Word of the Day
fillip
noun
anything that tends to rouse, excite, or revive; a stimulus: Praise is an excellent fillip for waning ambition.
More about fillip
Fillip is imitative, or onomatopoeic, in origin. Earlier forms include filip, fylippe, philip, and phillip. Fillip looks like a variant of flip, but flip is first recorded in the late 17th century, whereas fillip dates from the 16th.
how is fillip used?
It is so pleasant to receive a fillip of excitement when suffering from the dull routine of everyday life!
His ordinary government allowance of spirits, one gill per diem, is not enough to give a sufficient fillip to his listless senses …
grumphie
noun
Chiefly Scot. a familiar name for a pig.
More about grumphie
Grumphie is an exclusively Scottish word, first used by Robert Burns (1759-96). Grumphie is formed from the verb grumph “to grunt” and is imitative of the typical sound pigs and some humans make. The suffix -ie is a spelling variant of -y, one of whose functions is to form endearing or familiar names like Billy, doggy (doggie), and sweetie. Grumphie entered English in the late 18th century.
how is grumphie used?
“Grumphie smells the weather, / An’ grumphie sees the wun’; / He kens when clouds will gather, / An’ smoor the blinikin’ sun.” This extravagant tribute to the pig as a weather prophet is typical of a large number of proverbs, though, perhaps no other animal has been credited with actually seeing the wind.
If ye’re proud to be a grumphie clap yer trotters!
univocal
adjective
having only one meaning; unambiguous.
More about univocal
Like its cousin equivocal, univocal derives from the Latin vōx meaning “voice.” Whereas the prefix equi- means “equal,” uni- means “one.” Univocal dates to 1535–45.
how is univocal used?
When then-Fox News chief Roger Ailes was presented with allegations of sexual harassment — first in a bombshell lawsuit, later in published reports — his response was univocal: Deny, deny, deny.
For any given element–event, character, development–is never simply univocal or one-sided but generally has two or more valences: it is serious and ironic, pathos-charged and parodic, apocalyptic and farcical, critical and self-critical.