Word of the Day

alfresco \al-FRES-koh\, adverb:

1. In the open air; outdoors.

adjective:

1. Taking place or located in the open air; outdoor.

Turner escaped from the entangled politics of London's art world, where the Royal Academy was marooned in petty disputes, to paint alfresco on the riverbanks.-- Siri Huntoon, "Down by the Riverside", New York Times, November 7, 1993

Outdoor sitting areas all have LAN connections, so that employees can work alfresco.-- Scott Kirsner, "Digital Competition - Laurie A. Tucker", Fast Company, December 1999

I sailed past alfresco cafes filled with young people reading the paper, past restaurants doing a thriving brunch business, and ended up dropping down a fairly steep hill to the water yet again, on an obscure street that ended near a big factory.-- Gary Kamiya, "An ode to Sydney", Salon, September 27, 2000

Alfresco is from the Italian al fresco, "in the fresh (air)," from al, "in the" (a, "to, in" + il, "the") + fresco, "fresh."

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Word of the Day

bailiwick \BAY-luh-wik\, noun:

1. A person's specific area of knowledge, authority, interest, skill, or work.
2. The office or district of a bailiff.

I'll give it a try, but this is not my bailiwick.-- Sue Grafton, 'L' Is for Lawless

He "professed ignorance, as of something outside my bailiwick."-- Marc Aronson, "Wharton and the House of Scribner: The Novelist as a Pain in the Neck", New York Times, January 2, 1994

Fund-raising was Cliff's bailiwick, anyway, and he seemed to have it in hand.-- Curt Sampson, The Masters

Bailiwick comes from Middle English baillifwik, from baillif, "bailiff" (ultimately from Latin bajulus, "porter, carrier") + wik, "town," from Old English wic, from Latin vicus, "village."

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Word of the Day

otiose \OH-shee-ohs; OH-tee-\, adjective:


1. Ineffective; futile.

2. Being at leisure; lazy; indolent; idle.

3. Of no use.

Mr. Federspiel's surreal flourishes and commentaries straddle the line between interesting and otiose. Most of the surrealism is pretty but pointless.-- D. F. Wallace, "The Million-Dollar Tattoo", New York Times, May 5, 1991


Although the wild outer movements and the angular Minuet can take such clockwork precision, the Andante, with its obsessive, claustrophobic dialogues between strings and bassoons, seemed sluggish and otiose.-- Tim Ashley, "VPO/Maazel", The Guardian, April 16, 2002


The umlaut he affected, which made no difference to the pronunciation of his name, was as otiose as a pair of strategically positioned beauty spots.-- Peter Conrad, "Hidden shallows", New Statesman, October 14, 2002


One hazard for religions in which all professional intermediaries are dispensed with, and in which the individual is enjoined to 'work out your own salvation' and is regarded as fully capable of doing so, is that belief and practice become independent of formal organized structures which may in such a context come to be perceived as otiose.-- Lorne L. Dawson, "The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements: The Case of Soka Gakkai", Sociology of Religion, Fall 2001


Otiose is from Latin otiosus, "idle, at leisure," from otium, "leisure."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for otiose

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Word of the Day

rubicund \ROO-bih-kund\, adjective:Inclining to redness; ruddy; red.

The men are second cousins, around forty, resembling each other not very much, one taller and leaner, less rubicund than the other, who has just returned from California.-- John Lukacs, A Thread of Years

Rubicund from his cocktail, big, broad, lustrous with power, he exuded what Walter Pater called the "charm of an exquisite character, felt in some way to be inseparable from his person."-- Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

Rubicund comes from Latin rubicundus, "red, ruddy," from rubere, "to be red."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for rubicund

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Word for the day

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donnybrook \DON-ee-brook\, noun:1. A brawl; a free-for-all.2. A heated quarrel or dispute.

But this was the beginning of Tommy's years of fighting back, a period that ended in a donnybrook conducted all over the O'Connor house.-- Tracy Kidder, Home Town

Wine and talk flow freely, so much so that the meal ends with a Rooney family donnybrook over, typically enough, religion and politics.-- Howard Frank Mosher, "24 Hours in Due East, S.C.", New York Times, April 7, 1991

The author finds few villains in "West Virginia's Battle of the Books," which describes a donnybrook over the content of public school textbooks during the mid-70's in the "seemingly placid community" of Charleston, W.Va.-- Kaye Northcott, "Round Up the Usual Enigmas", New York Times, February 23, 1992

A donnybrook is so called after Donnybrook, Ireland, a suburb of Dublin that once held an annual fair known for its brawls.

Word for the day

fettle \FET-l\, noun:A state or condition of fitness or order; state of mind; spirits --

often used in the phrase "in fine fettle."

Aside from the problems with her voice . . . Miss Garland was in fine fettle last night.-- Vincent Canby, "Judy Garland Sets the Palace Alight", New York Times, August 1, 1967

Back in 1987, the Conservatives won a thumping majority in a June general election, primarily because the economy was seen by grateful voters to be in fine fettle.-- Larry Elliott, "Danger of a recurring nightmare", The Guardian, June 18, 2001

Many of the nuns were in fine fettle, even into their 80s and 90s.-- John McCrone, "Sisters of mercy", The Guardian, August 18, 2001

He seems in fine fettle when we meet, and happy to discuss the film that gave him his break.-- Charlotte O'Sullivan, "Naked ambition", The Guardian, February 7, 1999

Fettle is from Middle English fetlen, "to set in order," originally "to gird up," from Old English fetel, "a girdle."

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