51吃瓜 of the Day
plotz
verb (used without object)
to collapse or faint, as from surprise, excitement, or exhaustion.
More about plotz
Plotz 鈥渢o collapse or faint, as from surprise, excitement, or exhaustion,鈥� is one of those Yiddish words that make you smile just from its sound. Many Americans learned plotz in the early 1950s from Mad magazine (originally a comic book). Plotz is an American slang term that comes from Yiddish platsn 鈥渢o crack, split, burst,鈥� from Middle High German platzen 鈥渢o burst.鈥� Plotz entered English about 1920.
how is plotz used?
Simmel was worried about street lamps, murals, the occasional honk of a horn. Had he lived to see a smartphone, or modern Tokyo, he would have plotzed.
Make an effort to include your parents in this milestone, let them decide whether to take part somehow, and if they decline, then invite your mother-in-law to take a bigger role. If/when your mom plotzes …聽you can simply and kindly remind your mother that she was invited to take part and chose not to.
plotz
paraselene
noun
Meteorology.
a bright moonlike spot on a lunar halo; a mock moon.
More about paraselene
Paraselene 鈥渁 bright moonlike spot on a lunar halo; a mock moon, a moon dog,鈥� is a compound noun formed from the Greek preposition and prefix 辫补谤谩, para– 鈥渁longside, contrary to鈥� and the noun 蝉别濒岣梟脓 鈥渕oon, the moon.鈥� 厂别濒岣梟脓 is the Attic Greek form (when people say they are studying classical Greek, they mean the Greek of Attica, whose chief city was Athens); other dialects have 蝉别濒腻虂苍腻 (Doric Greek and most other dialects); as usual, Aeolic Greek goes its own way with 蝉别濒谩苍苍腻 (Aeolic is the dialect of the lyric poets Sappho and Alcaeus). All the Greek forms derive from an unrecorded 蝉别濒补蝉苍腻, a derivative of the neuter noun 蝉茅濒补蝉 鈥渓ight, glow, beam.鈥� Sixty percent of Greek words have no clear etymology; 蝉别濒岣梟脓, 蝉别濒腻虂苍腻, 蝉别濒谩苍苍腻 is among them. Paraselene entered English in the mid-17th century.
how is paraselene used?
In this image, the聽first quarter moon聽is flanked on both sides of a halo by “mock moons,” also known as paraselenae or “moondogs.” The apparitions are formed when moonlight is refracted through thin, plate-shaped ice crystals in cirrus clouds.
The darkest part of the winter is from the middle of December to the middle of January, when the aurora transforms the sky into a vault of fire, and paraselene appear, surrounding the moon with blazing cresses, circles, and mock-moons, scarcely surpassed by the wonderful deceptions of the solar rays.
paraselene
misbegotten
adjective
badly conceived, made, or carried out.
More about misbegotten
Misbegotten 鈥渂adly conceived, made, or carried out,鈥� is hard to figure out from its component parts. Misbegotten is made up of the prefix mis– 鈥渨rongly, incorrectly,鈥� from the Germanic prefix missa– 鈥渁stray, wrong鈥� (from the same root as the verb miss 鈥渢o fail to hit or strike鈥�), as in Gothic missadeths 鈥渢ransgression, offense,鈥� which occurs in Old English as 尘颈蝉诲墙诲 and in English as misdeed. Begotten is the past participle of beget, which comes from the Old English verb begietan 鈥渢o get, acquire,鈥� which since the second half of the 14th century has meant 鈥渢o generate offspring; produce as an effect.鈥� Beget is a compound of the prefix be-, a Germanic prefix originally meaning 鈥渁bout, around, on all sides,鈥� with many other meanings, but here having a figurative sense (as also with befall, begin, behave). The verb get is from Old Norse geta 鈥渢o get, be able to, beget, engender.鈥� Misbegotten entered English in the first half of the 16th century in the sense “illegitimate child.”
how is misbegotten used?
It is long past time to end U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war.
Does our respect for companion creatures herald a new way of relating to non-humans, rejecting centuries of misbegotten thinking about animals as unfeeling biological machines?
misbegotten