51吃瓜 of the Day
cachinnate
verb (used without object)
to laugh loudly or immoderately.
More about cachinnate
Cachinnate, 鈥渢o laugh loudly or immoderately,鈥� comes straight from Latin 肠补肠丑颈苍苍腻迟耻蝉, the past participle of the verb 肠补肠丑颈苍苍腻谤别 鈥渢o laugh boisterously, guffaw.鈥� 颁补肠丑颈苍苍腻谤别 is a verb of imitative origin that even has its own Proto-Indo-European root: khakha– (who knew that primitive Indo-Europeans laughed?). The root khakha– yields Greek 办补办丑谩锄别颈苍, 办补办办丑谩锄别颈苍, and 办补苍办丑谩锄别颈苍, Old Church Slavonic xoxotati, Old High German kachazzwen, and Sanskrit 办谩办丑补迟颈 鈥渉e laughs.” Cachinnate entered English in the first half of the 19th century.
how is cachinnate used?
She does not laugh so much as cachinnate, finding at least one thing hysterical in every episode.
Just don鈥檛 expect to guffaw or cachinnate, and forget all about busting a gut. It鈥檚 not that kind of comedy.
cachinnate
butyraceous
adjective
of the nature of, resembling, or containing butter.
More about butyraceous
The adjective butyraceous is an expensive word for buttery. Butyraceous comes from Latin butyrum (both the first u and the y may be long or short), from Greek 产辞煤迟测虅谤辞苍 鈥渂utter,鈥� literally 鈥渃ow cheese,鈥� according to the traditional (and ancient) etymology, from Greek 产辞没蝉 (inflectional stem boo-, bou-) 鈥渃ow鈥� and 迟测虅谤贸蝉 鈥渃heese.鈥� Both 产辞没蝉 and 迟测虅谤贸蝉 are very ancient: both occur on Late Bronze Age Linear B clay tablets from Pylos (in the southwest Peloponnesus), and both words are of Proto-Indo-European origin. The closest non-Greek relative to 迟测虅谤贸蝉 is in the ancient Iranian languages: in Avestan (the language of the Zoroastrian scriptures), 迟奴颈谤颈– means 鈥渨hey, cheeselike milk鈥� and 迟奴颈谤颈ia– means 鈥渃urdled (milk).鈥� Herodotus states that butter was used by the Scythians, ancient Iranian nomads of the Russian steppes. Latin butyrum (with its variant 产奴迟奴谤耻尘) becomes burre in Old French (beurre in French) and burro in Italian. Latin butyrum was borrowed by the West Germanic languages (as usual, the details and date of the borrowing are disputed): Old English has butere (English butter); German has Butter, Dutch boter. Butyraceous entered English in the 17th century.
how is butyraceous used?
All good butter seems to have disappeared as if by magic, and there remains only a butyraceous compound of hair, butter, chips and rock salt, which is as striped as a zebra and smells as rancid as a goat or a bundle of foul linens.
fine food, lots of the best wine, had given his jowls a butyraceous sheen.
butyraceous
caducous
adjective
dropping off very early, as leaves.
More about caducous
The adjective caducous 鈥�(of leaves) falling early or too early鈥� comes straight from Latin 肠补诲奴肠耻蝉 鈥渢ending to fall, tottery, unsteady; transitory,鈥� a derivative of the verb cadere 鈥渢o fall, fall over, collapse.鈥� Cadere is also the source of the Latin compound verb 诲脓肠颈诲别谤别 鈥渢o fall down, fall over,鈥� which forms the derivative adjective 诲脓肠颈诲耻耻蝉 鈥渇alling, tending to fall or be dropped鈥� (English deciduous). The botanical difference between caducous and deciduous is that caducous leaves fall too easily or too early, and deciduous leaves fall at the end of the growing season. Caducous entered English in the 18th century.
how is caducous used?
After the flowering period, the ground under the oak, poplar, and other trees, is strewn with their male catkins; these are caducous, falling off soon after they have shed their pollen …
So is it with this calamity: it does not touch me: something which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me, nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me, and leaves no scar. It was caducous.
caducous