Episode seven (for days 31 to 35) of my 100 day challenge to find words I don’t know. I’m scraping words from https://randomword.com/ and each day picking one that I find interesting and which is also in the OED.
Day
Date
Word
Meaning
31
Sunday 1 December
pourpointerie **
Quilted material with studs at the seams, worn in the Middle Ages as armour
32
Monday 2 December
pongee
A soft, usually unbleached kind of Chinese silk fabric, woven from uneven threads of raw silk
33
Tuesday 3 December
scoliograptic
Marked by oblique lines
34
Wednesday 4 December
zenana
The system of segregating women away from men in harems
An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists Gottfried Leibnitz
Image from Wikipedia
Prominent German polymath and one of the most important logicians, mathematicians and natural philosophers of the Enlightenment. As a representative of the seventeenth-century tradition of rationalism, Leibniz’s most prominent accomplishment was conceiving the ideas of differential and integral calculus, independently of Isaac Newton.
An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists Marie Curie
Image from Wikipedia
Polish (naturalized-French) physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, is the only woman to win the Nobel prize twice, and is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields.
An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Image from Wikipedia
A Dutch businessman and scientist. Largely self-taught in science, he is commonly known as “the Father of Microbiology”, and one of the first microscopists and microbiologists.
An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists William Harvey
Image from Wikipedia
English physician who made seminal contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the circulatory system and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the heart.
Each month this year we’re bringing you a post under the general title “Things that Count in [Number]” where [Number] will be the month. And naturally each month’s post will contain the [Number] of items (so just one for January, up to 12 for December).
For our purposes the definition of counting includes things which either come in groups of [Number] (eg. four suits in a pack of playing cards) or things which count in [Number] (eg. decimal coinage counting in tens).
Things which Count in Twelve …
Apostles
Drummers drumming
Jurymen
Months of the year
Signs of the zodiac
Books in Anthony Powell’s sequence A Dance to the Music of Time
Episode six (for days 26 to 30) of my 100 day challenge to find words I don’t know. I’m scraping words from https://randomword.com/ and each day picking one that I find interesting and which is also in the OED.
An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists Galen of Pergamon
Image from Wikipedia
Possibly the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.
Episode five (for days 16 to 20) of my 100 day challenge to find words I don’t know. I’m scraping words from https://randomword.com/ and each day picking one that I find interesting and which is also in the OED.
Day
Date
Word
Meaning
21
Thursday 21 November
pigsconce
A foolish or pigheaded person; blockhead
22
Friday 22 November
cabasset
A light iron helmet
23
Saturday 23 November
tephra
Dust and rock fragments that have been ejected into the air by a volcanic eruption
24
Sunday 24 November
novena
A devotion consisting of special prayers or services on nine successive days
25
Monday 25 November
chiru **
Tibetan antelope with a thick, reddish-brown woolly coat, and (in the male) very long straight horns
** My favourite of the words presented.
Next episode in a few days!
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
