51吃瓜 of the Day
donnybrook
noun
(often initial capital letter)
an inordinately wild fight or contentious dispute; brawl; free-for-all.
More about donnybrook
Donnybrook is the English spelling of the English pronunciation of Irish Domhnach Broc 鈥淐hurch of (St.) Broc.鈥� Domhnach also means 鈥淪unday鈥� in Irish and comes from Latin (Di膿s) Dominica 鈥淟ord鈥檚 (Day).鈥� Little is known of St. Broc, who founded a church in the 8th century at the location of Donnybrook Cemetery in Dublin, Ireland.
In 1204 the English King John (鈥渇amous鈥� for the Magna Carta) granted a charter for an annual fair, at first like an American county fair, featuring livestock and produce, but later developing into a carnival, a medieval Irish Coney Island, beset with drunks and brawlers. During the 1790s campaigns against the fair began; prominent citizens purchased the royal charter, and they had the fair shut down in 1866. The Donnybrook Fair grounds are now the Donnybrook Rugby Ground.
Donnybrook entered English in the mid-19th century.
how is donnybrook used?
Now the New York hotel and restaurant workers’ local is threatening a “donnybrook” if it doesn’t get a contract at the Portman.
On Monday, when the panel conducted a hearing about the聽Mueller report, there was a partisan donnybrook.
subitize
verb (used without object)
Psychology.
to make an immediate and accurate reckoning of the number of items in a group or sample without needing to pause and actually count them.
More about subitize
Subitize is a useful word in psychology regardless of the awkwardness of its formation. The first part of the word, subit-, comes from the Late Latin verb 蝉耻产颈迟腻谤别 鈥渢o come suddenly and unexpectedly upon鈥� (a derivative of the adjective subitus 鈥渟udden, abrupt鈥�). The familiar, completely naturalized suffix –ize (“to render, make; convert into; subject to; etc.”) comes via Late Latin –颈锄腻谤别 from Greek –铆锄别颈苍.
how is subitize used?
Below five, we鈥檙e able to聽subitize, or rapidly judge numbers of items without counting.
Getting the computer model to subitize the way humans and animals did was possible, he found, only if he built in 鈥渘umber neurons鈥� tuned to fire with maximum intensity in response to a specific number of objects.
utopian
adjective
founded upon or involving idealized perfection.
More about utopian
The English adjective and noun utopian comes from New Latin 弄迟辞辫颈腻苍耻蝉, an adjective derived from the noun 弄迟辞辫颈补, a quasi-Greek noun meaning 鈥渘o place,鈥� formed from the negative adverb and particle ou 鈥渘ot鈥� (“quasi-Greek” because in Greek ou cannot be used as a prefix for nouns), top-, the stem of the noun 迟贸辫辞蝉 鈥渁 place,鈥� and the noun suffix –ia (the adjective suffix –腻苍耻蝉 is purely Latin). 弄迟辞辫颈补 is a coinage of Sir Thomas More鈥檚 in his 1516 satire D膿 optim艒 re墨publicae stat奴 d膿que nov膩 insul膩 弄topi膩 (“Concerning the Best State of a Republic [Commonwealth] and Concerning the New Island Utopia”). In English, but not in other languages, the first syllable of 弄迟辞辫颈补 rhymes with the prefix eu– (as in Euclid or Eucharist); thus in English there is a confusion between 弄迟辞辫颈补 鈥渘o place鈥� and Eutopia 鈥済ood place, a place of happiness and felicity.鈥�
how is utopian used?
For its proponents, it offered a聽utopian聽vision聽of an art world in which color and class barriers were finally dismantled.
At a time of such social, political and ecological upheaval, it鈥檚 natural to dream of a utopian world in which these problems are no more鈥攊n fact, people have been doing it for centuries.