51吃瓜 of the Day
More about nummary
The adjective nummary comes straight from Latin 苍耻尘尘腻谤颈耻蝉 鈥減ertaining to coins or money,鈥� a derivative of nummus (also 苍奴尘耻蝉), the name of several silver or gold coins. The Latin nouns come from 苍辞没尘尘辞蝉 鈥渃urrent coin鈥� in a western Doric Greek dialect spoken in southern Italy and Sicily and equivalent to Greek 苍贸尘辞蝉 鈥渓aw, custom, something in customary or habitual use.鈥� Nummary entered English in the early 17th century.
how is nummary used?
… Re-coinages, which had the same Effect in depreciating nummary Denominations in France, that frequent and large Emissions of Paper-Money have in our Colonies …
His capital does not have a numerical or nummary value, but it nonetheless has a value, if only in the sustenance he gets out of putting it to productive use.
lardy-dardy
adjective
Chiefly British Slang. characterized by excessive elegance.
More about lardy-dardy
Pity that one doesn鈥檛 see as many lardy-dardy types as formerly鈥攁ffected swells, languid fops, chichi dandies lounging about music halls and theaters. Lardy-dardy entered English in the 1850s, at the height of the Victorian era. It is often said to be the British aristos鈥� non-rhotic (鈥渞-less鈥�) Received Pronunciation of la-di-da鈥攁 nice story except that lardy-dardy predates la-di-da by nearly 20 years.
how is lardy-dardy used?
“Good afternoon!” — in rather lardy-dardy, middle-class English. “I wonder if I may see your things in your studio.”
It was exaggerated flattery he always felt provoked and disgusted with. Such absurd palaver, and lardy-dardy talk as that of his grand mover and seconder.
ahistorical
adjective
without concern for history or historical development; indifferent to tradition.
More about ahistorical
The formation of the adjective ahistorical is clear: the first syllable, a-, is a variety of the Greek prefix an-, a- 鈥渘ot鈥� (an-, a- is from the same Proto-Indo-European source as English un-). Historical is a derivative of Greek 丑颈蝉迟辞谤铆补 鈥渓earning or knowing by inquiry, history,鈥� a derivative of 丑铆蝉迟艒谤 鈥渙ne who knows or sees,鈥� akin to English wit and Latin 惫颈诲脓谤别 鈥渢o see,鈥� and the Latin suffix -al, with the general sense 鈥渙f the kind of, pertaining to, having the form or character of鈥� that named by the stem. Ahistorical entered English in the 20th century.
how is ahistorical used?
The notion that all human history 鈥� and all human societies 鈥� can be shoehorned into a simple binary scheme is not new … But it is always simplistic, ahistorical, and therefore wrong.
The boxlike room, stripped of all embellishment or parlor fussiness, a room that wished to be timeless or ahistorical, and there, in the middle of it, my deeply historical, timeworn grandmother.