Word of the Day
copse
noun
a thicket of small trees or bushes; a small wood.
More about copse
The noun copse, “thicket of small trees grown for periodic felling,” is a shortening of coppice (with the same meaning). Coppice comes from Old French colpeïz, copeïiz, coupeïz “woodland cleared of trees, a cutover,” a derivative from an assumed Vulgar Latin verb colpāre “to cut, chop,” ultimately from Latin colaphus “a punch (with the fist),” from Greek kólaphos “a slap, blow.” Copse entered English in the 16th century.
how is copse used?
In the tops of the dark pines at the corner of the copse, could the glance sustain itself to see them, there are finches warming themselves in the sunbeams.
Between moonrise and sunset I was stumbling through the braken of the little copse that was like a tuft of hair on the brow of the great white quarry.
sudoriferous
adjective
bearing or secreting sweat.
More about sudoriferous
The English adjective sudoriferous comes from Late Latin sūdōrifer, literally “sweat-bearing.” The Latin suffix -fer “carrying, bearing,” very familiar in English, comes from the verb ferre “to carry, bring, bear,” from the common Proto-Indo-European root bher- “to carry, bear,” source of Sanskrit bhárati, Greek phérein, Celtic (Old Irish) biru, Germanic (English) bear, and Slavic (Polish) bierać, all meaning “carry.” The Latin noun sūdor is a derivative of the verb sūdāre, from the Proto-Indo-European root sweid-, swoid- “to sweat” (swoid- becomes sūd- in Latin). The Germanic derivative of the Proto-Indo-European noun swoidos is swaitaz, which becomes swāt in Old English (English sweat). Sudoriferous entered English in the late 16th century.
how is sudoriferous used?
Jermaine’s nerves got the better of him and resulted in a rather sudoriferous audition.
Although it may sound somewhat ridiculous to be mentioning football these sudoriferous days, the news is that Glenn Davis and Felix (Doc) Blanchard should be around again some time next month–on the screen, that is.
pathos
noun
the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity, or of sympathetic and kindly sorrow or compassion.
More about pathos
The English noun pathos comes directly from Greek páthos “suffering, sensation, experience,” related to the verb páschein “to suffer, be affected, feel.” Both the noun and the verb come from the Greek root penth-, ponth, path-. The root path- also forms the noun pátheia “suffering, feeling” and is the second element of apátheia, empátheia, and sympátheia, source of English apathy, empathy, and sympathy. From the root penth- Greek forms the word nēpenthḗs “banishing suffering,” (literally “unsuffering”), source of the English noun nepenthe, the name of a drug or plant that brings forgetfulness of pain and suffering. Pathos entered English in the 16th century.
how is pathos used?
Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated.
Burnham says his overall aim was to use a middle school student to tell a story rooted in the same pathos that drives any good movie about a person’s deepest battles.