Chimera.
1. A fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail, killed by Bellerophon.
2. A grotesque monster, formed of the parts of various animals.
3. An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere wild fancy; an unfounded conception.
4. An organism (commonly a plant) in which tissues of genetically different constitution co-exist as a result of grafting, mutation, or some other process.
5. A horrible and fear-inspiring phantasm, a bogy.
6. Any fish of the family Chimæridæ.
Category Archives: words
Word of the Week
Circumbendibus.
(noun) A roundabout process or method; a twist, turn; circumlocution.
[A humorous formation from circum- + bend, with the ending of a Latin ablative plural. The first quoted use given by the OED is by Dryden is 1681.]
Word of the Week
Zariba or Zareba.
In the Sudan and adjacent parts of Africa, a fence or enclosure, usually constructed of thorn-bushes, for defence against the attacks of enemies or wild beasts.
A fenced or fortified camp.
A formation of troops for defence against attack.
Word of the Week
Cundy.
[Northern England and Scottish dialect]
A conduit, covered drain or culvert.
Word of the Week
Persiflage
Light banter or frivolous talk; a frivolous manner of treating any subject.
Also a variety of modern cultivated lily.
Word of the Week
Dzong.
A religious and/or governmental centre in one of the Buddhist kingdoms of the Himalayas (Bhutan and Tibet). A Buddhist monastery. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of courtyards, temples, administrative offices and monks’ accommodation.
Word of the Week
Palimpsest.
A parchment or other writing-material written upon twice, the original writing having been erased or rubbed out to make place for the second; a manuscript in which a later writing is written over an effaced earlier writing.
Word of the Week
Libertine.
1. A freedman; one freed from slavery. [Roman]
2a. The name given to certain “free-thinking” sects (of France and elsewhere on the continent) of the sixteenth century.
2b. One who holds free or loose opinions about religion; a free-thinker.
2c. One who follows his own inclinations or goes his own way; one who is not restricted or confined.
3. A man who is not restrained by moral law, especially in his relations with the female sex; one who leads a dissolute, licentious life.
The word ‘libertine’ was first applied in the 1550s to a sect of Protestants in northern Europe who, with unimpeachable logic, reasoned that since God had ordained all things, nothing could be sinful. They proceeded to act accordingly. Their views were regarded with horror by both Catholics on one side and Calvinists on the other.
[AC Grayling, The Form of Things]
Word of the Week
Cullet.
Crushed, broken or refuse glass with which the crucibles are replenished.
According to the OED the name is formed as an extension of “Collet. The neck or portion of glass left on the end of the blowing-iron after the removal of the finished article” to include all refuse and broken glass melted over again to make inferior glass.
Word of the Week
Cuneiform.
1. Having the form of a wedge, wedge-shaped.
2. Applied to the characters of the ancient inscriptions of Persia, Assyria, etc., composed of wedge-shaped or arrow-headed elements; and hence to the inscriptions or records themselves.
Probably hence also “cunt”.