Word of the Day
spruik
verb (used without object)
Australian Slang.
to make or give a speech, especially extensively or elaborately; spiel; orate.
More about spruik
Spruik “to make or give a speech, especially extensively or elaborately” is an Australian and New Zealand slang term recorded by the early 1900s. While its exact origin is unknown, spruik may have been borrowed from German Sprüche “patter, spiel,” the plural of Spruch, “a saying; empty talk,” among other senses. Other proposed sources include forms of Dutch spreken “to speak,” such as spreuk “saying, spell.” German Spruch and Dutch spreken are both related to English speak, which developed from Old English specan, a variant of sprecan that lost the original r.
how is spruik used?
Thompson might have had the power of the press to spruik his message, but he had other factors going against him.
Andi, Justin and Karl will sit around the set looking uncomfortable waiting their turn to spruik about the New Alchemy Institute in Massachusetts, the world’s most powerful microscope, robot technology in Japan and research into children’s co-ordination.
More about chutzpa
Chutzpa is one of many colorful, and very useful, English words of Yiddish origin. Also commonly spelled chutzpah (among other forms), chutzpa was borrowed into English in the late 1800s from Yiddish khutspa “impudence; gall; audacity; nerve,” from Aramaic ḥūṣpā. Chutzpa often has a negative connotation, as in “The unruly siblings had the chutzpa to correct their father on manners.” The qualities of chutzpa, however, can also be positive, as in “The employees showed a great deal of chutzpa when they demanded pay raises.”
how is chutzpa used?
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to write a book called “The Problem With Everything,” but chutzpah is something essayist and cultural critic Meghan Daum has always possessed in spades.
Selling these artifacts at these prices requires more than a list of customers with too much disposable income. It takes hard work, chutzpa and catalog copy that ignites neural brush fires in the amygdala.
ipso facto
adverb
by the fact itself; by the very nature of the deed: to be condemned ipso facto.
More about ipso facto
First recorded in English in the mid-1500s, ipso facto is an adverb that comes directly from the Latin phrase ipsō factō “by the fact itself, by the very fact.” Ipso facto is often used when the very fact that one thing occurs is a direct consequence of another, as in “Having won all the gold medals in the sport’s Olympic events, she was ipso facto the best gymnast in the world.” Latin factō is the ablative form of factum “deed, act, fact,” and ipsō is the ablative of ipsum “very, same, itself,” among other senses. Ipso appears in other Latin expressions used in English, especially in law, including eo ipso “by that very fact” and ipso jure “by the law itself.”
how is ipso facto used?
… the notion that cars made in Germany would ipso facto be better crafted than others … this would have seemed curious indeed just a generation before.
I had, it seemed, defined myself as a “popular” writer, and if one is popular, then, ipso facto, one is not to be taken seriously.