51吃瓜 of the Day
alacrity
noun
cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness: We accepted the invitation with alacrity.
More about alacrity
Alacrity comes from Middle French alacrite from Latin 补濒补肠谤颈迟腻迟-, the stem of 补濒补肠谤颈迟腻蝉 鈥渓iveliness, zeal, enthusiasm.鈥� 础濒补肠谤颈迟腻蝉 is a derivative noun of the adjective alacer 鈥渘imble, brisk, enthusiastic, keen.鈥� Latin alacer develops into Italian allegro and Spanish alegre 鈥渃heerful, happy.鈥� Alacrity entered English in the 15th century.
how is alacrity used?
Mrs Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind, and, after running her head against the same resisting medium for fourteen years, would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity.
The president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen鈥檚聽lackluster performance on immigration enforcement and is believed to be looking for a replacement who will implement his policy ideas with more alacrity.
flimflam
verb
to trick, deceive, swindle, or cheat: A fortuneteller flimflammed her out of her savings.
More about flimflam
贵濒颈尘蹿濒补尘听鈥渢o trick, deceive, swindle,鈥� shows the same common vowel alteration in a reduplicated word as in mish–mash or pitter–patter. Flimflam may possibly be based on a Scandinavian word, e.g., Old Norse flim 鈥渁 lampoon, mockery.鈥� Flimflam entered English in the 16th century as a noun meaning 鈥渋dle talk, nonsense; a cheap deception.鈥� The verb sense 鈥渢o cheat, swindle,鈥� originally an Americanism, arose in the late 19th century.
how is flimflam used?
Slamming my fist on my writing desk I cursed the day a year before that I’d allowed by friend Eddy Dorobek to flimflam me into buying a used laptop from him and giving up my dead father’s rickety old Underwood portable.
Col. Leonard was there and he knows how they tried to flimflam us.
polysemy
noun
a condition in which a single word, phrase, or concept has more than one meaning or connotation.
More about polysemy
Fast can mean “moving quickly” or “firmly fixed.” The word shows polysemy, which ultimately derives from Greek聽辫辞濒媒蝉脓尘辞蝉 “having many meanings.”聽笔辞濒媒蝉脓尘辞蝉 箩辞颈苍蝉听辫辞濒媒蝉 “many, much,” 补苍诲听蝉锚尘补 “sign, mark, token.”聽笔辞濒媒蝉 yields the combining form聽poly-, seen in many English words, such as polygon “many angles” or polytheism “many gods.” 厂锚尘补 produces another term used, like polysemy, in linguistics: semantics “the study of meaning.” In linguistics, polysemy and semantics were modeled on French 辫辞濒测蝉茅尘颈别 补苍诲听蝉茅尘补苍迟颈辩耻别. These words were formed in the late 19th century by French linguist Michel Br茅al (1832鈥�1915)鈥攁 man perhaps better remembered for inspiring the modern Olympic marathon in 1896. Polysemy entered English in the 1920s.
how is polysemy used?
Twenty-three alternate meanings for it are listed in English alone鈥攊t is, the editors say, a model of “polysemy,” packing multiple meanings into a single sign … .
This rich polysemy of language is the basis for William Empson’s first type of poetic ambiguity: “when a detail is effective in several ways at once.”