http://wordaday.today.com Lexicographer: A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words. Samuel Johnson Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:20:45 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My colleague Emily Veinglory wrote an interesting entry on the gesture described by the adjective "steepled" here, wherein she notes: The word I am thinking of today is ’steepled’, specifically as it relates to hands. Spellchecker assures me that the word ’steepled’ is a non-word, it fails ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/12/28/steepled/ It's that time of year when most particularly I think of the nativity story in Matthew. I was always fascinated, as a child, by the passage that describes the gifts brought to the infant Jesus by the Magi, the wise men from the east. Matthew 2:11 in the ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/12/21/magi-gifts/ I was at a craft show the other day where a woodworker using a lathe had made exquisite boxes and lamps out of what he said was "spalted maple." Now, I'd never heard of a maple species named that, and was about to ask him when he showed me another ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/30/spalted/ It's the time of year that in America, we're all thinking about Turkey, even those of us who don't actually eat the bird, Male Eastern Wild Turkey since images are all around us, in preparation for Thanksgiving. We've all heard the stories about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/26/turkey/ Falmouth Cranberry Bog © 2001Kathy Sharp Frisbee It's that time of year when we put things like cranberries on our shopping list. The cranberry is: 1. A mat-forming, evergreen shrub (Vaccinium macrocarpum) of eastern North America, having pink flowers and tart, red, edible berries. 2. The berries of this plant, used in sauces, ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/23/cranberry/ There's universal agreement today that a Penguin is: Any of various stout flightless marine birds of the family Spheniscidae, of cool regions of the Southern Hemisphere, having flipperlike wings and webbed feet adapted for swimming and diving, and short scalelike feathers that are white in front and black on the back. But ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/21/penguin/ It seems, from my informal poll, and a bit of research, that my initial opinion that "pull" or "draw" in the context of beer is a dialect choice. In the previous entry, I quoted a bit from an R. B. Parker novel that used "draw" to refer to obtaining draft ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/20/the-language-of-beer-ii/ I was reading a Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker; Hush Money. In the novel, the hero and his friend are in a Boston bar, and have requested a re-fill of the beer on tap at the bar--in other words, it's draft , not from a bottle or can. Here's ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/19/the-language-of-draft-beer/ The core meaning of faith is embodied in the first three definitions: 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See synonyms at belief, trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/18/faith/ Slew, meaning "A large amount or number; a lot: a slew of unpaid bills," like slogan, is now a perfectly good English word, though you might be more familiar with it spelled slue. Slew, like slogan, comes to Modern English by way of Old Irish slúgh, a word that means ... http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/17/slew/