Word of the Day
guerdon
noun
a reward, recompense, or requital.
More about guerdon
Guerdon “a reward, recompense, or requital” is a variation of Old French werdoun, continuing a trend in which the w in Germanic-origin borrowings often becomes gu when adapted into French and other Romance languages. For other examples, compare the cognate pairs ward and guard, warranty and guarantee, and William and Guillaume. Old French werdoun comes from Medieval Latin widerdonum, which in turn was adapted from Old High German widarlōn, with a phonetic change from l to d because of the influence of Latin dōnum “gift.” Widarlōn is a compound of widar “again, back” (which survives today in the German expression auf Wiedersehen “until we meet again”) and lōn “reward” (cognate to Latin lucrum “gain, profit,” as in English lucrative). Guerdon was first recorded in English in the mid-14th century.
how is guerdon used?
What a Cannes Film Festival. It has been an unruly jungle. Unruly and luxuriant. The movies have climbed over each other in excellence, every new one transcending the last as it reaches towards that gilded guerdon, that light-giving cynosure of legendary tree-forms, the Palme d’Or.
BIRON. When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name, And Rosaline they call her: ask for her; And to her white hand see thou do commend This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon; go.
[giving [Costard] a shilling]
disjecta membra
plural noun
scattered members; disjointed portions or parts.
More about disjecta membra
Disjecta membra “disjointed portions or parts” is a term from Latin that is altered from the phrase disjectī membra poētae “limbs of a dismembered poet,” which appears in the writings of Horace (known to his Roman contemporaries as Quintus Horatius Flaccus). The reason for the spelling change is simple grammar: in the original Latin, the possessive adjective disjectī “dismembered” matches the possessive noun poētae “of a poet.” The endings are different because poētae is irregular; though it looks feminine with its -ae ending, it is in fact a masculine noun. With poētae removed from the phrase, disjectī changes to match the neuter subject noun membra, becoming disjecta. Even in modern Spanish, the feminine-looking noun poeta “poet” is still masculine, and typical masculine -o adjectives modify it. Disjecta membra was first recorded in English in the early 18th century.
how is disjecta membra used?
One gets the notion that these boys are starting again from the beginning, with the separate tone and the separate sonority. Notes are strewn about like disjecta membra; there is an end to continuity in the old sense and an end of thematic relationships. In this music one waits to hear what will happen next without the slightest idea what will happen, or why what happened did happen once it has happened.
As she led the way westward past a long line of areas which, through the distortion of their paintless rails, revealed with increasing candour the disjecta membra of bygone dinners, Lily felt that Rosedale was taking contemptuous note of the neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which she finally paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.
paludal
adjective
of or relating to marshes.
More about paludal
Paludal “of or relating to marshes” is based on Latin palūs (stem palūd-) “swamp, marsh,” plus the adjectival suffix -al. Palūs has one of several possible origins, inspiring significant debate among linguists. One common hypothesis is that palūs originally meant “submerged, filled (with water)” and derives from an Indo-European root meaning “to fill; many,” which would make it related to Latin plēnus “full” (as in plenty) and plēre “to fill” (as in complete) as well as cognate to English fill because of Grimm’s law; learn more from the recent Words of the Day pruinose and cordiform. Alternatively, palūs could be connected to terms related to movement of water, from Latin pluere “to rain” (compare French pleuvoir and Spanish llover) and Latin plōrāre “to weep” (compare French pleurer and Spanish llorar) to English fleet, float, flood, flotsam, and flow. Paludal was first recorded in English in the 1810s.
how is paludal used?
A church, an ancient heap of flints, rises up, cavernous, through mist and marshes. The “Cathedral of the Marshes,” they call it. This is Blythburgh on England’s windswept Suffolk coast. The landscape here is oppressive, bleak. And what man once made is quickly being lost to nature: sea erodes land …. Victorian antiquaries restored the place to something of its former glory. But today, few come to worship in Blythburgh’s paludal “cathedral.”
The land we were standing on was a project technically known as BA-39 …. BA-39 had proved, not that further proof was really necessary, what enough pipes and pumps and diesel fuel can accomplish. Nearly a million cubic yards of sediment had made the five-mile journey, resulting in the creation—or, to be more accurate, the re-creation—of a hundred and eighty-six paludal acres. Here were all the benefits of flooding without the messy side effects…