Word of the Day
effervescent
adjective
vivacious; merry; lively; sparkling.
More about effervescent
Effervescent is a buoyant adjective meaning “vivacious; merry; lively; sparkling,” as in “The choir delivered an effervescent performance of favorite Christmas carols.” Effervescent derives from Latin effervēscere “to boil (over); burst forth; seethe; rage.” Effervēscere is composed of ef-, a variant of the prefix ex– “out of,” and fervēscere “to start boiling,” from fervēre “to be hot,” ultimate source of English fervent “enthusiastic, ardent.” True to its Latin root, fervent originally meant “hot, glowing” in English, just as effervescent first meant “giving off bubbles of gas” before evolving to its variously “bubbly” metaphorical senses. Effervescent entered English in the late 1600s.
how is effervescent used?
Yet his spirits are so effervescent that, with only a candle for fuel and only raw turnips for supper, he is able to lose himself in illusions of grandeur.
The book combines effervescent comedy and stinging critique, but its most arresting quality is the lively humanity of its characters.
More about flâneur
Flâneur “idler; dawdler; loafer” is borrowed directly from French flâneur, an agent noun of the verb flâner “to stroll, saunter aimlessly; lounge.” The ultimate origin of French flâner is obscure. In 19th-century France, the flâneur was a figure for a type of wealthy, foppish man-about-town who leisurely wandered the boulevards of Paris and lounged at its cafés. In the early 1900s, German literary critic Walter Benjamin, inspired in great part by the writing of Charles Baudelaire, helped develop the flâneur into a symbol of the modern artist and writer, at once immersed in and alienated by the hustle and bustle of urban life. English borrowed another noun from French to describe the disposition of the flâneur: flânerie “idleness, dawdling.” Flâneur entered English in the mid-1800s.
how is flâneur used?
It was, after all, the age of the flaneur: a foppish, solvent young man who would roam the colonnades of Paris from dawn to dusk, idly though publicly observing the quotidian pathos of the working men around him.
Oscar Wilde is a flaneur, but not William Wordsworth. It happens in crowds, in great capital cities, in man-made environments.
deipnosophist
noun
a person who is an adept conversationalist at a meal.
More about deipnosophist
No dinner party is complete without a deipnosophist “a person who is an adept conversationalist at a meal.” This is the type of person who, at least as dictionary editors hope, regales fellow feasters with the origin of such an intriguing word as deipnosophist. Deipnosophist is based on Deipnosophistaí, the title of a literary work by Athenaeus, a Greek philosopher and rhetorician writing in Naucratis, Egypt, in the late 200s a.d. Deipnosophistaí is the plural of deipnosophistḗs, literally “an expert in the affairs of the kitchen,” and the work features a banquet where learned men discuss food and a wide range of other topics. Deipnosophistḗs is formed on Greek deîpnon “meal, dinner” and sophistḗs “expert, wise person.” Sophistḗs is the source of English sophist, which historically refers to a type of professional teacher in ancient Greece and later, a person who argues cleverly but speciously. Sophistḗs is related to Greek sophía “skill, wisdom,” source of the –sophy in philosophy. Deipnosophist is recorded in English by the 1600s.
how is deipnosophist used?
Mr. MacPherson, a self-described “deipnosophist” (a fancy word for an adept dinner conversationalist), said the hearth is a good place to start for putting guests at ease.
Its author, one Upton Uxbridge Underwood (1881—1937), was a deipnosophist, clubman, and literary miscellanist with a special interest in tonsorial subjects.