones is also the flag of chetniks (see).
Contemporary submariners of the British and Australian navies use the flag, more as an indicator of bravado and stealth than lawlessness. By tradition Royal Navy submarines returning to base after a "kill" fly the jolly roger while entering port.
Flying the Jolly Roger (too early) as the only flag has its drawbacks. Warships were often under standing orders to fire at will at a ship flying this flag.


the eleventh hour

• eleventh hour
• eleventh
• hour
• last minute
• last
• minute

The last minute, last possible moment for doing something (before it is too late); just before the absolute deadline.
Examples:
1) The doctor arrived at the eleventh hour, right before Mrs. Bernstein gave birth to her baby.
2) At the eleventh hour, just seconds before the curtain rose, Sybil finished painting the scenery.
Synonym: last minute Etymology:
This idiom comes from the Bible. The eleventh hour is the last hour before the end of the world. In the Bible, it was the last hour of sunlight with the twelfth hour bringing darkness. Some people delay so much, they sometimes finish a project at the last minute, or even the last second, just before the deadline passes.

the love of money is the root of all evil

• love of money is the root of all evil
• money is the root of all evil
• money
• root
• all
• evil
• love

This proverb means that greed for money can sometimes motivate people to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do.
Example:
"Mrs. Alvarado, it says here that some factories dump poisonous waste into rivers. Don't they care about wildlife and the people who use the water?"
Bill's teacher explained, "It's cheaper to dump the waste than to dispose of it safely.
Some factories care more about their profits than they do about rivers."
"No wonder people say money is the root of all evil," Bill mused.
Etymology:
These words are written in the Bible:
"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
(New Testament, 1 Timothy 6:10)


the proof of the pudding is in the eating

• proof of the pudding is in the eating
• proof of the pudding is in eating
• the proof of the pudding
• proof of the pudding
• the proof is in the pudding
• proof is in the pudding
• proof
• pudding
• eating

The proverb literally says that you won't know whether food has been cooked properly until you try it; generally speaking, you can't judge something until you try it; don't assume that something is in order or believe what you are told, but judge the matter by testing it.
Example:
"Zach told me the new space adventure movie is great," said Lydia.
"Well, I usually don't like the same movies he does," Seth answered. "But the proof of
the pudding is in the eating. Let's go see it tonight."
Synonyms:
seeing is believing; actions speak louder than words.
Etymology:
The proverb is ancient - it has been traced back to 1300 and was popularised by Cervantes in his "Don Quixote" of 1605.
Modern synonyms:
the proof is in the pudding; the proof of the pudding
Example:
While the team's first Super Bowl victory back in 2002 could be explained away by some skeptics as a fluke, the second victory is the proof in the pudding in cementing the Pats' status as the cream of the NFL crop. ("Boston Herald", 3 February 2004)
NB.
The versions given as synonyms appear with increasing frequency in books and newspapers. Such examples can be found in American newspapers at least as far back as the 1920s and it became relatively common from the middle 1950s onwards. Slightly different versions also turn up from time to time, such as this about a charity considering its links with Michael Jackson, "Until there's some proof in the pudding, we will continue to remain neutral" (The "Grand Rapids Press", 30 November 2003), and about an election in Canada, "I guess that the proof in the pudding will be on Oct. 2" ("Toronto Star", 29 September 2003). The principal trouble with "the proof is in the pudding" is that it makes no sense. What has happened is that writers half-remember the proverb as "the proof of the pudding", which is also unintelligible unless you know the full form from which the tag was taken, and have modified it in various ways in unsuccessful attempts to turn it into something sensible. They wouldn't make this mistake if they knew two important facts. The full proverb is "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" and "proof" has the sense of "test" (as it also has, or used to have, in "the exception proves the rule" and in phrases such as "printer's proof").



the real McCoy

• real McCoy
• real
• McCoy
• the real Mackay
• real Mackay
• Mackay
• the McCoy

1. The genuine thing.
Example:
That painting's not a reproduction - it's the real McCoy.
Synonyms:
real thing, real stuff, the McCoy
Etymology:
There are at least half a dozen theories that argue that one of the myriad McCoys of America at the end of the nineteenth century is the genuinely real McCoy that led to this common expression. Its origin is unclear. Was it perhaps:
Elijah McCoy, who invented a machine to lubricate the moving parts of a railway locomotive?
The famous Hatfield-McCoy family feud that enlivened the West Virginia-Kentucky border in the 1880s?
A famous cattle baron of that name?
A Prohibition-era rum-runner named Bill McCoy?
The real Macao, pure heroin imported from the Far East?
From the name of the American boxer Norman Selby, known as Kid McCoy, who was welterweight champion from 1898-1900?
There is broad agreement among a lot of writers that this last one is the true origin. It is said that McCoy had so many imitators who took his name in boxing booths in small towns throughout the country that eventually he had to bill himself as Kid 'The Real' McCoy, and the phrase stuck. There's another anecdote in which a sceptical drunk who met the boxer in a bar denied he was the real article with such force that McCoy was forced to hit him. After recovering the drunk said, 'It's the real McCoy!' But there's no evidence whatsoever for the imitators or the drunk.
There's plenty of evidence, however, for suggesting that the original McCoy was actually a Mackay. The earliest example is from 1856, recorded in the "Scottish National Dictionary": 'A drappie [drop] o' the real MacKay'. The same work says that in 1870 the slogan was adopted by Messrs G Mackay and Co, whisky distillers of Edinburgh. That would most likely explain the first instance of the expression in the "Oxford English Dictionary", which records a letter written by the author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883: 'He's the real Mackay'. Certainly early references are to a drop of the hard stuff.
And some other examples also point towards this Scottish origin. "A Rock in the Baltic", by Robert Barr, dated 1906, has: 'I shouldn't have taken the liberty of introducing him to you as Prince Lermontoff if he were not, as we say in Scotland, a real Mackay - the genuine article'. And from Australia, Andrew 'Banjo' Paterson wrote in "An Outback Marriage", also published in 1906: ''We brought a drop o' rum,' replied Charlie. 'Ha! That'll do. That's the real Mackay,' said the veteran, slouching along at a perceptibly quicker gait'.
It looks very much as though the term was originally the real Mackay, but became converted to the real McCoy in the US, either under the influence of Kid McCoy, or for some other reason.
2. An influential European dance music group (formerly known as "M.C. Sar & the Real McCoy") whose career was at its peak in the early 1990s. Their 1993 single "Another Night" achieved great success around the world.

the runs

• the run
• runs
• run

Diarrhea; the need to go to the bathroom.
Example: I have the runs. I must have eaten some bad food.

the three R's

• three R's
• three
• R
• R's

The three basic skills from school - reading, (w)riting, (a)rithmetic.
Examples:
1) Many people believe that teaching the three R's is the most important role for schools.
2) A child's education begins with the three R's.



the ugly stick

• ugly stick
• ugly
• stick

A magical piece of wood that makes people ugly.
Example: Who hit that dude with the ugly stick?
Etymology: This humorous and slightly cruel phrase suggests that there is reason that ugly people are ugly.

theriac

• catholicon
• elixir
• nostrum
• panacea
• theriac
• cure-all
• cure

[THEER-ee-ak]
1. A mixture of many drugs and honey formerly held to be an antidote to poison.
2. Cure-all.
Example:
Garlic has been called the poor man's theriac.
History, synonyms, related words:
There really is no such thing as a single remedy for all that ails us. But that hasn't kept English speakers from creating, not just a single word, but several words, that mean "cure-all" - "catholicon," "elixir," "nostrum," "panacea," and today's word, "theriac." When we first used "theriac," it meant "an antidote for poison" - for any and all poisons, that is. That's how our Roman and Greek forebears used their "theriaca" and "theriake," which derive ultimately from the Greek word for "wild animal." The first theriac was supposedly created by the first-century Greek physician Andromachus, whose concoction consisted of some 70 drugs pulverized with honey. Medieval physicians created even more elaborate theriacs to dose a plague-dreading populace, for whom the possibility of a cure-all didn't seem too wild a notion at all.


think factory

• think
• factory

a company that does research for hire and issues reports on the implications
Synonym: think tank

think outside the box

• think
• outside the box
• outside
• box

To think creatively; to approach a situation or problem in a new way.
Examples:
1) To solve this problem, we're going to have to think outside the box. 2) I like to hire people who can think outside the box.
Etymology:
This popular phrase is relatively recent. 'The box' refers to the normal, boring way of doing things. When you think 'outside the box', you create new ideas and methods for doing things.


think tank

• think
• tank

1. A group of experts that enters to debate a certain topic.
2. A company that does research for hire and issues reports on the implications; think factory; something like a Soviet scientific research institution - an institution filled with brainy people who are paid to use their brains.
Synonym: think factory
3. People thinking together; brain storm.
Think tanks can be used in any subject from the hard sciences to political science.
Example: Our company think tank will solve the problem.

think twice

• think
• twice

To weigh something carefully.
Example: I'd think twice before spending all that money on clothes.

thku & ta4n
(SMS) Thank you and that's all for now!


three sixes

• three
• sixes
• six

The Number of the Beast (666) (Revelation 13:18)


threnody
[THREN-uh-dee]
A song of lamentation for the dead.
Synonym: elegy
Example:
In the opera's final scene, the leading lady sings a threnody to mourn the murdered king.
Etymology, more examples, related words:
"Threnody" encompasses all genres. There are great threnodies in prose (such as the lines from Charles Dickens' "Bleak House" upon the death of Little Jo: "Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead..."), in poetry (as in W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues": "The stars are not wanted now: put out every one, / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun..."), and in music (Giovanni Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater", for one). "Threnody," which we borrowed from the Greek word "threnoidia" (from "threnos," the word for "dirge"), has survived in English since the early 1600s. "Melody" and "tragedy" are related to "threnody" through the Greek root that forms their ending - "aeidein," which means "to sing." By the same token, "comedy" is related as well.


through thick and thin

• through
• thick
• thin

People use this phrase to describe someone or something that remains dependable during good and bad times.
Example: Malek and James were best friends. They stuck together and stood up for each other, knowing they could count on each other through thick and thin.

throw in the towel

• throw
• towel

To quit.
Examples:
1) The company threw in the towel after losing all of its major customers. 2) Mike 'Boom Boom' DeNola threw in the towel after three rounds. He'll probably have to spend a few days in the hospital, followed by a long convalescence in Miami.
Etymology:
This phrase comes from boxing. When a boxer is too beat up to continue, his coach throws a towel into the ring to signal that the fight is over.

throw smb. a fish

• throw a fish
• throw
• fish

Etymology: If you have ever been to an aquatic part, you will see seal, or dolphins or other water creatures performing tricks. When the creature successfully performs a trick, the trainer will throw it a fish (a small reward for successfully performing).
Definition:
In common usage, it means to give someone a minimum for doing something.


throw the book at

• throw the book at smb.
• throw the book
• throw
• book

1. To impose a severe penalty on someone; to give the maximum penalty for a crime.
2. To quarrel with someone and treat them harshly.
Examples:
1) His crime was so cruel and inhumane that they threw the book at him. 2) The judge told my lawyer that he is going to throw the book at me unless I beg the court for mercy.
Etymology:
'The book' is the entire collection of laws and penalties. If a judge were to 'throw' or hurl the whole book of laws at someone, it would probably hurt quite a bit.


thumb generation

• thumb
• generation
• thumb tribe
• tribe

The generation of under 25s for the beginning of the 21st century, because of its extensive use of their thumb for text messaging and gaming consoles.
Synonym: thumb tribe
Example:
Japanese youth even refer to themselves as "oya yubi sedai" - the thumb generation, or thumb tribe and they have started to point or press doorbells with their thumbs instead of their index fingers.
History:
The thumb generation has been explored by Dr. Sadie Plant. "The fact that our thumbs operate differently from our fingers is one of the main things that defines us as humans. Discovering that the younger generation has taken to using thumbs in a completely different way and are instinctively using it where the rest of us use our index fingers is particularly interesting," explains Dr. Plant.


ticker
The heart.
Example: Try not to upset Grandpa when you're talking to him. He has a bad ticker.
Etymology: Your heart beats regularly, like a clock. In English, a clock makes the sound 'tick tock, tick tock'.

tie the knot

• get hitched
• get
• hitched
• tie
• knot
• hitch

To get married.
Examples:
1) The happy couple tied the knot in Las Vegas. 2) Valentine's Day is the perfect time to ask your honey to tie the knot.
Etymology: Marriage forms a strong connection between man and wife, like a knot joining two strings.
Synonym: get hitched.


tightie whities

• tightie whitie
• tighty whities
• tightey whiteys
• tightey whitey
• tightie
• whities
• whity
• tighty
• tightey
• whitie
• whitey
• briefs
• brief

Men's underwear; bikini-like underwear that clings to the body.
Example:
Which do you prefer, tightie whities or boxer shorts?
Etymology:
This term is used to describe the type of small, tight underwear some men wear, as opposed to the larger, looser kind called 'boxers'. Synonym: briefs


till the cows come home

• untill the cows come home
• till
• cow
• come
• home

Etymology and definition:
Cows come home to the barn from the fields at the end of a long day. So this expression has come to mean that something won't happen "for an extremely long time".
Example:
"Herman, you've been studying all day," Cora said. "When are you going to take a break?"
"No time soon. I'm going to get an 'A' on my test if I have to study till the cows come home!" he replied.

timeless
[TYME-luss]
1. Having no beginning or end.
Synonym: eternal
2. Not restricted to a particular time or date.
3. Not affected by time.
Synonym: ageless
Example:
Fashion experts agree that the little black dress worn with a strand of pearls is timeless.
History:
Everyone seems to know what time is, but what does it mean to be "timeless" - that is, "without time"? At one time (the 16th-19th centuries), "timeless" meant "out of its proper time, untimely, premature." In the course of time (by the 17th century), the word came to mean "eternal; lasting through all time." The two modern senses given in our definition were added just in time for the 20th century.


timorous

• Timid

[TIM-uh-russ]
1. Full of apprehensiveness; timid; of a timid disposition; expressing or suggesting timidity. 2. Indicating, or caused by, fear; fearful.
Examples:
1) Matthew was too timorous to stand up to the no-good electronics salesman who ripped him off.
2) Girls, allegedly so timorous and lacking in confidence, now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and even in debating clubs. (Christina Hoff Sommers, The War Against Boys)
3) Some men by the unalterable frame of their constitutions, are stout, others timorous, some confident, others modest. (John Locke, "Some Thoughts Concerning Education")4) The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life. (Seamus Heaney, "Elegy")
Etymology, related words, examples:
"Timid" and "timorous" don't just have similar spellings and meanings; they are etymologically related as well. Both words ultimately derive from the Latin verb "timere," meaning "to fear." The immediate ancestor of "timid" ("shy, bashful, fearful, retiring") is Latin "timidus" (same meaning as "timid"), whereas "timorous" traveled to Middle English by way of the Latin noun "timor" ("fear") and the Medieval Latin adjective "timorosus." "Timid" may be the more common of the two words, but "timorous" is older. It first appeared in English in the mid-15th century; "timid" came on the scene a century later. Both words can mean "easily frightened" (as in "a timid mouse" or "a timorous child") as well as "indicating or characterized by fear" (as in "gave a timid smile" or "took a timorous step forward").


tin-pot

• Tinhorn
• tin lizzie
• tin lizzy
• tin
• lizzy
• pot
• lizzie
• tin pan
• pan

[TIN-POT]
Two-bit, small-time.
Example:
Petty despots and tin-pot dictators often pay lip service to democratic ideals to give their regimes an aura of legitimacy.
History, related words:
Tin has never commanded as much respect as some other metals. As a reflection of this, its name has long been used in terms denoting the tawdry or petty. "Tin-pot" has been used for minor or insignificant things or people since the early 1800s. "Tinhorn" has named fakes or frauds (especially gamblers) since the 1880s, and "tin lizzie" has been a nickname for an inexpensive car since Ford introduced the Model T. Another example is "tin pan" (as in "Tin Pan Alley"), which referred to the tinny sound of pianos pounded furiously by musicians plugging tunes to producers.


tintinnabulation
[tin-tih-nab-yuh-LAY-shuhn]
1. The ringing or sounding of bells.
2. A jingling or tinkling sound as if of bells
Examples:
1) One found oneself immersed in the infinitely nuanced tintinnabulations of clapping cymbal rhythms passed from one player to the next, in the barely audible, rain-like patter of drums that suddenly grew into an overwhelming mechanical onslaught. (Tim Page, "From Japan, The Thundering Drums of Kodo," Newsday, February 24, 1995)
2) The best man's toast to the bride and groom ended with the customary tintinnabulation of a hundred clinking champagne glasses.
Etymology, more examples:
If "tintinnabulation" rings a bell, that may be because it traces to a Latin interpretation of the sound a ringing bell makes. "Tintinnabulation" derives from Latin "tintinnabulum" ("a bell") from "tintinnare", from "tinnire" - "to ring, clang, or jingle".
Like the English terms "ting" and "tinkle," "tintinnare" originated with a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it - that is, it is onomatopoeic. Edgar Allan Poe celebrates the sonic overtones of "tintinnabulation" in his poem "The Bells," which includes lines about "the tintinnabulation that so musically wells / From the bells, bells, bells, bells, / Bells, bells, bells -- / From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells."


tirade
A long angry speech; a violent denunciation; a prolonged outburst full of censure or abuse.
Examples:
1) The force of this tirade made Matthew glance nervously at Coots, who shrugged and asked his partner, "You just about all through?" (Trevanian, "Incident at Twenty-Mile")
2) Bobby wanted to enquire further, but knew better; more questions were apt to set off a tirade. (Stephen King, "Hearts In Atlantis")
3) He was likeable, had panache, and his contemptuous tirades were rarely taken at face value. (Michael Schaller, "Altered States")
Etymology:
"Tirade" comes from French, from Italian "tirada", properly, "a pulling"; hence, "a lengthening out, a long speech, a tirade," from "tirare" ("to pull, to draw").


titivate

• titivation

[TIT-uh-vayt]
To smarten up; to spruce up.
Examples:
1) It's easy to laugh at a book in which the heroine's husband says to her, "You look beautiful," and then adds, "So stop titivating yourself." (Joyce Cohen, review of "To Be the Best", by Barbara Taylor Bradford, "New York Times", July 31, 1988)
2) In The Idle Class, when Chaplin is titivating in a hotel room, the cloth on his dressing table rides up and down, caught in the same furious gusts. (Peter Conrad, "Modern Times, Modern Places")
Etymology, related words:
"Titivate" is perhaps from "tidy" + the quasi-Latin ending "-vate". When the word originally came into the language, it was written "tidivate" or "tiddivate". The noun form is "titivation".


tlk2me
(SMS) talk to me


tmesis

• Timesis
• infixation

[TMEE-sis]
Also: Timesis
In grammar and rhetoric, the separation of the parts of a compound word into parts by inserting one or more words in the middle; now it is generally done for humorous effect; for example, "abso-bloody-lutely."
Examples:
1) If on the first, how heinous e'er it be, To win thy after-love I pardon thee. (Shakespeare, "Richard II")
2) His income-tax return, he remarked, was the "most rigged-up marole" he'd ever seen. (Frederic Packard)
3) In two words, im possible. (Samuel Goldwyn)
4) There are few pleasures on TV to equal QI (BBC2), in which Stephen Fry pours erudition liberally over insubordinate comics like honey on waffles. It is pure tmesis which, he explained, was the splitting of a word to include another, as in abso-blooming-lutely wonderful. ("The Guardian", 3rd October 2003)
History, more examples:
"Tmesis" is from Greek "tmesis" ("a cutting"), from "temnein" ("to cut"). An often quoted original example of "tmesis" is the splitting of the word in Shakespeare's "Richard II": "If on the first, how heinous e'er it be, To win thy after-love I pardon thee".
"Tmesis" is a long-established word in English which has remained relatively obscure, though it refers to the well-known creative process of splitting existing words and placing others in between. This is a productive process of word formation, often also described by theoretical linguists as infixation, but used specifically for the purpose of adding emphasis. Conventional definitions of tmesis refer to the division of compound words, like, for instance, the splitting of "whatsoever" in "what place soever" or "what man soever". However, there is plenty of current evidence for tmesis occurring in not just compound words but also between morphemes (word components) with analysable meaning, as in "im-bloody-possible", and even purely between syllables as in "abso-blooming-lutely". "Abso-blooming-lutely" was first famously used by the character Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's classic play "Pygmalion" (1916), but the use of tmesis has been revisited in recent years in the language of fictional characters such as David Brent in the BBC comedy series "The Office", or Rachel in the UK television drama series "Cold Feet", who popularised the use of "fan-bloody-tastic". Modern use of tmesis is almost exclusively confined to the infixation of expletives such as "blooming, bloody or worse!". "Tmesis" normally occurs in words that have three or more syllables, and the infixed word generally occurs before the syllable which bears the stress, hence "fan-bloody-tastic" rather than "fantas-bloody-tic".

tocsin
[TOCK-sin]
1. An alarm bell, or the ringing of a bell for the purpose of alarm.
2. A warning.
Examples:
1) Some of the allegations put round are so frenzied, however, that some caution should be exercised before the tocsin is rung too loudly. ("New President of the NUS," Times (London), April 10, 1969)
2) The first atomic bomb fell and its radioactive cloud became a tocsin for mankind. (Herbert Mitgang, "The Bomb as Horror and Warning," New York Times, August 1, 1990)
3) But Mr. Beckett is wise in choosing the form of the myth in which to sound his tocsin on the condition of human society. (Brooks Atkinson, "Beckett's 'Endgame,'" New York Times, January 29, 1958)
Etymology:
"Tocsin" derives from Medieval French "touquesain", from Old Proven?al "tocasenh", from "tocar" ("to touch, to strike, to ring a bell") + "senh" ("church bell"), ultimately from Latin "signum" ("sign, signal").


toe the line

• tow the line
• toe the mark
• Toe the crack
• Toe the scratch
• toe the trig
• trig
• scratch
• crack
• toe
• line
• tow
• mark

to meet a standard; to abide by the rules
Example: The new director will make us toe the line, I'm sure.
Etymology:
The image is that of men lining up with the tips of their toes touching some line. They might be on parade, or preparing to undertake some task, or in readiness for a race or fight. The earliest recorded form is dated 1813, in a book by Hector Bull-Us (a pseudonym, you will not be surprised to hear, in this case of James Kirke Paulding) with the title "The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan". This already had the modern figurative sense of conforming to the usual standards or rules: "He began to think it was high time to toe the mark". Many early examples are from the British Navy, which is where it may have originated.
Synonyms:
It's correctly "toe the line", but it is indeed often seen as "tow the line", an error that's all too easy to make when in a hurry. In this case, the association of ideas between "tow" and "line" (in the sense of a rope) is often too powerful to overcome, and the lack of any clear mental image of where it comes from is a contributing factor. "Toe the crack" is an American form of the 1820s in reference to a crack in the floorboards that delineates a straight line. "Toe the scratch" is from prize fighting, where "scratch" was the line drawn across the ring (often in the earth of an informal outdoor ring) to which the fighters were brought ready for the contest - it's a close relative of "to come up to scratch". In "toe the trig", "trig" is an old term for a boundary or centre line in various sports.
Also, "toe the mark".



tog

• togeman
• togman
• togs

[TAHG]
To dress especially in fine clothing (usually used with up or out).
Example:
She smiled as she took pictures of her teenage son, who was togged out in a tuxedo and standing next to his prom date.
Etymology:
The history of "tog" is truly a rags-to-riches tale that begins with the slang of vagabonds and thieves - specifically, with the noun "togeman" ("togman"), an old (and now obsolete) slang word meaning "cloak." By the early 18th century, the noun "tog," a shortened form of "togeman," was being used as a slang word for "coat," and before the century's end the plural form "togs" was being used to mean "clothing." The verb "tog" debuted shortly after "togs" and was immediately in style as a word for dressing up. "Togeman" is believed to be derived in part from "toga," which means "cloak" or "mantle" in Latin.


togethering

• together

(n) Vacationing with one's extended family or friends.
Examples:
1) Those surveyed plan to take more vacation time at home this year as there continues to be an emphasis on family after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Yesawich said. Eight in 10 respondents said they planned to vacation with extended family or friends, a trend called "togethering" that is on the increase, he said. (John Yantis, "Majority of Travelers Look for Deals on Internet, Arizona Travel Expert Says", East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Arizona), May 25, 2004)
2) Among a hundred other statistics, the peppy marketing group, led by the irrepressible Cami Mattson, reported that, in the last five years, eight out of 10 travelers took at least one vacation with extended family or friends. More and more, Americans are vacationing in a loving gang, it seems. This trend toward mob bonding is called "togethering," a novel word to my ear. (Logan Jenkins, "North County the spot for `togethering'", The San Diego Union-Tribune, April 29, 2004)
3) The 105th Nickerson Family Association Togethering will be held Sept. 6-8 in Dennis-on-Cape Cod. ("Reunions", Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine), June 12, 2002)
History:
The word "togethering" in this sense was unleashed upon the world in an October, 2003 press release from Walt Disney World announcing the company's "Magical Gatherings" program. The term has been trademarked by the travel marketing firm "Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell", with a filing date in the U.S. of November 4, 2003. However, neither Walt Disney World nor YPBR invented the term, with the earliest citation for this sense coming in 2002 and the word itself having been around since at least the 1985 release of the album "Togethering" by jazz musicians Kenny Burrell and Grover Washington, Jr.


tomacco
Etymology & Meaning:
a hybrid of tomato and tobacco; tomatoes crossed with tobacco.
Example:
Tomacco, a hybrid created by grafting a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant, really exists!



tomcat

• tom-cat
• tom
• cat

A male who enjoys the favors of many women.
Etymology: The expression comes from a book written in the mid-1700s in England called 'The Life and Adventures of a Cat'. The "hero" of the book, a male cat who enjoyed the favors of many female cats, was named Tom.

tomfoolery

• folly
• foolery

1. Something trivial or foolish; silliness, nonsense.
2. Foolish or senseless behavior.
Synonyms: folly, foolery
Examples:
1) Of course, my tomfoolery might compromise her; yet certain other feelings and desires had begun to form themselves in my brain. (Dostoyevsky F. "The Gambler")
2) "We have had enough of this tomfoolery," he said scornfully. (Oppenheim E. Ph. "The Malefactor")
History:
The word "tomfoolery" derives from Middle English Thom Foole. In the 14th century the name denoted "the stupid man personified." By the 19th century, the given and surnames had been fused into an noun denoting any type of stupidity.



tontine
[TAHN-teen]
1. A joint financial arrangement whereby the participants usually contribute equally to a prize that is awarded entirely to the participant who survives all the others; a system for division of annuity between members of a group.
2. A form of life insurance whereby on the death or default of a participant his share is distributed to the remaining members 3. An annuity scheme wherein participants share certain benefits and on the death of any participant his benefits are redistributed among the remaining participants; can run for a fixed period of time or until the death of all but one participant.
Examples:
1. When all the participants in the tontine but one were murdered, you can guess who the primary suspect was.
2. Too many of the financiers by professions are apt to see nothing in revenue but banks, and circulations, and annuities on lives, and tontines, and perpetual rents, and all the small wares of the shop.
History:
Fr., from It. "tontina". Tontines were named after their creator, a Neapolitan banker named Lorenzo Tonti. In 1653, Tonti convinced investors to buy shares in a fund he had created. Each year, the investors earned dividends, and when one of them died, his or her share of the profits was redistributed among the survivors. When the last investor died, the capital reverted to the state. Louis XIV of France used tontines to save his ailing treasury and to fund municipal projects, and private tontines (where the last surviving investor - and subsequently his or her heirs - got the cash instead of the state) became popular throughout Europe and the U.S. Eventually, though, tontines were banned; there was just too much temptation for unscrupulous investors to bump off their fellow subscribers.


too hot to handle

• too
• hot
• handle

Difficult; hard to deal with; controversial.
Examples:
1) The editor thought the story about the president's girlfriend was too hot to handle, so he refused to print it. 2) The line drive was too hot to handle, and the Phillies scored on the play.
Etymology:
"Too hot to handle" comes from baseball, referring to a ball hit so hard that it can't be caught. In this phrase, "hot" means "lively" or "powerful", and "handle" means "take care of" or "pick up". The phrase is now used to describe any situation that is hard to deal with or problematic.


tooth and nail

• tooth
• nail

In every way, by all means; with force and ferocity.
Example:
She fought tooth and nail.


toothing

• toother
• zipless
• flirtberrying

1. The act or process of indenting or furnishing with teeth; 2. (Masonry) bricks alternately projecting at the end of a wall, in order that they may be bonded into a continuation of it when the remainder is carried up; 3. Plane; a plane of which the iron is formed into a series of small teeth, for the purpose of roughening surfaces, as of veneers;
Example:
The replaceable blade has peg toothing and gives a smooth cut in green and dry wood. ("Do It Yourself". Milton Keynes: Link House Magazines Ltd, 1992)
4. The next step on from "bluejacking" (see), in which passers-by send unexpected and anonymous text messages to your PDA or mobile phone; a media hoax claiming that Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones were being used to arrange sexual encounters.
Synonym: flirtberrying
Etymology, history:
Toothing practitioners are called "toothers", both words being formed from "Bluetooth" (see), the wireless system that connects mobile devices together. It's the next step on from "bluejacking" (see), in which passers-by send unexpected and anonymous text messages to your PDA or mobile phone. Now people are sending messages to set up illicit romantic interludes. You give your Bluetooth device a suggestive name that indicates you're open for offers. Another user sees this, and sends a message that invites you to join them briefly in some nearby place of concealment. I.e., those who engage in the activity, beam phone numbers or simply the message 'toothing?' between handsets in places such as bars, restaurants and train stations. From here, they use conventional text messaging to organise their meeting place and what they want from the encounter. A very novel way to arrange a date without any of that awkward 'breaking-the-ice' stuff!
Back in 1973, Erica Jong famously described such encounters as "zipless", but she didn't have a mobile phone to facilitate them.



toothsome

• delicious
• toothy

1. Pleasing to the taste; as, "a toothsome pie"; of palatable flavor and pleasing texture.
Synonym: delicious; toothy
2. Agreeable; attractive; as, "a toothsome offer."
3. Sexually attractive.
Examples:
1) Fleming was impressed not only by its taste but by its astonishing durability: Caudle's apple, after ten months in storage, was still toothsome and fragrant. (David Guterson, "The Kingdom of Apples," Harper's Magazine, October 1999)
2) Their topic, naturally: business niches that offer toothsome opportunities and comparatively limited competition. (Dick Youngblood, "Business niches can be opportunities," Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 2, 2003)
3) The myth, which Kournikova herself often takes great measures to perpetuate, is that she is an imposter on the WTA Tour, a toothsome starlet who simply uses the tennis court as a catwalk. (Jon Wertheim, "Any day now for Anna," Sports Illustrated, April 14, 2000)
4) The restaurant offers a wide variety of toothsome desserts, my favorite being a positively scrumptious chocolate torte topped with raspberry coulis.
Etymology:
One meaning of "tooth" is "a fondness or taste for something specified, a liking". "Toothsome" comes from this definition of "tooth" plus the suffix "-some", meaning "characterized by". Although "toothsome" was at first used to describe general attractiveness, it quickly developed a second sense that was specific to the sense of taste (perhaps because from as far back as Chaucer's time, "tooth" could also refer specifically to eating and the sense of taste). In addition, "toothsome" is now showing signs of acquiring a third sense, "toothy" (as in "a toothsome grin"), but this sense is not yet established enough.


topic of the day

• topic
• day

today's subject
Example:
The broadcast is of informational-analytical character and represents a summery of head issues and news subjects in live, though the discussion of a topic of the day is conducted an invited guest in the studio.


toppler
1. A small glass for one gulp.
2. A kind of a mine car to get the coal up the shaft and topple it down.

torpid
[TOR-pid] 1. Having lost motion or the power of exertion and feeling; numb; benumbed. 2. Dormant; hibernating or estivating. 3. Dull; sluggish; apathetic.
Examples:
1) Canary Islanders are citizens of Spain, but geography asserts itself from time to time, as a reminder that this land will always be Africa's: the trade winds get interrupted by strong gusts from the east that bring hot dust and sometimes even torpid, wind-buffeted locusts. (Barbara Kingsolver, "Where the Map Stopped", New York Times, May 17, 1992)
2) For more than twenty years--all my adult life--I have lived here: my great weight sunk, torpid in the heat, into this sagged chair on my rooftop patio. (Peggy Payne, "Sister India")
3) Some animals became torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Conduct of Life")
4) The debacle over signatures has roused the normally politically torpid Mayor, who dislikes pressing the flesh. (Jan Cienski, "Petition bungle robs Mayor of spot on ballot", National Post, July 30, 2002)
5) It is a man's own fault . . . if his mind grows torpid in old age. (Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson")

torrid

• torrid zone

1. parched with heat especially of the sun
Synonym: hot
2. ardent, passionate
Example:
As she cleaned out the attic, Monica was shocked to find a box filled with torrid love letters that her grandfather had written to her grandmother.
Etymology:
"Torrid" derives from the Latin verb "torrere", which means "to burn" or "to parch" and is an ancestor of our word "toast". Despite the dry implications of this root, it is also an ancestor of "torrent", which can refer to a violent stream of liquid (as in "a torrent of rain"). "Torrid" first appeared in English in the 16th century, and was originally used to describe something burned or scorched by exposure to the sun. The term "torrid zone" later came about to refer to tropical regions of the Earth. By the end of that century the word had taken on the extended meaning that we know today - suggesting fiery passion.


tortuous

• torturous

[TOR-chuh-wus]
1. Marked by repeated twists, bends, or turns; winding.
2. Marked by devious or indirect tactics; crooked, tricky; circuitous, involved
Example:
The road over the mountains was long and dangerously tortuous.
History, related words, difference, examples:
Be careful not to confuse "tortuous" with "torturous." These two words are relatives, and both ultimately come from the Latin verb "torquere," which means "to twist," "to wind," or "to wrench," but "tortuous" means "winding" or "crooked," whereas "torturous" means "painfully unpleasant." Something "tortuous" (such as a twisting mountain road) might also be "torturous" (if, for example, you have to ride up that road on a bicycle!), but that doesn't make these words synonyms. The twists and turns that mark a tortuous thing can be literal ("a tortuous path" or "a tortuous river") or figurative ("a tortuous argument" or "a tortuous explanation"), but you should consider choosing a different descriptive term if no implication of winding or crookedness is present.


torture lite

• torture
• lite

torture short of bodily harm.
Example:
Fears that US will use 'torture lite' on al-Qaida No 3. (Duncan Campbell, "The Guardian", Wednesday March 5, 2003)


tourbillion
[toor-BILL-yun]
1. Whirlwind.
2. A vortex, especially of a whirlwind or whirlpool.
Example:
In the history of any art there are unexpected eddies and tourbillions. (C. B. Cox, "The Twentieth-Century Mind")
History, more meanings:
"Tourbillion" comes from the same root as "turbine" - namely, the Latin word "turbo," meaning "top" (as in a spinning object) or "whirlwind." "Tourbillion" has been used over time to refer to other spinning objects besides an actual whirlwind. Among watchmaking enthusiasts, "tourbillion" is the name of a kind of watch with a mechanism designed to compensate for the effects of gravity on its movement. Among pyrotechnics fans, a tourbillion is a kind of firework having a spiral flight. The variety of meanings for "tourbillion" is enough to make one's head spin!


tractable

• docile
• malleable
• obedient
• amenable

[TRAK-tuh-bul]
1. Capable of being easily led, taught, controlled, or managed.
Synonym: docile.
2. Easily handled, managed, worked, or wrought.
Synonym: malleable.
Examples:
1) I have always found horses, an animal I am attached to, very tractable when treated with humanity and steadiness. (Mary Wollstonecraft, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman")
2) He thought that our temperaments are at least partly innate: "Some men by unalterable frame of their constitution are stout, others timorous, some confident, others modest and tractable." (Jonathan Weiner, "Time, Love, Memory")
3) Alice gets out her calculator and begins solving what, for her, is a far more tractable kind of problem. (Stephen S. Hall, "The Smart Set", 'New York Times Magazine', June 4, 2000)
4) Obedience school had turned the Millers' formerly undisciplined puppy into a tractable family pet.
Etymology, more synonyms, related words:
"Obedient," "docile," and "amenable" are synonyms of "tractable," but those four words have slightly different shades of meaning. "Tractable" describes an individual whose character permits easy handling, while "docile" implies a predisposition to submit readily to authority. "Obedient" is often used to describe compliance with authority, although that compliance is not necessarily offered eagerly. "Amenable," on the other hand, is usually used when one cooperates out of a desire to be agreeable. "Tractable" dates from the early 16th century and derives from Latin "tractabilis", from "tractare" - "to handle, to manage, to treat", frequentative of "traho" - "to draw, to drag". Despite the resemblance, this root did not give us the noun "tractor" or verbs such as "contract" or "attract" - those all derive from a loosely related verb, "trahere" ("to draw or drag").



traduce

• malign
• calumniate
• vilify
• defame
• slander

[truh-DOOS; -DYOOS]
1. To expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood or misrepresentation; to represent as blamable.
2. To violate, betray.
Examples:
1) The scandalous half-truths in the unauthorized biography angered the star, and she was hurt that so many of her former friends had traduced her.
2) Sir Edward rang twice to stress that he had no business relationship with the family other than his consultancy, but also to vouch for the fact that they were "splendid people" who should not be traduced. (Ian Jack, "Generous spirits, secretive souls," Independent, October 17, 1998)
3) I sometimes wonder whether those who traduce today's television have any conception just how much is on offer to the growing number of us with multi-channel television. (Peter Bazalgette, "Golden Age? This is it," The Guardian, November 19, 2001)
4) The only problem is that his corrective arguments tend to traduce rationalism as the exclusive preserve of wild-eyed eggheads who only ever spin webs of marvelously useless deduction. (Steven Poole, "Et cetera," The Guardian, June 30, 2001)
5) Many of you, Our Leader is absolutely sure, were disgusted at the way Rupert has been traduced in the media. (A. N. Wilson, "Modern Britain, modern kitchens! New Labour Web site number 11," Daily Telegraph, March 3, 1998)
Etymology, synonyms:
1533, "to alter, change over, transport," from Latin "traducere" ("change over, convert", originally "lead along or across, transfer"), from "trans-" ("across") + "ducere" ("to lead"). Sense of "defame, slander" (1586) is from L. "traducere" in the sense of "to scorn or disgrace," probably from the notion of "to lead along as a spectacle."
"Traduce" is one of a number of English synonyms that you can choose when you need a word that means "to injure by speaking ill of." Choose "traduce" when you want to stress the deep personal humiliation, disgrace, and distress felt by the victim. If someone doesn't actually lie, but makes statements that injure by specific and often subtle misrepresentations, "malign" may be the more precise choice. To make it clear that the speaker is malicious and the statements made are false, choose "calumniate." But if you need to say that certain statements represent an attempt to destroy a reputation by open and direct abuse, "vilify" is the word you want.
More synonyms: defame; slander


trail angel

• trail
• angel
• trail magic
• magic

A person who leaves food and performs other acts of kindness for hikers.
Examples:
1) Wren experiences awesome vistas and starry skies, pelting rain, sore knees and a night in the hospital with a possible tick bite. And he witnesses miracles: a woman who bakes chocolate-chip cookies just for hikers, a shop that offers hikers free milkshakes and - most wondrous of all - "trail magic": the rare sighting of a can of beer left chilling in a stream by a "trail angel." (Carol Peace Robins, "Books in Brief: Walking to Vermont", The New York Times, April 11, 2004)
2) The 59-year-old retired prison guard from Sussex County ... is a "trail angel." During the nine-month hiking season, he distributes "trail magic" - free water, food, and other goodies - just about every day to through-hikers traversing New Jersey as they attempt to walk the entire 2,172-mile Appalachian Trail. He sweeps out trail-side shelters and leaves behind cookies, hard candy, foot powder, Advil, and Band-Aids. He fills gallon jugs with water and leaves them on stretches of the trail where water is otherwise hard to come by. He hands out business cards and tells hikers that if they need anything, anything at all, call. (Bob Ivry, "An angel through and through", The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), August 21, 2003)


trammel

• trammels
• restraints
• untrammeled

[TRAM-ul]
1. A kind of net for catching birds, fish, etc.
2. A kind of shackle used for making a horse amble.
3. An iron hook of various forms and sizes, used for handing kettles and other vessels over the fire.
4. An instrument for drawing ellipses.
5. An instrument for aligning or adjusting parts of a machine.
6. (Usually used in plural) Something impeding activity, progress, or freedom, as a net or shackle.
7. To confine; to entangle, as in a net; to enmesh.
8. To hamper; to hinder the activity, progress, or freedom of.
Examples:
1) I feel she dances a symbol of human happiness as it should be, free from unnatural trammels. (John Sloan, quoted in "New York Modern", by William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff)
2) Is it a dull or uninstructive picture to see a whole people shaking suddenly off the trammels of reason, and running wild after a golden vision, refusing obstinately to believe that it is not real, till, like a deluded hind running after an ignis fatuus, they are plunged into a quagmire? (Charles Mackay, "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds")
3) In fact, corporate governance is based on the belief that managers (like anyone else) work best not when their freedom is trammelled but when they are made to account for what they do with it. ("The way ahead," The Economist, January 29, 1994)
4) It is quite inconsistent to claim to promote an enterprise society on the one hand and to trammel it with regulations on the other. (Sir Iain Vallance, quoted in "Stop squeezing business, CBI," by Charlotte Denny and Michael White, Guardian, May 22, 2002)
5) And it encourages the coercive use of political power to wipe out choice, forbid experimentation, shortcircuit feedback, and trammel progress. (Virginia Postrel, "The Future and Its Enemies")
6) I cast the miserable trammels of worldly discretion to the winds, and spoke with the fervour that filled me... (Wilkie Collins, "The Moonstone")
Synonyms: restraint, restraints
Etymology, related words:
A trammel fishing net traditionally has three layers, with the middle one finer-meshed and slack so that fish passing through the first net carry some of the center net through the coarser third net and are trapped. Appropriately, "trammel" traces back to the Late Latin "tremaculum," a kind of net for catching fish, which comes from Latin "tres," meaning "three," and "macula," meaning "mesh." You may also run across the adjective "untrammeled," meaning "not confined or limited."


transact
conduct (business)


transmogrify
[transs-MAH-gruh-fye, trans-MOG-ruh-fy]
To change into a different shape or to transform or alter greatly, often with bizarre or humorous effect.
Examples:
1) The movie's central character finds an odd-looking pair of glasses and is transmogrified into a heroic crime-fighter when he puts them on.
2) A washing machine transmogrified into a guitar. (Adrian Searle, "Come, friendly pigeons", The Guardian, March 16, 2000)
3) For the impulsive sin of turning to look back at the funereal pyre of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife is transmogrified into a pillar of salt as she flees the inferno. (Elizabeth Wurtzel, "Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women")
4) Roast chicken is still roast chicken whether you label it haute cuisine, bourgeois cuisine or country cooking; even calling it "poulet roti" will not transmogrify this simple bird. (Jacques Pepin, "The Chicken Dinner, Both Humble and Noble", New York Times, January 4, 1989)
History, more examples:
1656. "Transmogrify" is perhaps a humorous blend of "transmigrate", from "transmigure" (for the form) and "transmute" (for the sense).
We know that the prefix "trans-" means "across" or "beyond" and appears in many words that evoke change, such as "transform" and "transpire," but we don't know the exact origins of "transmogrify" for sure. The 17th-century dramatist, novelist, and poet Aphra Behn, who is regarded as England's first female professional writer, was among the first English authors to use the word. In her 1671 comic play "The Amorous Prince" Behn wrote, "I wou'd Love would transmogriphy me to a maid now." A century later, Scottish poet Robert Burns plied the word again in verse, aptly capturing the grotesque and sometimes humorous effect of transmogrification: "Social life and Glee sit down,... Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown Debauchery and Drinking."


transmute
[trans-MYOOT; tranz-]
1. To change from one nature, form, substance, or state into another; to transform.
2. To undergo transmutation.
Examples:
1) [I]t now seems as if she no longer had the strength or will to transmute life into art. (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Changes Not for the Better," New York Times, February 28, 1974)
2) Sand that once was rock becomes rock once again as it slowly sediments and compresses into layers of sandstone, which, in turn, transmute into sand. (Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker, "The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth")
Etymology:
"Transmute" is from Latin "transmutare" - "to change utterly," from "trans-" ("across") + "mutare" ("to change").


travail
[truh-VAIL]
1. a ) work, especially of a painful or laborious nature
Synonym: toil
b) a physical or mental exertion or piece of work
Synonyms: task, effort
c) agony, torment
Example:
Increasingly, African-American women writers are telling of the specific travails that that history imposed upon their foremothers. (Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "Oxford Review", February 1992)
2. labor, parturition
Etymology, related words:
Etymologists are pretty certain that "travail" comes from "trepalium," the Late Latin name of an instrument of torture. We don't know exactly what a "trepalium" looked like, but the word's history gives us an idea. "Trepalium" is derived from the Latin "tripalis," which means "having three stakes" (from "tri-," meaning "three," and "palus," meaning "stake"). From "trepalium" sprang the Anglo-French verb "travailler," which originally meant "to torment" but eventually acquired the milder senses "to labor" and "to journey." The shift in meaning from "torment" to "journey" gives us an idea of what people once thought about travel: it was torture. The Anglo-French noun "travail" was borrowed into English in the 13th century, followed about a century later by "travel," another descendant of "travailler."


travesty
[TRAV-uh-stee]
1. A burlesque translation or literary or artistic imitation usually grotesquely incongruous in style, treatment, or subject matter.
2. A debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation.
Example:
The new movie is a travesty of a documentary, likely to appeal only to the lowest sense of humor.
History, related words, more meanings:
"Travesty," which first appeared in print in English as a noun in 1674, comes from the French verb "travestir," meaning "to disguise." The word's roots, however, wind back through Italian to Latin. That ancient tongue includes the verb "vestire," a verb meaning "to clothe" or "to dress." "Vestire" is the ancestor of "travesty" and a number of other English words, including "transvestite," "divest," and "investiture." "Travesty," incidentally, can also be a verb meaning "to make a travesty of" or "to parody"; the verb predates the noun in English by a single year.


treacly
1. Like, or composed of, treacle.
2. Overly sweet or sentimental.
Examples:
1) Before the revolution Chukovsky had tried to free children's literature from treacly verse and goody-goody stories. ("St Petersburg: A Cultural History", Solomon Volkov)
2) Holmes flattered Gertie and Julia with smiles and gifts and treacly praise-especially Gertie-and how the women glowed in response. (Erik Larson, "The Devil in the White City")
3) Everyone has already said so, so let me add my congratulations to NBC: You guys made this the most dumbed-down, unremittingly sappy, embarrassingly treacly, watch-this-mug cry-for-the-anthem Olympic coverage in television history. (Paul Vitello, "Let the Sap Flow in Sydney," Newsday, August 6, 1996)
Etymology:
"Treacly" is formed from "treacle", from Middle English "triacle" ("antidote against poison"), from Old French, from Latin "theriaca", from Greek "theriake" - "antidotos", "(antidote against a poisonous bite from) a wild animal," feminine of "theriakos" ("of wild animals"), from "therion", diminutive of "ther" ("wild animal").


tremulous
[TREM-yuh-luhs]
1. Shaking; shivering; quivering; as, a tremulous motion of the hand or the lips; the tremulous leaf of the poplar.
2. Affected with fear or timidity; trembling.
Examples:
1) With an address for his father at last in his possession, Sead could scarcely contain a tremulous excitement. (Roger Cohen, "Hearts Grown Brutal")
2) In any event, when I thrust myself out of bed so violently, my heart became tremulous,... and I had the direst sense of mortality I have ever experienced. (Jim Harrison, "The Road Home")
Etymology:
"Tremulous" comes from Latin "tremulus", from "tremere" - "to tremble."


trenchant

• trench
• retrench

1. Characterized by or full of force and vigor; as, "a trenchant analysis"; vigorously effective and articulate; also: caustic.
2. Caustic; biting; severe; as, "trenchant criticism".
3. Distinct; clear-cut; clearly or sharply defined; clear-cut, distinct; sharply perceptive.
Synonyms: penetrating.
4. Keen, sharp.
Examples:
1) Her insistence that women's rights should be upheld universally, notwithstanding concerns about cultural diversity, led some to criticise her for being too narrowly entrenched within western liberalism, while others celebrated her trenchant defence of egalitarianism. (Judith Squires, "Susan Moller Okin", The Guardian, March 26, 2004)
2) His revolutionary music, abrasive personality and trenchant writings about art and life divided the city into warring factions. (Jonathan Carr, "Mahler: A Biography")
3) The trenchant divisions between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little scope for the unforseen. (Edith Wharton, "The Age of Innocence")
Etymology, related words:
"Trenchant" comes from Old French, from the present participle of "trenchier" ("to cut"), and may ultimately derive from the Vulgar Latin "trinicare," meaning "to cut in three."
Hence, a trenchant sword is one with a keen edge; a trenchant remark is one that cuts deep; and a trenchant observation is one that cuts to the heart of the matter. Relatives of "trenchant" in English include the noun "trench" ("a long ditch cut into the ground") and the verb "retrench" ("to cut down or pare away" or "to cut down expenses").


trepid

• trepidate
• trepidant

[TREP-id]
timorous, fearful
Example:
After dark, the less trepid among us would venture as far as the front porch of the empty house, where the smallest creak would send us screaming.
History, related words, more examples:
Don't be afraid to use "trepid." After all, it has been in the English language over 350 years - longer, by 30 years, than its antonym "intrepid." "Trepid" (from Latin "trepidus," meaning "alarmed" or "agitiated") isn't used as much as "intrepid," but it can be a good word at times. Bill Kaufman, for example, found a use for it in a May 7, 2000 "Newsday" article, in which an aquarium volunteer is "asked if she is perhaps a little trepid about swimming with sharks in a 12-foot deep, 120,000 gallon tank." (Her fearless reply: "Not really.") More of that, one may use "trepidate" for "to tremble with fear" and "trepidant," meaning "timid, trembling." These are uncommon words, granted, but they haven't breathed their last.


tripping

• trip
• You must be tripping
• Smb. must be tripping
• One must be tripping
• be tripping

To be under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD.
Example:
The sky looks red? Dude, are you tripping?
Etymology:
In the 1960s, many people used mind-altering drugs, and some people referred to their drug experiences as 'trips' (or journeys). Today the word is usually used in jest, to describe a foolish statement. When someone says something stupid or silly, you might say to them 'You must be tripping'.

triskaidekaphobia

• triskaidekaphobic
• triskaidekaphobe

[tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh]
A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.
Examples:
1) Thirteen people, pledged to eliminate triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, today tried to reassure American sufferers by renting a 13 ft plot of land in Brooklyn for 13 cents... a month. (Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1967)
2) Past disasters linked to the number 13 hardly help triskaidekaphobics overcome their affliction. The most famous is the Apollo 13 mission, launched on April 11, 1970 (the sum of 4, 11 and 70 equals 85 - which when added together comes to 13), from Pad 39 (three times 13) at 13:13 local time, and struck by an explosion on April 13. ("It's just bad luck that the 13th is so often a Friday," Electronic Telegraph, September 8, 1996)
Etymology, related words:
"Triskaidekaphobia" is a fairly new word (first found in print in 1911) formed from Greek "treiskaideka, triskaideka", "thirteen" ("treis", "three" + "kai", "and" + "deka", "ten") + "phobos", "fear." The adjective form is "triskaidekaphobic". One who fears the number 13 is a triskaidekaphobe or triskaidekaphobic.


troglodyte

• troglodytic
• troglodytical
• troglo-
• troglo
• troglobiont

1. A member of a primitive people that lived in caves, dens, or holes; a cave dweller.
2. One who is regarded as reclusive, reactionary, out of date, or brutish.
Examples:
1) When the survivalists emerged blinking into the sunlight to restock their caves after the terror, my first reaction was to say, "Bless their dotty, troglodyte hearts." (Judy Mann, "Survivalists Flee Reality to Live in Fear", Washington Post, October 5, 2001)
2) ...an admitted electronics-averse troglodyte like myself, who writes with a fountain pen, shaves with a mug and brush, grinds his own coffee and spends summers in a Maine fishing town where the nearest latte is 45 minutes away. (Frank Van Riper, "Another Door Opens", Washington Post, May 5, 2000)
3) For the first time, opening a fashion magazine didn't make me feel like a cloddish troglodyte who needed fixing. (Janelle Brown, "Keeping it real", Salon, June 4, 2001)
Etymology, related words:
"Troglodyte" comes from Latin "Troglodytae", a people said to be cave dwellers, from Greek "Troglodytai", "troglodutae", from "trogle" ("a hole") + "dyein" ("to enter, to go in"). The adjective form is troglodytic and troglodytical.
"Troglodyte" and "troglodytic(al)" are the only "trogle" offspring that are widely used in general English contexts, but another "trogle" progeny, the prefix "troglo-," meaning "cave-dwelling," is used in scientific contexts to form words like "troglobiont" ("an animal living in or restricted to caves").


trolleyology

• trolleyologist

Examining the contents of another person's shopping trolley in order to draw conclusions about that person's personality, behaviour or outlook on life.
Example:
A common application of trolleyology is in the evaluation of potential romantic partners based on their culinary and household habits, or the portrayal of a particular image to potential partners by judicious selection of the contents of your trolley!
History, related word:
In November 1999 the Guardian newspaper featured a story about love bleepers being given away free in Sainsbury's stores, supermarkets allegedly being one of the most popular places for single people to search for potential partners. In fact supermarkets have provided another new concept related to the quest for romance: the practice of trolleyology. One who practices it is a trolleyologist.


truckle
To yield or bend obsequiously to the will of another; to act in a subservient manner. Examples:
1) Only where there was a "defiance," a "refusal to truckle," a "distrust of all authority," they believed, would institutions "express human aspirations, not crush them". (Pauline Maier, "A More Perfect Union", New York Times, October 31, 1999)
2) The son struggled to be obedient to the conventional, commercial values of the father and, at the same time, to maintain his own playful, creative innocence. This conflict could make him truckle in the face of power. (Dr. Margaret Brenman-Gibson, quoted in "Theater Friends Recall Life and Works of Odets," by Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, October 30, 1981)
3) I am convinced that, broadly speaking, the audience must accept the piece on my own terms; that it is fatal to truckle to what one conceives to be popular taste. (Sidney Joseph Perelman, quoted in "The Perelman Papers," by Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, March 15, 1981)
Etymology:
"Truckle" is from "truckle" in "truckle bed" (a low bed on wheels that may be pushed under another bed; also called a trundle bed), in reference to the fact that the truckle bed on which the pupil slept was rolled under the large bed of the master. The ultimate source of the word is Greek "trokhos" ("a wheel").


truculent
[TRUCK-yuh-luhnt]
1. Fierce; savage; ferocious; barbarous.
2. Cruel; destructive; ruthless.
Examples:
1) I ask whether impeachment will become still another arrow in the quiver of the warrior class of ever more truculent partisan politicians in Washington. ("Former Watergate Prosecutors See Censure as Alternative in Clinton's Case," New York Times, December 9, 1998)
2) ...officers mistook his father's cursing and argumentative reception of five men with guns for the actions of a truculent fugitive. (Frank J. Murray, "Media can't join police raids of homes, high court decides," Washington Times, May 25, 1999)
3) Those bamboozled into believing palpable untruths that are recognized as such by the larger community are likely in time to develop an attitude of truculent resentment and outright paranoia rather than self-esteem. (Thomas M. Disch, "The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World")
Etymology:
"Truculent" derives from Latin "truculentus", from "trux, truc-" ("rough, savage, fierce").


trump card

• trump
• card

Something that you hold back to use to win success if nothing else works.
Example: The boxer's trump card in his desire for another fight was his great popularity with the fans.
History:
A trump card is a card that is chosen to temporarily be stronger than the other cards.


trumpery

• trump up
• trump

[TRUM-puh-ree]
1. Worthless nonsense.
2. Trivial or useless articles.
Synonym: junk.
Example:
Elizabeth's desk at work is crammed with souvenirs, paperweights, and other such trumpery.
Etymology:
"Trumpery" derives from the Middle English "trompery" and ultimately from the Middle French "tromper," meaning "to deceive." (You can see the meaning of this root reflected in the French phrase "trompe l'oeil" - literally, "deceives the eye" - which in English refers to a style of painting with photographically realistic detail.) "Trumpery" first appeared in English in the mid-15th century with the meanings "deceit or fraud" (a sense that is now obsolete) and "worthless nonsense." Less than 100 years later, it was being applied to cluttering material objects of little or no value. The verb phrase "trump up" means "to concoct with the intent to deceive," but there is most likely no etymological connection between this phrase and "trumpery."


truth is stranger than fiction

• truth
• stranger
• strange
• fiction

Things that happen in real life can be more unusual or surprising than things that people make up in stories.
Example:
When I read that the same couple had been married three times, once in an airplane,
once in a hot-air balloon, and once in an elevator, I decided that truth really is stranger than fiction!

truthiness

• truthy

The quality of stating facts that you believe or want to be true, rather than stating facts that are known to be true.
Adjective - truthy
Examples:
1) A better word could not have been coined to describe the current debate over global warming & The & most bizarre example of truthiness is that we have a number of cheap, nonpolluting and renewable sources of energy we can exploit. (The News-Press, Florida, 18th January 2006) 2) The Bush Administration has shown that bold-faced lying works like a charm. As long as they speak with 'truthy' conviction, they persuade people, despite the overwhelming evidence that they are leading us down the garden path. (The Progressive, 31st January 2006)
History: The word "truthiness" was first brought into the public eye in October 2005 by US comedian Stephen Colbert, who featured the term in his satirical news commentary programme "The Colbert Report". Though Colbert exploited the non-intellectual, 'made-up' character of truthiness for humorous effect, the word was not his own invention and in fact dates back as far as the 1800s. The "Oxford English Dictionary" contains an entry for the adjective "truthy", which is defined as 'characterised by the truth' and includes the derivation "truthiness". "Truthy" and "truthiness" were originally used as straightforward variants of "truthful" and "truthfulness". Though Colbert can't be credited with inventing the word, he is certainly responsible for re-introducing "truthiness" and "truthy" into 21st century English, giving them a new, ironic meaning. On 6th January 2006, in its 16th annual vote on new or significant English words, the "American Dialect Society" <http://www.americandialect.org> declared the word "truthiness" as overall winner, giving it the esteemed title Word of the Year <http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/ amerdial/truthiness_voted_2005_word_of_the_year/> for 2005. So just why, amongst a range of more obviously topical or popular candidates such as "podcast" <New-Words/050516-podcasting.htm>, "Sudoku" <New-Words/051107-Sudoku.htm> or "rendition" <New-Words/060130-rendition.htm>, did a dark horse like "truthiness" claim the crown? The answer seems to be that "truthiness", which refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts that you wish to be true, rather than concepts or facts that you know to be true, somehow embodies the zeitgeist of recent years, conveniently placing itself somewhere between the actual truth and the conviction of belief or opinion. Though the word initially prompted mixed reactions across the media as a rather unlikely choice for word of the year, possibly partly due to its more limited exposure relative to the other candidates, people quickly cottoned on to the word's potential to fill a lexical gap for something fundamental about human nature. "Truthiness" is a very useful concept in today's society because the truth is often inconvenient or simply boring. "Truthiness" has therefore been quickly associated with political spin and fabrication in general. Soon after the announcement by the "American Dialect Society", a controversy surrounding a best-selling book entitled "A Million Little Pieces" <http://www.randomhouse.com/ nanatalese/millionlittlepieces/>, by author and convicted criminal James Frey, acted as a catalyst in truthiness's more widespread recognition and potential survival. It was claimed that the book, dealing with Frey's drug addiction and criminal activities, was filled with fabrications and lies. In a widely publicised interview<http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html> on the "The Oprah Winfrey Show" <http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/ 200601/tows_past_20060126.jhtml>, Frey was confronted about how far his memoirs constituted truthiness rather than actual truth.

tryst
[TRIST; TRYST]
1. An appointment (as between lovers) to meet; also, an appointed place or time of meeting.
2. To mutually agree to meet at a certain place; to keep a tryst.
Examples:
1) And it bothers me that I begin to worry if she's planning a tryst with my handsome neighbour. (Anita Nair, "The Better Man")
2) Having left a "[2]Dear John" letter for her husband on the kitchen table, she set off to the airport, where she waited, and waited. Of course, Henry had entirely forgotten about the tryst, and she had to return home crestfallen. ("The serial seducer who took Amis's wife," Times (London), May 17, 2000)
3) Once Nick goes into the kitchen to tryst with Martha, it is Ms. Kurtz's turn to let loose with some fireworks. (Frank Rich, "Hot Seat")
4) Scientists are hoping the cosmos will bear witness to a romantic rendezvous today as a spacecraft attempts a Valentine's Day "tryst" with an asteroid called Eros. (Nigel Hawkes, "Eros beckons spacecraft for cosmic tryst," Times (London), February 14, 2000)
Etymology:
"Tryst" is from Middle English "triste","tryste" ("a station to which game was driven (in hunting)"), from Old French "triste" ("a station to which game was driven, a watch post"), probably of Scandinavian origin.


tumid

• bloated
• distended
• inflated
• bloat
• distend
• inflate
• puff
• puffed
• puffy

[TOO-mid; TYOO-mid]
1. Swollen, enlarged, or distended; as, "a tumid leg".
2. Bulging; protuberant.
3. Swelling in sound or sense; pompous; inflated; bombastic.
1) Oedema - swelling of the tissues caused by fluid retention - had left his face pouchy and tumid. (Ian Thomson, "Bringing my father home," Independent, December 14, 2003)
2) Give me your tumid, your sore, your glutted tummies, churning with hot dogs and ice cream... (David Nevers, "Chicken Soup in the Melting Pot," The Record, August 27, 1994)
3) The faults throughout are the same, a tumid style, generality of emotion, imprecision of image and no definite location of anything. (T. S. Eliot, letter to J.V. Healy, November 22, 1932)
Synonyms: bloated, distended, inflated, puffed, puffy
Etymology:
"Tumid" comes from Latin "tumidus", from "tumere" ("to swell").


turbid
[TUR-bid]
1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear (used of liquids of any kind).
2. Thick; dense; dark (used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.).
3. Disturbed; confused; disordered.
Examples:
1) Although both are found in the same waters, black crappies usually prefer clearer, quieter water, while white crappies flourish in warmer, siltier and more turbid water. (Tim Eisele, "Crappie Facts," Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), May 8, 1998)
2) Rough or smooth, the Irish Sea at Blackpool is always turbid. Beneath the murk float unspeakable things. (David Walker, "Is Labour right to end its affair with Blackpool? YES says David," Independent, March 26, 1998)
3) Wesley's mind seems at this time to have been in a turbid and restless state. (W. B. Stonehouse, "The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme")
Etymology:
"Turbid" comes from Latin "turbidus" ("confused, disordered"), from "turba" ("disturbance, commotion").


turgid
[TUR-jid] 1. Swollen, bloated, puffed up; as, "a turgid limb." 2. Swelling in style or language; bombastic, pompous; as, "a turgid style of speaking."
Examples:
1) The famous Faulkner style was more than many could put up with. Its marathon sentences, its peculiar words used peculiarly, its turgid incoherence and its thick viscosity repelled. (Orville Prescott, "A Literary Personality", New York Times, July 7, 1962)
2) Brown's novels are filled with the rigged episodes of melodrama and the turgid prose that passed for elegance among the literary circles in America before Irving and Hawthorne arrived on the scene. ("The Battle of the Books", New York Times, July 10, 1988)
3) Many young Libyans prefer to get their news from the Internet rather than the turgid evening news programs filled with slogans and cliches. (Amany Radwan, "The Weird, Wired World of Colonel Ghaddafi", Time, February 6, 2001)
4) The arm being bound, and the veins made turgid, and the valves prominent, as before, apply the thumb or finger over a vein in the situation of one of the valves in such a way as to compress it, and prevent any blood from passing upwards from the hand. (William Harvey, "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals")
Etymology:
"Turgid" derives from Latin "turgidus", from "turgere" ("to swell").



turophile
[TOOR-uh-fyle]
A connoisseur of cheese; a cheese fancier.
Example:
The new store is a turophile's heaven, offering more than 2,000 varieties of cheese.
Etymology:
Are you stuck on Stilton or gaga for Gouda? Do you crave Camembert? If so, you just might be a turophile, the ultimate cheese lover. From an irregular formation of the Greek word for cheese, "tyros," plus the English "-phile," meaning "lover" (itself a descendant of the Greek "-philos," meaning "loving"), "turophile" first named cheese aficionados as early as 1938. It was in the 1950s, however, that the term really caught the attention of the American public, when Clifton Fadiman (writer, editor, and former radio host) introduced "turophile" to readers of his eloquent musings on the subject of cheese.


turpitude
[TUR-puh-tood; -tyood]
1. Inherent baseness or vileness of principle, words, or actions.
Synonym: depravity.
2. A base act.
Examples:
1) In the eyes of the far left, it [the 60s] is the era when revolution was at hand, only to be betrayed by the feebleness of the faithful and the trickery of the enemy; to the radical right, an era of subversion and moral turpitude. (Arthur Marwick, "The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974")
2) They based their action on a clause in the uniform player contract which says players must "conform to standards of good citizenship and good moral character" and disallows "engaging in acts of moral turpitude." (Ira Berkow, "Go Ahead, Choke the Boss - Only in the N.B.A.," New York Times, March 5, 1998)
3) They were not his misdeeds, his turpitudes; she accused him of nothing - that is, of but one thing, which was not a crime. (Henry James, "The Portrait of a Lady")
Etymology:
"Turpitude" comes from Latin "turpitudo", from "turpis" - "foul, base."


tutelage

• tutor
• tuition

[TOO-tuh-lij]
1. The act of guarding or protecting.
2. The state of being under a guardian or tutor.
3. Instruction, especially of an individual.
Examples:
1) Under the tutelage of her high school swim coach, Lynn has greatly improved her times.
2) But he was not yet free of his father's legal tutelage and had still to decide on a career. (Roland Huntford, "Nansen: The Explorer as Hero")
3) This was the Puerto Rico that the United States invaded on July 25, 1898 - a country that wanted political, economic, and social justice, but not colonial tutelage, however well meant. (Jose Trias Monge, "Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World")
4) Many years under my grandfather's tutelage had made me the best calligrapher in the entire school. (Da Chen, "Colors of the Mountain")
5) Under her tutelage he picks up not only Greek but Hebrew, Arabic and Japanese before moving on to the rest of the major spoken languages and a slew of minor ones. (Myla Goldberg, "Paternity Suitor," New York Times, October 15, 2000)
Etymology, related words:
The word is from Latin "tutela" ("protection; guardian"), from the past participle of "tueri" ("to watch, to guard") + the suffix "-age". When "tutelage" first began appearing in print in the early 1600s, it was used mainly in the protective sense of "tueri," as writers described serfs and peasants of earlier eras as being "under the tutelage of their lord." Over time, however, the word's meaning shifted away from guardianship and toward instruction. This pattern of meaning can also be seen in the related nouns "tutor" (a person who instructs or guides another) and "tuition" (the act or profession of teaching or the cost of instruction). Nowadays "tutelage" can be used for any guiding influence in one's life.


twixter

• permanent adolescent
• permanent
• adolescent
• twenty-something Peter Pan
• twenty-something
• Peter Pan
• tweeny
• kidult
• youthhood
• adultescent
• emerging adulthood
• emerging
• adulthood
• boomerang kid
• boomerang
• kid

Young people between the ages of about 20 and 28, usually college graduates who are often unmarried and living at home, often with no settled employment.
Examples:
1) And what might a twixter be? Those in their middle-to-late-20s experiencing a period of limbo between the college years and the permanence of adulthood (career, marriage, children). ("St. Louis Post-Dispatch", 31 Jan. 2005)
2) In his view, what looks like incessant, hedonistic play is the twixters' way of trying on jobs and partners and personalities and making sure that when they do settle down, they do it the right way, their way. It's not that they don't take adulthood seriously; they take it so seriously, they're spending years carefully choosing the right path into it. ("Time", 24 Jan. 2005)
History, synonyms:
The cover story in "Time" Magazine of 24 January, 2005 argued that a shift has taken place in the culture of "permanent adolescents" and "twenty-something Peter Pans", stuck between childhood and the adult world; it also coined "twixters" for them because they were "betwixt and between", perhaps modelled on the established term "tweenies" for those a little younger than teenagers. As the article implied, there's nothing particularly new in identifying this age group as one with special problems: psychologists have in the past coined terms such as "kidult", "youthhood", "adultescent", "emerging adulthood", and "boomerang kid" when writing about it, none of which have been especially successful in linguistic terms. The piece got a lot of attention; opponents argued that it was economics, not arrested development, that has led to their situation. It's too early to say whether "twixter" stands any greater chance of catching the public imagination than previous creations.


two way

• two
• way

1. A system where you can contact people very easy, like a nationwide walkie-talkie.
2. (slang) A two headed strap-on sexual device.
Example: Last night me and my boyfriend used a two way for the first time.


tyro
[TY-roh]
A beginner in learning; a novice.
Examples:
1) It's difficult to imagine a tyro publishing a book on medical procedures or economic theory. (Philip Zaleski, "God Help the Spiritual Writer," New York Times, January 10, 1999)
2) He was a sensitive, fine soul alert to the pleasures of being green, a tyro, an amateur, unwilling to close his mind before it had been tempted. (Paul West, "Sporting With Amaryllis")
3) And, though we were mere tyros, beginners, utterly insignificant, he was invariably as kind and considerate and thoughtful, and as lavish in the gift of his time, as though he had nothing else to do. (Leonard Warren, "Joseph Leidy: The Last Man Who Knew Everything")
Etymology:
"Tyro" is from Latin "tiro" - "a young soldier, a recruit", hence "a beginner, a learner."