Tuesday word: Disheveled

Jun. 10th, 2025 03:13 pm
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Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Disheveled (adjective)
di·shev·eled [dih-shev-uhld]


adjective, Also, especially British, di·shev·elled.
1. hanging loosely or in disorder; unkempt: disheveled hair.
2. untidy; disarranged: a disheveled appearance.

Other Word Forms
un di·shev eled adjective

Related Words
bedraggles, messy, rumpled

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
Synonyms
2. rumpled, messy, slovenly, sloppy.

Origin: 1375–1425; late Middle English discheveled < Old French deschevele, past participle of descheveler to dishevel the hair, equivalent to des- dis- + -cheveler, derivative of chevel a hair < Latin capillus

Example Sentences
Devon's a disheveled, sweaty wreck storming the gates of the Kells’ orderly Elysium precisely when Michaela’s garden party is kicking off, the first of several she's planned for that weekend.
From Salon

A disheveled woman then emerges from the side of the building, meets Frankie’s stare and moves off into the night.
From Los Angeles Times

Moments later, a frantic housekeeper rifles through the kitchen drawers, then returns to raise a heavy marble rolling pin over the disheveled and bloodied figure, who is by all appearances pleading for her life.
From Salon

We learn that this disheveled gangster has bona fide empathy.
From Los Angeles Times

With a gimlet eye and a surprisingly girlish laugh, Vera is cantankerous, impatient, intensely private, unapologetically disheveled and utterly glorious.
From Los Angeles Times

Monday Word: Sniglet

Jun. 9th, 2025 11:09 am
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sniglet [snig-lit]

noun

1. often humorous word made up to describe something for which no dictionary word exists

examples

1. One might say I'm even a disciple of Tom Poston, a description for which a "sniglet" has been coined: "Tompostle" POSTON NOTE Toby O'B 2005

2. Embarrassingly, I remember the sniglet (remember sniglets?) for the place in the atmosphere where missing socks go when the disappear from the dryer: it's called the hozone. Coleman Camp: The Missing Ballots Don't Exist; Officials: Yes, They Do, 2009


origin

introduced by comedian Rich Hall in the 1980s TV comedy series "Not Necessarily the News."

Sunday Word: Sploot

Jun. 8th, 2025 01:54 pm
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sploot [sploot]

verb:
(slang, of an animal) to lie flat on the stomach with the legs stretched out
noun:
the act or an instance of splooting

            
(click to enlarge)

Examples:

There’s the classic sploot (one leg remains beneath the body while the other leg is kicked back), the side sploot (one leg is tucked under the body while the other is kicked out to the side) and a full sploot (the animal has kicked both legs behind the body, exhibiting a full body stretch). (Hannah Docter-Loeb, Who Sploots?, Slate, August 2022)

But even in the chillier climes like Laramie, squirrels will sploot on warmer days. The upside to what Koprowski called heat islands is that cement sidewalks, while also retaining heat, will retain cooler temperatures while in the shade. (Joshua Wood, U W Professor, Who Is World’s Foremost Authority On Squirrels, Says Splooting Is OK, Cowboy State Daily, August 2022)

Snellby Kay said her household refers to the position as "road kill pose," and Brianna Portillo called it the "sploot." (Sophie Lloyd, Cat's Bizarre Sleeping Position Confuses Internet: 'Airplane Mode', Newsweek, July 2023)

I think a senior cat who still gets the zoomies would love her own bean bag chair to sploot in! (Eve Vawter, Scottish Fold Cat’s Beanbag Sploot Is the AMSR Therapy Session We Didn’t Know We Needed, Parade Pets, April 2025)

Origin:

Sploot is part of a growing lexicon of 'DoggoLingo', which uses cute, deliberate misspellings and onomatopoeias like mlem, blep, smol, borf, and heckin to fawn over man’s best friend online - and the many, many pictures and videos we post of them. While the exact origins of sploot are unclear, lexicographer Grant Barrett of the A Way with Words radio show has suggested that the term sploot may riff on the word splat to characterize the splat-like (flat, spread-out) appearance of a sploot pose. This wordplay mirrors other changes made to existing words in DoggoLingo, like the substitution of chonky for chunky. Sploot is especially associated with corgis, a squat breed of dogs with very short legs. The use of sploot, as associated with pets, is evidenced by at least 2012. (Dictionary.com)

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(Image description: a Tweet from Mykhailo Lavrovskyi:

Americans are learning the depths of the Ukrainian concept of zhabohadyuking.

Zhabohadyuking

(noun, slang, ironic)
[From Ukrainian zbaba (frog) + hadyuka (viper) + English-style suffix -ing]

Definition: a messy, absurd conflict in which both sides are equally awful, toxic, or ridiculous.

    Shitshows where every participant sucks.
    Political slap fights between clowns.
    Situations so cringe and cursed they feel like a cursed animal mating ritual.

Origin: The term comes from a Ukrainian expression “the frog is screwing the viper” (їба́ла жа́ба гадю́ку)—a vulgar, folkloric way of saying “this is a hideous match-up no one asked for.”

Source: https://x.com/Lavrovskyi/status/1930702385154077045; via [tumblr.com profile] mariakov81 on Tumblr, including an audio pronunciation: https://mariakov81.tumblr.com/post/785622581755674624/maria-zhabohad

Wednesday Word: Zaouli

Jun. 4th, 2025 09:02 am
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Zaouli

This is a topic where I will defer to Wikipedia's expertise:

Zaouli or Zawli is a traditional dance of the Guro people (who speak the Guro language) of central Ivory Coast. The Zaouli mask, used in the dance, was created in the 1950s, reportedly inspired by a girl named "Djela Lou Zaouli" (meaning "Zaouli, daughter of Djela").


Cizaouli.jpg
By Zenman - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link


Tuesday word: Teratoid

Jun. 3rd, 2025 08:59 pm
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Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Teratoid (adjective)
teratoid [ ter-uh-toid ]


adjective
1. Biology. resembling a monster.

Related Words
atrocious, dreadful, egregious, freakish, frightful, grotesque, gruesome, heinous, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrifying, inhuman, intolerable, obscene, odious, outrageous, preposterous, terrible, vicious

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

Origin: First recorded in 1875–80; terat- + -oid

Example Sentences
She was rushed into life-saving surgery, but the diagnosis was an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor, or ATRT, the most common brain cancer in infants and one of the deadliest.
From Washington Post

Doctors said Allia had an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor, a rare, fast-growing cancer of the brain and the spinal cord.
From New York Times

Platten sang the hit with a cancer patient, 7-year-old Jeremiah Succar, at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles after finding out through social media that Succar was a huge fan of the song since he was diagnosed with stage-four atypical rhabdoid teratoid in May.
From Time

The fact that this life is being lived right now by developer Ryan Green and his wife as their son undergoes treatment after treatment for Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumors makes this game even more painful and poignant.
From Forbes

Routh suffered from an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor.
From Seattle Times

Monday Word: Dwam

Jun. 2nd, 2025 03:27 pm
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dwam [dwɔːm or dwɑːm]

chiefly Scottish

noun:

1. a fainting spell or sudden attack of illness
2. daydream, reverie

examples:
1. Rebus drove to work next morning in what his father would have called "a dwam," unaware of the world around him. Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin.

2. Online shoppers don't drift or derive or dwam around: they point and click. The Guardian "Tales from the Mall by Ewan Morrison – review." August 2012

origin
akin to Old English dwolma chaos, Old High German twalm bewilderment, stupefaction, Old Norse dylminn careless, indifferent, Gothic dwalmon to be foolish, insane

Sunday Word: Divertissement

Jun. 1st, 2025 02:02 pm
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divertissement [dih-vur-tis-muhnt; French dee-ver-tees-mahn]

noun:
1 a diversion or entertainment
2 a short ballet or other performance serving as an interlude in a play, opera, etc
3 a program consisting of such performances

Examples:

This season, the Act 2 pas de quatre, a speedy and demanding divertissement for three women and one man, was cut to help streamline the ballet. (Gia Kourlas, At New York City Ballet, Swans Use Grit to Find Glory , The New York Times, February 2020)

But this smart, fast-paced film is not really the zany, lighter-than-air divertissement that the term usually conjures. (Stephen Holden, 'Mistress America,' a Noah Baumbach Comedy on Getting By in a Backbiting World, The New York Times, August 2015)

Big-league ball on the west coast of Florida is a spring sport played by the young for the divertissement of the elderly - a sun-warmed, sleepy exhibition celebrating the juvenescence of the year and the senescence of the fans. (Roger Angell, The Old Folks Behind Home, The New Yorker, March 1962)

"I tell you all this," continued La Fontaine, "because you are preparing a divertissement for Vaux, are you not?" (Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask)

The divertissement, the masquerade, the pageant, the perpetual disguise of humanity that is too soon marred, too soon sad, the theatre, every conceivable artifice of light and shadow, sound and colour, speed and space, was needed to imitate these enchanted dells and forests, these magic lakes and unearthly palaces, where Armida and Gloriana might have disported. (Marjorie Bowen, Nightcap and Plume)

Origin:

Divertissement can mean 'diversion' in both English and French, and it probably won't surprise you to learn that 'divertissement' and 'diversion' can be traced back to the same Latin root : divertere, meaning 'to turn in opposite directions.' Early uses of 'divertissement' in English often occurred in musical contexts, particularly opera and ballet, describing light sequences that entertained but did little to further the story. (The word's Italian cousin, divertimento, is used in a similar way.) Today 'divertissement' can refer to any kind of amusement or pastime, specifically one that provides a welcome distraction from what is burdensome or distressing. (Merriam-Webster)

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