51吃瓜 of the Day
schlimazel
noun
Slang. an inept, bungling person who suffers from unremitting bad luck.
More about schlimazel
The old joke goes, 鈥淎 schlemiel is someone who spills soup in a restaurant; a schlimazel is the guy he spills the soup on.鈥� The first element of schlimazel comes from the Yiddish adjective schlim 鈥渂ad, evil,鈥� equivalent to German schlimm, Dutch slim 鈥渂ad, sly, clever鈥�(the Dutch word is the source of English slim). The second element, -mazel comes from Yiddish mazl 鈥渓uck,鈥� from Hebrew 尘补锄锄腻濒 鈥�(celestial) constellation, destiny.鈥� Schlimazel entered English in the mid-20th century.
how is schlimazel used?
… the schlemiel is the one who spills the soup and the schlimazel is the one that’s spilled on.
A recent and, even by its own lofty standards, especially hilarious and cringingly tasteless episode of 鈥淪outh Park鈥� features the passionate and petulant schlimazel, middle-aged dad Randy Marsh, watching TV, when a commercial for a fictional consumer genetics company comes on the screen.
atavism
noun
reversion to an earlier type; throwback.
More about atavism
The Latin noun behind the English noun atavism is atavus 鈥済reat-great-great grandfather; ancestor.鈥� Atavus is formed from atta 鈥渄addy,鈥� a nursery word widespread in Indo-European languages, e.g., Greek 谩迟迟补 鈥渄addy,鈥� and the possibly Gothic proper name Attila 鈥渓ittle father, daddy.鈥� The second element, avus 鈥�(maternal) grandfather,鈥� also has cognates in other Indo-European languages, e.g., Old Prussian (an extinct Baltic language related to Latvian and Lithuanian) awis 鈥渦ncle,鈥� and, very familiar in English, those Scottish and Irish surnames beginning with 鈥�翱鈥�,鈥� e.g., 翱鈥機onnor 鈥渄escended from Connor鈥�). The Celtic 鈥�翱鈥�鈥� comes from Irish 贸 鈥済randson,鈥� from early Irish aue, and appearing as avi 鈥渄escendant of鈥� in ogham (an alphabet used in archaic Irish inscriptions from about the 5th century). Atavism entered English in the 19th century.
how is atavism used?
So much of their business was done via e-mail that the phone was almost unnecessary–a sort of quaint atavism that nobody thought to use first–but this morning the ringing had been ceaseless.
Because the United States has proved successful in absorbing people from so many different backgrounds, the American political elite has, since the mid-20th century at least, tended to look on group identity as a kind of irrational atavism.
doss
verb
Chiefly British. to sleep or lie down in any convenient place.
More about doss
The origin of the English verb doss is obscure. It is most likely derived from the Latin noun dossum, a variant of dorsum 鈥渢he back (of the body),鈥� a noun of unclear origin. The verb endorse comes from Medieval Latin 颈苍诲辞谤蝉腻谤别 鈥渢o write on or sign the back of a document鈥�; the adjective dorsal 鈥渉aving a back or located on the back鈥� is most likely familiar as an anatomical term, especially referring to the fin of a shark or a dolphin. Doss entered English in the late 18th century.
how is doss used?
… he was too old to doss on furniture night after night.
I didn’t want a place to doss down.