Word of the Day
polyglot
adjective
a person who speaks, writes, or reads a number of languages.
More about polyglot
Polyglot “one who speaks, writes, or reads several languages,” comes from the Attic Greek polýglōttos “many-tongued (i.e., of an oracle); speaking many languages,” a compound of the prefix poly– “much, many” (from the neuter adjective polý) and familiar in English, for example, in polychrome, polygamous, and polygon. The combining form –glōttos “having a tongue, using a specific tongue or language” is a derivative of glôtta “tongue.” Attic Greek is one of the four Greek dialects in which serious literature is composed, the other dialects being Ionic (Herodotus’ Histories, for example), Aeolic (the lyric poetry of the poets Sappho and Alcaeus), and Doric (the traditional dialect of choral odes in tragedy). The other dialects have the form polýglōssos and the noun glôssa, source of English gloss “a marginal or interlinear translation or explanation of an unusual or difficult word or phrase.” Polyglot entered English in the mid-17th century.
how is polyglot used?
There is a thriving online community of ardent linguaphiles who are, or who aspire to become, polyglots …
A taxi cuts you off in Rome. A Mumbai merchant spurns your best offer. A maitre d’ snubs you in Beirut. At times like these, words can fail even the most seasoned polyglot.
More about darg
If you know that darg means “a day’s work,” you may be able to figure out that it comes from day and work. Darg comes from Middle English daiwerk, daiwark, daiwork “a day’s work or customary service; a day’s fighting; the amount of land that can be plowed by a team in one day.” The development of the sound seems to be from daiwark to dawark to dark and darg. Darg is the usual form in Scotland and North England. In Australia darg means “a fixed or definite amount of work; a work quota,” a sense that is also found as a coal mining term in mid-19th century Northumberland and Durham, counties in northern England. Darg entered English in the early 15th century.
how is darg used?
I have a lang day’s darg afore me …
I do not like our slack days …. Always feel as if I were not doing my full ‘darg‘ on such; but they give me time for reading, and one is glad to secure that.
decussate
verb (used with or without object)
to cross in the form of an X; intersect.
More about decussate
The verb decussate “to cross in the form of an X; intersect,” comes from Latin decussāt-, the inflectional stem of decussātus, the past participle of the verb decussāre “to mark with a cross or an X.” Decussāre is a derivative of the noun decussis “a bronze ten-piece coin; the number ten, a decade; an X-shaped mark” (X was the Latin symbol for 10). Decussis is a reduced form of decem “ten” and as (also assis) “a copper coin or monetary unit; a penny.” Decussate entered English in the second half of the 17th century.
how is decussate used?
So if you decide you want to move your right arm, or your right leg, the signal would leave the motor cortex of the left hemisphere, travel down towards your brainstem, and then at the level of the medulla, it would decussate, or cross over to the right side of the brainstem, and then continue into your spinal cord.
the leaf-stalks of the second pair decussate with those of the first, and are just so much longer as to bring up that pair nearly, or quite, to a level with the first …