Word of the Day
Samaritan
noun
one who is compassionate and helpful to a person in distress.
More about Samaritan
Samaritan as an adjective means “pertaining to Samaria or the Samaritans”; as a noun, it means “a native or inhabitant of Samaria.” Most commonly, however, Samaritan is short for Good Samaritan, after Jesus’ parable in Luke 10:30-37. Samaritan comes from the Late Latin adjective Samarītānus “Samaritan” (used as a noun in the masculine plural), from the Greek noun Samarī́tēs “a Samaritan,” a derivative of Samareía, the name of a city and region in Palestine. Greek Samareía comes from Aramaic Shamerayin, from Hebrew Shōmərôn, of uncertain meaning, but possibly from Shemer, the owner who sold Shōmərôn to Omri, king of Israel, in 1 Kings 16:24. Samaritan entered English before 1000.
how is Samaritan used?
That night, they slept in a good Samaritan‘s home, washed dirty laundry, and showered for the first time since leaving home.
Kids want to counteract inequality, to be good samaritans and help the little guy.
stridulate
verb (used without object)
to produce a shrill, grating sound, as a cricket does, by rubbing together certain parts of the body.
More about stridulate
The English verb stridulate, “to produce a shrill, grating sound like that of a cricket,” is an English derivative of the English noun stridulation, which comes from French stridulation. The French noun is a derivative of the New Latin verb strīdulāre “to produce a shrill, grating sound,” a derivation of the classical Latin adjective strīdulus, itself a derivation of the noun strīdor “a high-pitched sound.” Strīdere, the classical Latin equivalent of New Latin strīdulāre, is related to Greek trízein “to buzz, squeak,” and a little farther out of town, to Tocharian A trisk– “to drone” (Tocharian is the group name for two or three related Indo-European languages, now extinct, spoken in what is now Chinese Turkestan). The Latin, Greek, and Tocharian forms derive from the onomatopoeic Proto-Indo-European root (s)trei– “to buzz, hiss.” Strīdere and trízein are related to Greek strínx, stríx (stem stríng-, stríg-) “owl, night raven,” and to Latin strix (stem strig-) “an owl, bird of ill omen, evil spirit, vampire.” Either Latin strig– or Greek stríg– was the source of Vulgar Latin striga “evil spirit, witch, hag,” which becomes strega “witch” in modern Italian, as in the late Tomie DePaola’s series of wonderful children’s books “starring” Strega Nona, “Granny Witch.” Stridulate entered English in the first half of the 19th century.
how is stridulate used?
To stridulate, or chirr, one of the minor achievements of the cricket, your species is dependent on the intestines of the sheep and the hair of the horse.
Even so most often does the singing insect stridulate: it is celebrating life.
panivorous
adjective
subsisting on bread; bread-eating.
More about panivorous
The English adjective panivorous “bread-eating” comes from the Latin noun pānis (inflectional stem pāni-) “bread” and the Latin combining form -vorus “devouring,” a derivative of the verb vorāre “to eat up, devour” (pānivorus does not occur in Latin).
how is panivorous used?
I ate it toasted for breakfast and took it to school as the foundation of my lunch sandwich. An equivocal frisson traversed my now infinitely more sophisticated panivorous spirit when I read that Wonder Bread’s parent company filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
the people who persevered in their panivorous propensities, accused the emperor of selling our corn to the English.