Word of the Day
More about shivoo
Shivoo “a loud party” is an Australian colloquialism of uncertain origin. An earlier spelling, shiveau, appears at the end of the 18th century in the U.K. The nearly 20 spelling variants, including chevaux and cheveaux, lead some scholars to suggest that the origin of shivoo may be from the French phrase chez vous “at your house.” The Australian spelling shivoo dates from 1881.
how is shivoo used?
The place was packed, there being more people present than at any previous moment of this festival … “What a show, Brian! What a shivoo! You can’t go to sleep yet. Here, I’ve brought you a drink to toast Old Ireland with.”
In that traditional lull between reporting season and the start of annual meetings, the balance of Australia’s most senior chief executives are clocking up air miles and enjoying the hospitality of investment bank JP Morgan at its annual Edinburgh shivoo.
paucity
noun
smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness.
More about paucity
Paucity “smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness,” comes via Old or Middle French paucité from Latin paucitāt-, the inflectional stem of paucitās “smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness,” a derivative of the adjective paucus “few” (because of its intrinsic meaning, paucus is usually used in the plural). Paucus is also the source of Italian poco “a little,” i.e., the musical direction meaning “somewhat, a little,” and of poco a poco “little by little, gradually.” The Proto-Indo-European root underlying the Latin words is pau-, pōu-, pəu-, pu– (with still more variants) “few, a few, little, low,” which also usually is extended by consonant suffixes. Latin pau– with a suffixed –l forms the adjective paulus, paullus “little, small,” the Roman surname Paullus, and the English forename Paul. The variant root pu– with a suffixed –er forms the Latin noun puer “boy, child”; the diminutive of puer is puellus “a young boy,” and puella, the feminine of puellus, therefore means “girl.” The root pau– becomes the Proto-Germanic root faw-; its derived adjective fawaz “few, a little,” becomes fēawa, fēa in Old English, and few in modern English. Paucity entered English in the first half of the 15th century.
how is paucity used?
Watching American films from the 1970s today, you may be struck by the paucity of music: filmmakers then did not want to depend on the emotional groundbase a continuous music track provides—they wanted to focus your attention on their images.
Ambiguous references to what may have been hats of vegetable materials are to be found in the works of almost all ancient writers, but very little that is specific can be discovered. Perhaps one reason for the paucity of information on this subject may be that the homemade hats of plaited straws or rushes were probably worn only by the common people.
More about neophyte
Neophyte “a beginner or novice” ultimately comes from Greek neóphytos “newly planted” (grains, vines), a compound of neo-, a combining form of the adjective néos “new,” and –phytós “planted,” a derivative of phýein “to make grow, bring forth, beget.” Neóphytos first appears in the works of the Athenian comic dramatist Aristophanes (died ca. 385 b.c.), and it keeps its literal, agricultural sense down to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was completed by the 1st century b.c. Neóphytos in the sense “new convert” (to Christianity) first appears in I Timothy, one of the Pastoral Epistles traditionally ascribed to St. Paul. Neóphytos in its new sense was adopted by Christian Latin authors as neophytus; neophytus was sufficiently established for St. Jerome to use it in his Latin translation from the Greek I Timothy. The general, modern sense “beginner” first appears in Ben Jonson’s play Every Man out of His Humor (1600). Neophyte entered English in the 15th century.
how is neophyte used?
Maybe it takes a ruthless, calculating egoist to transform pain into product. Or maybe all the attention that the neophyte clamors for feels suffocating to the full-grown artist.
Macron, who exit polls project as the winner of Sunday’s first round presidential election in France, is a political neophyte.