51吃瓜 of the Day
agonist
noun
a person who is torn by inner conflict.
More about agonist
The English noun agonist comes from the rare Late Latin noun 补驳艒苍颈蝉迟补, 鈥渁n athlete or combatant for a prize in the games,鈥� a word used once by St. Augustine in a sermon. Latin 补驳艒苍颈蝉迟补 betrays its Greek origin with its –ista agent suffix (borrowed from Greek -颈蝉迟岣梥). In Greek, 补驳艒苍颈蝉迟岣梥 means 鈥渁 combatant, contestant (in athletic games), a champion, a pleader or public speaker,鈥� which covers a lot of territory when you consider the roles that competitive athletic games and public speaking (including criminal and civil trials) occupied in ancient Greek life. 础驳艒苍颈蝉迟岣梥 is a derivative of the noun 补驳艒苍铆补, one of whose many meanings is 鈥渕ental or spiritual anguish, agony,鈥� which influenced one of the English meanings of agonist but doesn鈥檛 occur in Greek 补驳艒苍颈蝉迟岣梥. Agonist entered English in the first half of the 17th century.
how is agonist used?
There was a fissure in him from the start; the dream and the business did not march together; his will was not always the servant of his intelligence; he was an agonist, a self- tormentor, who ran to meet suffering halfway.
He was an agonist. He would argue one way; he would argue another; he just didn鈥檛 want to see bigotry thrive or watch a man die.
agonist
More about eldritch
If the word is weird, eerie, and uncanny, it鈥檚 likely to be Scots, and eldritch is all of them. Most etymologists see a connection between eldritch and elf, as the early spelling variant elphrish suggests. The second syllable is likely to be Middle English riche 鈥渒ingdom, realm鈥� (from Old English 谤墨肠别); the d is an excrescent or intrusive consonant between the l and the r, like chimbley for chimney in Oliver Twist: 鈥渢hey damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley.鈥� This 鈥淓lf Kingdom鈥� used to be exclusively Scots; the first 鈥渘on-Scots鈥� author to use the word was Nathaniel Hawthorne in his Scarlet Letter (1850). Eldritch entered English in the early 16th century.
how is eldritch used?
In this anthology podcast, the mountains of central Appalachia are haunted by the sort of sanity-draining eldritch monsters found in a Stephen King novel, or in HBO鈥檚 鈥淟ovecraft Country.鈥�
Despite the eldritch horrors of Toni鈥檚 princess cake, her competitors鈥� renditions were, somehow, even more atrocious.
eldritch
More about gloaming
Gloaming, 鈥渢wilight, dusk,鈥� ultimately comes from Old English 驳濒艒尘耻苍驳, which occurs once as a translation of Latin crepusculum 鈥渄usk, twilight.鈥� 骋濒艒尘耻苍驳 is a derivative of 驳濒艒尘 鈥渢wilight, darkness,鈥� from the same root as the verb 驳濒艒飞补苍 鈥渢o glow like a coal or fire鈥� (gloaming being the glow of sunrise or sunset). It is tempting to include gloom and its variant glum in this group, but the philological evidence is against it. Gloaming entered English before 1000.
how is gloaming used?
During the workweek, when we are earning the money to pay for all those expensive gardening implements, it’s not possible to do much outside until dusk. Then, with the fireflies, we emerge into the gloaming armed with an arsenal of rakes, pitchforks and spades, like some medieval rabble on its way to battle.
Fortunately, at certain times and places Mercury is more removed from this all-obliterating influence than he is at others, and at such times he may be very distinctly seen, shortly after sunset, twinkling through the gloaming in the west.
gloaming