Word of the Day
anchorite
noun
a person who has retired to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion; hermit.
More about anchorite
The English noun anchorite “hermit” comes from Middle English anchorite, anachorite, ancorite, from Old French anacorittes and Medieval Latin anachōrīta, equivalent to Late Latin anachōrēta “a hermit, eremite, recluse, ascetic,” from Late Greek anachōrētḗs “one who has retired from the world,” a derivative of anachōreîn “to withdraw, retire.” Anachōreîn is a compound of the adverb and preposition aná and prefix ana– “up, back, re-“ and chōreîn “to make room for, withdraw, give way,” a verb derived from chôros “piece of ground, space, place.” Anchorite entered English in the 15th century.
how is anchorite used?
I am most gratified to find that you are among those who indulge in a legitimate enjoyment of the good things of life. I am sure that if God intended us to be anchorites he would have fashioned this world after another sort.
We’re all lonely now. We’re all cut off from each other, trapped inside the walls of our own domestic space, the 21st-century version of the medieval anchorite.
megafauna
noun
Zoology.
large or giant animals, especially of a given area.
More about megafauna
Megafauna is a hybrid of mega-, a combining form meaning “very large” (as in megachurch and megalith), from Greek mégas “large,” and fauna “the animals of a given region or period considered as a whole.” Fauna comes from the Latin proper noun Fauna, a rustic goddess and sister of Faunus, the rustic god who protected fields, herds, agriculture, and shepherds, identified with the Greek god Pan. Megafauna tend to have long lives and slow population growth and recovery rates. As a result, many such species, as elephants and whales, are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation by humans. Megafauna entered English in the first half of the 20th century.
how is megafauna used?
Poaching threatens megafauna, our planet’s largest animals that often function as the keystones of their respective ecosystems.
Like the V-shaped graptolites or the ammonites or the dinosaurs, the megafauna weren’t doing anything wrong; it’s just that when humans appeared, the “rules of the survival game” changed.
bight
noun
a bend or curve in the shore of a sea or river.
More about bight
Bight has several senses in Modern English. It can refer to a bend or curve in the shore of a sea or river, a body of water bounded by such a bend, or the loop or bent part of a rope. Following the twists and turns of its morphology, we arrive at Middle English byght, bight, beghte, beythe “the fork of the legs, the pit or hollow of the arm, (in names) bend or bay,” from Old English byht “a bending, corner, dwelling, bay, bight.” The English word comes from Germanic buhtiz, from the Proto-Indo-European root bheug(h)-, bhoug(h)-, bhug(h)– “to bend,” which is the source of Sanskrit bhujáti “(he) bends,” Gothic biugan and Old English būgan, both meaning “to bow,” and Old English boga “arch, bow” (as in English rainbow and bow and arrow).
how is bight used?
The boardwalk weaves along the bight from the ferry terminal on Grinnell to the end of Front Street.
A bight is simply a long and gradual coastal curve that creates a large bay, often with shallow waters. You’re likely already familiar with a number of bights — for instance, the area between Long Island and New Jersey on the East Coast is known as the New York Bight, while California’s Channel Islands live in the Southern California Bight, which stretches all the way from Santa Barbara to San Diego.