51吃瓜 of the Day
flimflam
verb
to trick, deceive, swindle, or cheat: A fortuneteller flimflammed her out of her savings.
More about flimflam
贵濒颈尘蹿濒补尘听鈥渢o trick, deceive, swindle,鈥� shows the same common vowel alteration in a reduplicated word as in mish–mash or pitter–patter. Flimflam may possibly be based on a Scandinavian word, e.g., Old Norse flim 鈥渁 lampoon, mockery.鈥� Flimflam entered English in the 16th century as a noun meaning 鈥渋dle talk, nonsense; a cheap deception.鈥� The verb sense 鈥渢o cheat, swindle,鈥� originally an Americanism, arose in the late 19th century.
how is flimflam used?
Slamming my fist on my writing desk I cursed the day a year before that I’d allowed by friend Eddy Dorobek to flimflam me into buying a used laptop from him and giving up my dead father’s rickety old Underwood portable.
Col. Leonard was there and he knows how they tried to flimflam us.
polysemy
noun
a condition in which a single word, phrase, or concept has more than one meaning or connotation.
More about polysemy
Fast can mean “moving quickly” or “firmly fixed.” The word shows polysemy, which ultimately derives from Greek聽辫辞濒媒蝉脓尘辞蝉 “having many meanings.”聽笔辞濒媒蝉脓尘辞蝉 箩辞颈苍蝉听辫辞濒媒蝉 “many, much,” 补苍诲听蝉锚尘补 “sign, mark, token.”聽笔辞濒媒蝉 yields the combining form聽poly-, seen in many English words, such as polygon “many angles” or polytheism “many gods.” 厂锚尘补 produces another term used, like polysemy, in linguistics: semantics “the study of meaning.” In linguistics, polysemy and semantics were modeled on French 辫辞濒测蝉茅尘颈别 补苍诲听蝉茅尘补苍迟颈辩耻别. These words were formed in the late 19th century by French linguist Michel Br茅al (1832鈥�1915)鈥攁 man perhaps better remembered for inspiring the modern Olympic marathon in 1896. Polysemy entered English in the 1920s.
how is polysemy used?
Twenty-three alternate meanings for it are listed in English alone鈥攊t is, the editors say, a model of “polysemy,” packing multiple meanings into a single sign … .
This rich polysemy of language is the basis for William Empson’s first type of poetic ambiguity: “when a detail is effective in several ways at once.”
funemployed
adjective
without a paid job but enjoying the free time: Ask one of your funemployed friends to come along with you.
More about funemployed
Funemployed, an informal combination of fun and (un)employed, is a neologism dating to 1995.
how is funemployed used?
So far, at least, he seems like an excellent match for this slightly wilder, funemployed new version of Jess.
Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings.