51吃瓜 of the Day
mellifluous
adjective
flowing with honey; sweetened with or as if with honey.
More about mellifluous
Mellifluous comes from Late Latin mellifluus 鈥渇lowing with honey, (of a taste or scent) sweetened with or as if with honey,鈥� and by extension 鈥渆loquent, persuasive.鈥� Mellifluus is a compound of mel (inflectional stem mell-) 鈥渉oney鈥� and –fluus 鈥渇lowing,鈥� a derivative of fluere 鈥渢o flow.鈥� Mel is the Latin result of the Proto-Indo-European melit 鈥渉oney,鈥� which in Greek appears as 尘茅濒颈 (inflectional stem 尘茅濒颈t-). Melit– corresponds exactly with Hittite milit (from melit), Old Irish mil (also from melit). In the Germanic languages, an expanded form, melitom, yields Gothic milith 鈥渉oney,鈥� Old English 尘颈濒诲脓补飞, 尘别濒别诲脓补飞 鈥渉oney dew, nectar鈥� (in English, the mil– of mildew, which was thought to be distilled or condensed from air like dew). Mellifluous entered English in the 14th century.
how is mellifluous used?
As the bee flies from flower to flower, taking nectar from each blossom in order to make its mysterious, mellifluous conversion, so the poet should, according to Seneca, “blend those several flavors into one delicious compound …”
He is Mr. A. I. Kaplan, whose power to aid art came through his efficient conduct in the molasses business, about which mellifluous substance he knows more than anyone else in the world.
mellifluous
festinate
verb (used with or without object)
to hurry; hasten.
More about festinate
Festinate, a verb meaning 鈥渢o hurry, hasten,鈥� comes from Latin 蹿别蝉迟墨苍腻迟耻蝉, the past participle of the verb 蹿别蝉迟墨苍腻谤别 鈥渢o make haste, hasten, hurry.鈥� One of the emperor Augustus鈥檚 homely sayings was fest墨n膩 lent膿 鈥渕ake haste slowly.鈥� 贵别蝉迟墨苍腻谤别 comes from the Latin root festi-, from an unrecorded Italic root ferst-, from the uncommon Proto-Indo-European root bheres-, bhers– 鈥渜uick,鈥� source of Irish bras and Welsh brys, both meaning 鈥渜uick.鈥� In Slavic, bhers– appears in the Polish adverb bardzo 鈥渧ery,鈥� Czech brzo, 产谤锄媒 鈥渆arly, soon,鈥� and Russian 产辞谤锄贸沫 鈥渜uick, swift,鈥� also the name of a Russian breed of wolfhound. Festinate entered English as an adverb at the end of the 16th century, and as a verb in the mid-17th.
how is festinate used?
A bagatelle, ailing notes of a typochondriac, something to festinate the coming of spring or to take your mind off The Four Horsemen. Allons!
That night he had had the firm belief that he would never need to eat again as long as he lived, and he wandered around in the dark, keeping his legs moving in a desperate attempt to festinate digestion …
festinate
quondam
adjective
former; onetime: his quondam partner.
More about quondam
The Latin adverb quondam, 鈥渇ormerly, anciently, once (upon a time),” has been used in English as a noun, 鈥渢he former holder of an office,鈥� as an adverb meaning 鈥渇ormerly, at one time,鈥� and, currently and solely, as an adjective meaning 鈥渇ormer, onetime.鈥� All three usages in English occur close together in the first half of the 16th century. Quondam breaks down to the adverbial conjunction cum or quom 鈥渁t the time that, when.鈥� The particle –dam, however, is of uncertain origin.
how is quondam used?
A few hundred pages after faintly praising me as 鈥渁 nice enough fellow and I鈥檓 sure a very smart guy for a hack,鈥� the book鈥檚 narrator (a quondam critic with nothing nice to say about Charlie Kaufman) challenges me to a barroom argument about cinema.
So much has been written of late years about 51吃瓜sworth and Shelley, while their quondam rival has been treated with much contumelious silence, that the disdainers of Byron had begun to feel that the ground was entirely their own; and the faithful few, who in secret handed down the old Byron cult, must have fallen into desperation …
quondam