Word of the Day
forfend
verb (used with object)
to defend, secure, or protect.
More about forfend
Forfend “to defend, secure, protect” comes from the Middle English verb forfenden, a compound of the prefix for– and the verb fend. The first element, for-, was frequently used in Middle and Old English to create words with the sense “off, away, extremely” or to imply a negative or prohibitive force, such as forbid, forget, and forgo. The second element, fend, is a reduced form of defend, which derives via French from the Latin verb dēfendere “to repel, ward off” and is a distant relative of bane (from Old English bana “slayer”) and the recent Word of the Day bezoar (from Persian pād-zahr “counterpoison”). Forfend was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.
how is forfend used?
Jellies do not actively hunt but instead use their tentacles as drift nets. Should a fish brush against the often invisible extensions, the pressure prompts the tentacles’ stinging cells to release tiny harpoons packed with neurotoxins. In the most venomous jellyfish, the toxins are designed to work quickly and unequivocally, to forfend any damage to the predator’s delicate tissue.
Ah! do not shrink from thy friend,
If love thou reverest,
But know ’tis for thee to forfend
The fate which thou fearest.
The lot thou hast here to deplore,
Is sad evermore to maintain,
And hardship in sickness is sore,
But sorest in pain.
xebec
noun
a small, three-masted vessel of the Mediterranean, formerly much used by corsairs, now employed to some extent in commerce.
More about xebec
Xebec “a small, three-masted vessel” is an alteration of chebec, which comes by way of French from either Catalan xabec or obsolete Spanish xabeque, from Arabic shabbāk, a small type of ship. In modern Spanish, the older form xabeque is now spelled jabeque; the version with an initial x reflects the earlier use of x to make the “sh” sound, which eventually shifted to the “h” sound. While many Spanish terms that once contained the “sh”-sounding x have since shifted to the modern Spanish “h”-sounding j (such as Don Quixote, which is spelled Don Quijote in modern Spanish), this x—with the modern “h” pronunciation—still exists today in place names such as México, Oaxaca, and even in Bexar, the county in Texas where San Antonio is located. Xebec was first recorded in English in the 1750s.
how is xebec used?
With the nor’-nor’-westerly breeze freshening as the night fell, the ship advanced rapidly on the starboard tack ….
“She is a xebec!” said one of the sailors. “I see the square sails on her mizen.”
“No,” answered another, “she is a pink! see how high in the stern and broad in the bow she is.”
“Xebec or pink, who can tell one from the other at this distance?”
“Isn’t she a polacca with square sails?” remarked another sailor, making a telescope of his hands.
“Heaven help us anyhow!” said old Gozzo. “Polacca, pink, or xebec, they are all three-masters, and three masts are worth more than two when they come ashore with a good cargo of wine from Crete, or stuffs from Smyrna!”
Returning from a visit to the city in his gig one night Captain Bainbridge was grossly insulted by the commander of a Spanish xebec which was anchored in the harbor as a guard boat. In vulgar and abusive language the Spaniard ordered the gig to come alongside, and, as no attention was paid to the insult, several musket shots were fired. Supposing that some mistake had been made, Captain Bainbridge ran alongside the xebec and explained who he was, but, not satisfied with this, the commander of the guard boat insisted on his coming aboard. Captain Bainbridge replied that, as the commander of an American frigate, he considered it beneath his dignity to comply with such an impudent request, and ordering his men to shove off, he pulled for the Essex in spite of the Spaniard’s repeated threats of firing on him.
sídh
noun
a mound or hill in which fairies live.
More about sídh
Sídh “a mound or hill in which fairies live” is a borrowing from Irish Gaelic, from Old Irish síd, of the same meaning. The ultimate source of sídh is the Proto-Indo-European root sed- “to sit,” with derivations including English sit, set, and saddle as well as Latin sedēre “to sit” (compare sedentary and sediment). Though sídh literally refers to fairy mounds, it also frequently appears in reference to fairies themselves. This process is called metonymy (from meta- “beyond” and -onym “name”), in which a word for one thing is used figuratively to refer to a related concept or entity. Just as sídh can refer figuratively to fairies as well as literally to their home, “the White House” can refer figuratively to the president of the United States as well as literally to the building located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sídh was first recorded in English in the 1790s.
how is sídh used?
While divine beings could be associated with either [hills or bodies of water] in both Ireland and Wales, the Irish tended to prefer the sidh mounds in their tales while the Welsh stories usually placed the dwellings of deities on islands or even under water. It is possible that the Lady of the Lake was the Welsh equivalent of the Lady of the Sidh.
Newgrange is Ireland’s most famous prehistoric site. As with most of the passage tombs in Ireland, archeologists believe that it was built around 3200 B.C., which means that Newgrange predates the construction of Stonehenge in England and the Pyramids of Egypt …. The Celtic myth says that Newgrange is a fairy mound or a sidh. A group of ancient people, the Tuatha Dé Danann, or “people of the goddess Danu,” dwelled there.