51吃瓜 of the Day
ukiyo-e
noun
a genre style of painting and printmaking developed in Japan from the 17th to the 19th centuries and marked by the depiction of the leisure activities of ordinary people.
More about ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e 鈥渁 style of painting that depicts leisure activities鈥� is equivalent to ukiyo 鈥渢ransitory world, floating world鈥� combined with e (also we) 鈥減icture.鈥� Ukiyo itself is formed from uki 鈥渇loating鈥� and yo 鈥渨orld,鈥� while e is also found in emoji, which literally means 鈥減icture character, pictograph.鈥� E is a borrowing from Middle Chinese and therefore has cognates in modern Chinese, including Mandarin 丑耻矛 and Cantonese kui 鈥渢o draw.鈥� The hyphen in ukiyo-e is merely to prevent readers from mispronouncing the yo-e portion as a single syllable, 鈥測oh,鈥� instead of as the correct 鈥測oh-ey鈥�; other transliterations include ukiyoe, 耻办颈测辞茅, and ukiyo-we. Ukiyo-e was first recorded in English in the late 1890s.
how is ukiyo-e used?
This week the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, home to the greatest collection of Japanese art outside Japan, opens a giant retrospective of the art of [Katsushika] Hokusai, showcasing his indispensable woodblock prints of the genre we call ukiyo-e, or 鈥榠mages of the floating world.鈥�
脡douard Manet, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas all studied ukiyo-e but no one absorbed its aesthetic as much as Vincent van Gogh. 鈥淎ll my work,鈥� he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo, 鈥渋s based to some extent on Japanese art.鈥�
wizen
verb (used with or without object)
to wither; shrivel; dry up.
More about wizen
Wizen 鈥渢o wither鈥� comes from Old English wisnian, of the same meaning. Despite the similar spelling, wizen is not related to wise or wizard鈥攖hough many wizards are certainly both wise and wizened. Wise is also of Old English origin (spelled as 飞墨蝉) and is closely related to wisdom and wit. All three of these words come from an ancient Proto-Indo-European root meaning 鈥渢o see, know鈥� that is also the source of Druid (from Celtic), history (from Ancient Greek), Veda (from Sanskrit), and vision (from Latin). Meanwhile, wizard is formed from wise and the noun-forming suffix -ard. Wizen was first recorded in English before the year 900.
how is wizen used?
Short and mole-rich and with hawk-like facial features that promised to wizen one day into one hell of a haggard mug, Kreshnik may have been more attractive in his bellhop uniform than he was out of it.
This kist must have been a kind of constant in his shiftlessness when he left Perth, when he moved to Edinburgh. It was like he had to follow, to follow his bairns out there, into the world. As if he didn鈥檛 want to be left behind, to wizen, grow old and die.
More about lido
Lido 鈥渁 fashionable beach resort鈥� is the namesake of the Lido di Venezia, a chain of sandy islands in northeastern Italy that separate the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Lido in Italian means 鈥渟hore, beach, strand鈥� and comes from Latin 濒墨迟耻蝉 鈥渟hore.鈥� The stem of 濒墨迟耻蝉 is 濒墨迟辞谤-, which is the source of English littoral 鈥渙f or relating to a shore鈥� (not to be confused with literal 鈥渋nvolving the strict meaning of a word鈥�). 尝墨迟耻蝉 becomes 濒墨迟辞谤- through a process called rhotacism, which is the change of the sound s or z to r. Though this may seem like an odd sound shift, it鈥檚 rather common in English; compare was and were, is and are (possibly), and most and more. Lido was first recorded in English in the late 1920s.
how is lido used?
On a recent summer morning, one lido on the beach at Focene, west of Rome, was bustling. Italians of all ages and sizes sizzled on sun-bleached chairs. Children splashed happily among the waves, and a group of senior citizens exercised (gently) to a mambo beat.
As a rule, a lido is a private section of beach where loungers, sun umbrellas and cabins can be rented. It usually boasts a small restaurant, or at least a snack bar, and, of course, toilets and showers. Usually inexpensive, these amenities certainly make for more comfort than lying on a towel on the sand.