51吃瓜 of the Day
frisson
noun,
a sudden, passing sensation of excitement; a shudder of emotion; thrill: The movie offers the viewer the occasional frisson of seeing a character in mortal danger.
More about frisson
Frisson is still unnaturalized in English, as its pronunciation shows. In French frisson means 鈥渟hudder, shiver.鈥� Frisson comes from Old French 蹿谤颈莽辞苍蝉, a plural noun meaning 鈥渢rembling (as before the onset of a fever).鈥� 贵谤颈莽辞苍蝉 in turn comes from Latin 蹿谤颈肠迟颈艒苍-, the stem of 蹿谤颈肠迟颈艒, an irregular derivative (as if from the verb 蹿谤颈肠腻谤别 鈥渢o rub,鈥� with a short i) of the verb 蹿谤墨驳脓谤别 (with a long i) 鈥渢o be cold, lack vigor.鈥� Frisson entered English in the 18th century.
how is frisson used?
Musical passages that include unexpected harmonies, sudden changes in volume, or the moving entrance of a soloist are particularly common triggers for frisson because they violate listeners鈥� expectations in a positive way …
That first dinner triggers hope, a frisson of discovery.
More about rhubarb
Rhubarb has a complicated origin. There are several odd Middle English spellings (as one would expect), e.g., reubarb, reubard, reubarbe, etc., from Anglo-French or Middle French reubarbe, rubarbe, reu barbare, all from Late Latin reubarbarum, rheubarbarum. The Latin forms are probably from Greek 谤丑锚辞苍 产谩谤产补谤辞苍 鈥渇oreign rhubarb.鈥� 搁丑锚辞苍 is a variant of 谤丑芒 鈥渢he dried root of rhubarb used as a medicine,鈥� perhaps ultimately related to Persian (an Iranian language) rewend 鈥渞hubarb.鈥� Ancient Greek authors also associated 谤丑芒 (or 搁丑芒) with the Scythian (another Iranian language) name for the Volga River. The baseball slang meaning of rhubarb 鈥渁 loud quarrel on the field, especially between a player and an umpire,鈥� dates from about 1938. Rhubarb entered English in the late 14th century.
how is rhubarb used?
Power, newly acquired from the Minnesota Twins, was accused of the action during a rhubarb with the umpire on a play at third base.
… Tom Meany stopped in a tavern the day after this thing happened … and the bartender said, “We had quite the rhubarb last night, Mr. Meany.”
bardolatry
noun
great or excessive adoration of or reverence for聽William Shakespeare:聽I crossed the line into bardolatry halfway through my thesis on the psyche of Lady Macbeth.
More about bardolatry
Bardolatry, an excessive devotion to 鈥渢he Bard鈥� (William Shakespeare), is a combination of bard, from common Celtic bardos (Old Irish bard, Welsh bardd), and the combining form –latry, from Greek 濒补迟谤别铆补 鈥渟ervice, worship.鈥� Bardolatry was coined by George Bernard Shaw in 1901.
how is bardolatry used?
So much for Bardolatry!
… a fellow who’d been sizing up Aaron’s Bardolatry credentials had boasted that he himself had disproven all three leading theories about the identities of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady and Fair Youth, and would soon be the one to unearth the true identities of Shakespeare’s female and male paramours.