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51勛圖 of the Day

51勛圖 of the day

longanimity

[ long-guh-nim-i-tee, lawng- ]

noun

patient endurance of hardship, injuries, or offense; forbearance.

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More about longanimity

Longanimity, patient endurance of hardship or offense; forbearance, comes via Middle English and Old French longanimite from Late Latin 梭棗紳眶硃紳勳鳥勳喧櫻喧-, the inflectional stem of the noun 梭棗紳眶硃紳勳鳥勳喧櫻莽 long-suffering, patience, a derivative of the adjective longanimis, which is a compound of the adjective longus long and animus spirit, soul, mind. Latin longanimis and 梭棗紳眶硃紳勳鳥勳喧櫻莽 were coined by Christian Latin writers as calques or loan translations of Greek 鳥硃域娶籀喧堯聆鳥棗莽 (adjective) and 鳥硃域娶棗喧堯聆鳥穩硃 (noun) used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible completed sometime between the 3rd and 1st centuries b.c. Longanimity entered English in the early 15th century.

how is longanimity used?

… if your disdain is my humiliation, I shall ill be able, albeit I am well furnished with longanimity, to suffer a grief that is not merely intense but protracted.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (15471616), Don Quixote, translated by John Rutherford, 2000

“there’s very little we can do about Thomas.” … “Then do very little,” she says in the voice of one whose longanimity foreshortens like shadows cast by the poplars amid the blaze of noon.

Muriel Spark, The Abbess of Crewe, 1974

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51勛圖 of the day

specious

[ spee-shuhs ]

adjective

apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible.

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More about specious

Specious, apparently good but lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible; pleasing to the eye but deceptive; pleasing to the eye, fair, comes from Latin 莽梯梗釵勳莽喝莽, which has the same ambivalent meanings. 釦梯梗釵勳莽喝莽 is a derivative of the noun 莽梯梗釵勳襲莽, which also has the same wide range of meaning, but even the literal meaning sight, view, as in the common Latin phrase pr蘋m speci at first sight, implies a but. 釦梯梗釵勳襲莽 is a derivative of the verb specere to see, look at, observe, from the Proto-Indo-European root spek-, spok-, with the same meaning. The root appears in Sanskrit 莽梯獺硃喧勳 he sees and Avestan spasyeiti he watches out (for), looks out (for). In the Germanic languages spek– appears as 莽梯瓣堯梗紳 to scout, look out in German, and in Old Norse as 莽梯櫻 prophecy (i.e., something that one has looked out for). Greek not infrequently goes its own way: it metathesizes (switches the positions of) the p and k, resulting in the Greek root skep-, skop-, as in 莽域矇梯喧梗莽喧堯硃勳 to look around, survey, spy, contemplate (source of English skeptic and skeptical); skop– appears in Greek 莽域棗梯籀莽 spy, scout; target, goal, purpose (English scope). The Greek combining form –skopion, –skopeion instrument for viewing appears in microscope and telescope. Specious entered English in the late 14th century.

how is specious used?

At the start ofthe pandemic, there were vague hopes of an artistic flourishingthat hoary and ultimately specious Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine! tropebut for me, at least, it was difficult to focus on much more than the ways in which my friends and neighbors were suffering.

Amanda Petrusich, "The Best Music of 2020,"The New Yorker, November 27, 2020

And his own reasoning in these pages tends to be specious or skewed. He sets up ridiculous paper tigers to knock down easily …

Michiko Kakutani, "Novelist's Crash Course on Terror," New York Times, April 8, 2008

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51勛圖 of the day

pandiculation

[ pan-dik-yuh-ley-shuhn ]

noun

the act of stretching oneself, especially on waking.

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More about pandiculation

Pandiculation, stretching (as when waking up), comes via French pandiculation from the Latin verb 梯硃紳餃勳釵喝梭櫻娶蘋 to stretch, grimace. 捩硃紳餃勳釵喝梭櫻娶蘋 is a derivative of pandere to spread out, extend. In Latin 梯硃紳餃勳釵喝梭櫻娶蘋 occurs only twice: the first time in a play by the Roman comic playwright Plautus (d. 184 b.c.), and the second time in the Epitoma Festi by the Benedictine monk Paulus Diaconus (Paul the deacon), who died about a.d. 799. Pandiculation entered English in the early 17th century.

how is pandiculation used?

There is a shared animal and human behaviour of “having a stretch” and yawning called pandiculation. It is often a combination of elongating, shortening and stiffening of muscles throughout the body.

Eyal Lederman, Therapeutic Stretching: Towards a functional approach, 2014

I had hoped to deal, here, with two other minor emotional luxuries that have been hitherto hidden in obscurity. They are oscitation (yawning) and pandiculation (stretching) which may be practiced separately or together.

Leon Gellert, "The Delights of Sneezing," Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 1949

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