51吃瓜 of the Day
credulous
adjective
willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible.
More about credulous
Credulous comes from the Latin adjective 肠谤脓诲耻濒耻蝉 鈥渋nclined to believe or trust, trustful, credulous, rash.鈥� The first part of 肠谤脓诲耻濒耻蝉 comes from the verb 肠谤脓诲别谤别 鈥渢o believe, trust, entrust,鈥� most likely a compound of Proto-Indo-European kerd-, kred- (and other variants) 鈥渉eart鈥� and -dere, a combining form meaning 鈥渢o put, place,鈥� from the root 诲丑脓-, 诲丑艒-, with the same meaning. Latin 肠谤脓诲别谤别 鈥渢o place my heart鈥� is a very ancient religious term that has an exact correspondence with Sanskrit 艣谤补诲-诲补诲丑腻迟颈 鈥渉e trusts,鈥� and Old Irish cretim 鈥淚 trust.鈥� The second part of 肠谤脓诲耻濒耻蝉 is the diminutive noun and adjective suffix –ulus, which frequently has a pejorative sense, as in 谤脓驳耻濒耻蝉 鈥減etty king, chieftain.鈥� Credulous entered English in the mid-16th century.
how is credulous used?
When the British news network aired a three-minute segment about Swiss spaghetti farmers plucking long strands of pasta straight from tree branches, hundreds of credulous viewers wrote in asking how they could cultivate their own spaghetti tree.
I did not believe half of what she told me: I pretended to laugh at it all; but I was far more credulous than I myself supposed.
credulous
felicific
adjective
causing or tending to cause happiness.
More about felicific
The adjective felicific 鈥渢ending to cause happiness,鈥� is a term used in ethics, a branch of philosophy. The word is formed from the Latin adjective 蹿脓濒颈虫 (stem 蹿脓濒墨肠颈-) 鈥渉appy, lucky鈥� and the English combining form -fic 鈥渕aking, producing,鈥� from Latin -ficus. Felicific entered English in the 19th century.
how is felicific used?
Bentham was advancing his felicific calculus (though without much actual mathematics to back it up) as the scientific solution to the problems of morality and legislation.
The problem is that as more humans run their felicific calculations and decide to live in pleasant places, their presence changes the balance.
felicific
transliterate
verb (used with object)
to change (letters, words, etc.) into corresponding characters of another alphabet or language: to transliterate the Greek 围 as ch.
More about transliterate
The verb transliterate is formed from the Latin preposition and prefix trans, trans- 鈥渁cross, on the other side of鈥� and the noun 濒墨迟别谤补 (littera) 鈥渓etter.鈥� Transliteration is only changing the letters of one alphabet into those of another, for example, from Greek 未蠈纬渭伪 into Latin dogma. Transliteration does not provide a pronunciation or a translation. Transliterate entered English in the 19th century.
how is transliterate used?
Up on the bridge, Captain Orlova was looking thoughtfully at a dense mass of words and figures on the main display. Floyd had painfully started to transliterate them when she interrupted him.
In many of the early stories Chekhov uses proper names that sound comic, carry comic allusions, or are in other ways meaningful. Simply to transliterate such names fails to convey to the English reader an element that is present in the original and sometimes extremely important.
transliterate