51吃瓜 of the Day
bastion
noun
anything seen as preserving or protecting some quality, condition, etc.: a bastion of solitude.
More about bastion
The English noun bastion still looks French. It comes from Middle French, from Upper Italian bastione 鈥渞ampart, bulwark, bastion,鈥� an augmentative noun formed from bastita 鈥渇ortified,鈥� from the verb bastire 鈥渢o build,鈥� from Medieval Latin 产补蝉迟墨谤别, possibly of Germanic origin and akin to bastille 鈥渢ower, small fortress, bastion.鈥� Bastion entered English in the late 16th century.
how is bastion used?
… Notre Dame went from being a football school to being not just academically respected but a bastion of intellectual freedom and ideological pluralism ….
… he’d seen it as a bastion of the familiar and orderly, where negotiations took place the way they were supposed to, in high-backed chairs, with checkbooks and contracts and balance sheets.
appellative
noun
a descriptive name or designation, as Bald in Charles the Bald.
More about appellative
Appellative comes from the Late Latin grammatical term 补辫辫别濒濒腻迟墨惫耻蝉 鈥減ertaining to a common noun鈥� and 苍艒尘别苍 补辫辫别濒濒腻迟墨惫耻尘 “a common noun” (in contrast to 苍艒尘别苍 proprium 鈥渁 proper noun鈥�). 础辫辫别濒濒腻迟墨惫耻蝉 is a derivative of the verb 补辫辫别濒濒腻谤别 鈥渢o speak to, address, call upon, invoke.鈥� Appellative in the sense 鈥渄escriptive name,” as Great in Alfred the Great, is a development in English dating from the first half of the 17th century. Appellative in its original Latin sense entered English in the early 16th century.
how is appellative used?
In connection with this appellative of “Whalebone whales,” it is of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the leviathan …
In addition too to this almost Cimmerian gloom was the agr茅ment of a penetrating rain, known perhaps to some of my readers by the gentle appellative of a Scotch mist …
fictioneer
noun
a writer of fiction, especially a prolific one whose works are of mediocre quality.
More about fictioneer
The noun fictioneer is composed of the noun fiction and the noun suffix –eer denoting agency. The suffix is neutral in words like engineer and mountaineer, but it frequently has a pejorative sense, as in profiteer and racketeer. Fictioneer, too, has always had a hint of contempt in it: an early (1901) definition of fictioneer reads 鈥渁 writer of 鈥榤achine-made鈥� fiction.鈥� Fictioneer entered English in the early 20th century.
how is fictioneer used?
If you were not a fictioneer, if you did not place a monetary value on the efforts of your imagination, I should be inclined to think that you were lying ….
That was long ago, and she’s a grandmother today, but still she can toss around the lingo of the Wild West with a fluency that would be the envy of a Hollywood scenarist or a fictioneer of the great open spaces.