Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

I am hurrying a bit for my daily contribution. The reason is to begin typing this post before midnight (local time), thus allowing me to do two Posts in a row.

So: pestilence. It is a noun, pronounced as advertised in the dictionary. Its meanings are as follow:
1) A fatal epidemic disease, especially a specific plague (does it show I haven't studied biology much?)
2) By extension, a pernicious or evil influence.

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Narf, you cannot strike down a fellow mouse with your Hammers of Doom. Yes, I am actually a mouse, only I am posing as a human to fool these gullible creatures. It does make sense. So please put down this hammer, will you? On the other hand (mice do not have hands, but that shall be made irrelevant), Lan happens to be a sworn enemy of the Most Holy Cause of the Mice, and has actually been involved in plots against the Cause. These facts are obviously not biased at all, and not altered by my concerns about my safety.

So here comes the second word, now that I have sneaked one at 2359 (server time for my time zone). Resilience. It is a noun, pronounced... Who am I fooling? Everybody knows the "pronouncation" field is only here to placate Lan after all. But perhaps I shouldn't have said that aloud...

1) The ability to quickly recover from illness or change. (Will be helpful once Narf has done some smiting with his hammers.)
2) The property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched or compressed. (Ditto.)

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Bah! I see through your babblings! You posted your 'plot' for all to see! Let the hammering commence!

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Resilience... I remember when I first learned that word! It was back when I was a kid and playing video games on the Intellivision. (In case you haven't heard of them, Intellivision was a game console, like Playstation or Nintendo, and it took cartridges.)

There was a two-player game called Sea Battle, in which you had a fleet of warships and you battle the other player. You had a battleship, a submarine, PT boat, and so on. Each ship had a stat called resilience, which was the amount of damage it could take before sinking, in other words, its hit points.

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Today's Word:
Omnibus omni-buss A fairly simple word.

n (plural om·ni·bus·es)
1. book collecting separate works: a single book containing several works, usually by the same author, involving the same main character, or on the same subject, previously published separately
2. om·ni·bus
om·ni·bus e·di·tion (plural om·ni·bus e·di·tions)
U.K. single broadcast of programs: a single continuous broadcast consisting of several radio or television programs previously broadcast separately, for example, installments of a serial or soap opera
3. bus: a bus (archaic or formal)

adj
with many different things: bringing many different things together as a single unit
an omnibus education bill

[Early 19th century. Via French and directly from Latin “for all,” from omnis “all” (see omni-).]

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Today's Word:
Airy-fairy pronounced like it looks.

adj U.K.
1. fanciful: fanciful or not grounded in reality (informal)
2. delicate: extremely fragile


[Mid-19th century. Perhaps originally in “airy, fairy Lilian,” in the poem Lilian by Alfred Tennyson.]

BONUS WORD! *woop woop woop*

Today's Bonus Word:
Fishwife pronounced like it looks

n
1. coarse and loud woman: a woman who is regarded as loud-voiced and lacking in manners (insult)
2. woman fish seller: a woman selling fish (archaic)

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Today's Word:
Indolent (in*da*lent)

adj
1. lazy: lethargic and not showing any interest or making any effort
2. medicine painless and slow to change: used to describe a disease or condition that is slow to develop or be healed, and causes no pain


[Mid-17th century. From the late Latin stem indolent- “insensitive to pain,” from dolent- , present participle stem of dolere “to suffer pain.”]

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

It looks like I have failed in my duties of late; my purpose being to bump this thread. So here goes a word that just had me stumbled in a crossword.

Lodestar (prounounced as "lode"+"star" I gather). Noun.

1) A star used as a point of reference, especially Polaris.
2) By extension, a guiding principe or interest.

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

Lodestar is a great word. What I mean by that is, it's a great Scrabble word! Since you can have only seven tiles at one time, you wont be able to spell the whole word at once. But, you can spell L.O.D.E. or just S.T.A.R. Whenever you have the right tiles. Add lode or star to each other a make lodestar at anytime! Speaking of Scrabble. If you live in America, you will be able to watch a Scrabble match on ESPN, October third(Sunday) around the afternoon(check local listings). I happened to see one Last year, and I must say, it's fun to watch. So after that I should have myraids of words after. On to the words...!

Today's Word:
Lambaste or Lambast lamb*baste an easy one

vt
1. criticize strongly: to criticize somebody or something severely
2. whip: to beat or whip somebody (archaic)


[Mid-17th century. From lam + baste “to beat.”]

Re: OT- Word of the day.
 

It is a great Scrabble word provided you are playing Scrabble in English. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (I must admit I am having a tough time playing a Scrabble-like game in English; perhaps the habit of doing the same in French)

If you like similar words as lodestar, may I suggest forenoon or fortnight? Very nice for the same purpose, and they are much nicer than their more common equivalents of "morning" and "two weeks".

And since I have forgotten to post words for a couple of days, here comes a bonus update:

Flair (pronounced "flâr", if it is any help). Noun.
1) A natural talent or aptitude. A synonym would be a forte (and here I sneak a second word while still speaking of another one)
2) Having an instinctive discernment.
3) Distinctive elegance of style.

The word comes from "flairer", which means "to scent" in French (and likely in other Languages; Latin?). "Flair" is the noun based on this verb, but is only used as in the second meaning in French.