51吃瓜 of the Day
nebbish
noun
a pitifully ineffectual, luckless, and timid person.
More about nebbish
Nebbish 鈥渁 pitifully ineffectual person鈥� is a variant of the Yiddish term nebekh 鈥減oor, unfortunate.鈥� Unlike the majority of words in Yiddish, which are of Germanic extraction, nebekh is most likely from a Slavic source such as Czech 苍别产辞丑媒 鈥減oor.鈥� The original meaning of this Slavic source was 鈥渦nendowed,鈥� and it derived from a negative prefix (compare English not and non-) and the Proto-Indo-European root bhag- 鈥渢o share, apportion.鈥� This same root is also found in Ancient Greek phagein 鈥渢o eat,鈥� as in esophagus. Nebbish was first recorded in English in the early 1890s.
how is nebbish used?
The ability to make a nebbish of ourselves is given to all of us. Some exist with this condition on a permanent basis; others can just turn it on at will. 鈥� Of course, being on the fortunate, effectual side of the nebbish equation is always preferable to being on the 鈥渨rong鈥� side of nebbishness. But I daresay that all of us have, at one time or another, felt the discomfort and humiliation of acting like a nebbish, wishing that the earth would open up and swallow us, whole.
On Nov. 19, Skylight opens “Little Shop of Horrors,” the Alan Menken-Howard Ashman musical that blends comedy and horror through a score that draws on pre-Beatles rock, doo-wop and Motownish sounds. Sievert plays Seymour, the lovestruck florist-shop nebbish who unexpectedly becomes the caretaker of a carnivorous and increasingly hungry hunk of vegetation.
nebbish
unguinous
adjective
resembling, containing, or consisting of fat or oil; greasy; oily.
More about unguinous
Unguinous 鈥渃ontaining fat or oil鈥� derives from Latin unguen 鈥渇at, grease,鈥� plus the suffix -艒蝉耻蝉 鈥渇ull of.鈥� Unguen, in turn, comes from the verb unguere 鈥渢o smear鈥� (stem unct-), which is also the source of English terms such as unction 鈥渁n act of anointing,鈥� unctuous 鈥渉aving an oily feel,鈥� and unguent 鈥渁 salve applied to wounds.鈥� The stem unct- regularly became oint in French, leading to words such as anoint and ointment. Unguinous was first recorded in English at the turn of the 17th century.
how is unguinous used?
She was sitting in the tent, languidly waiting for the women to come and prepare her for the wedding ceremony. Anointed from head to toe with an unguinous, aromatic oil, her pomaded hair suffused with a sharp scent, she sat vacantly on a pile of sacks, her embroidered gown and jewelry in a corner, chafing her oiled arms as if to dry them.
The suit and vest were of an old style, obviously not clean, an unguinous stain down the vest front, and the jacket ashen-white along the lapels and cuff edges where it was worn, but she could see that it had once been a good proper suit, and something about its tidy narrow cut and the way the man fit inside it, comfortably and with a cute sort of pride, reminded her of Poppy and the suit he kept for special occasions and in which he had been buried.
unguinous
ankh
noun
a tau (T-shaped) cross with a loop at the top, used as a symbol of generation or enduring life.
More about ankh
Ankh 鈥渁 tau (T-shaped) cross with a loop at the top鈥� is a borrowing from Egyptian 士苍丑态 鈥渓ive; life, soul.鈥� In this word, 士 represents a voiced throaty sound that does not exist in English, and 丑态 represents the sound spelled as ch in German Buch, Hebrew Chanukah, and Scottish loch. While Arabic is the official language of Egypt today, the Egyptian language was spoken in the country for thousands of years until its latest form, Coptic, became largely extinct in the 1700s. Although the Egyptian source of ankh is transliterated today as 士苍丑态, while its spelling remained consistent in Egyptian hieroglyphics, its pronunciation during the several stages of the Egyptian language varied greatly. Ankh was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
how is ankh used?
In a period when paganism and Christianity coexisted, there was cross-pollination between the two. The ancient Egyptian symbol for life, the ankh鈥攁 cross shape with an oval loop鈥攊nfluenced the development of the cross known as the crux ansata, used extensively in Coptic symbolism.
ankh