51吃瓜 of the Day
pulchritudinous
[ puhl-kri-tood-n-uhs ]
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adjective
physically beautiful; comely.
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Why Dictionary.com chose pulchritudinous
More about pulchritudinous
- Pulchritudinous comes from the Latin word 辫耻濒肠丑谤颈迟奴诲艒, meaning 鈥渂eauty.鈥�
- 笔耻濒肠丑谤颈迟奴诲艒 also gives us pulchritude, meaning 鈥減hysical beauty,鈥� which was first recorded in the 1400s.
- Pulchritudinous began to appear in the early 1700s and gained popularity in the 1800s with American authors who started using the word because it was humorously long and overly complicated.
- Washington Irving employed it in The Crayon Miscellany (1835) alongside other unnecessarily complex words to make fun of an advertisement for ginger ale.
EXAMPLES OF PULCHRITUDINOUS
- The sunset painted the sky with pulchritudinous hues of pink and gold.
- The ballerina’s graceful movements were enhanced by her pulchritudinous form.
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Why Dictionary.com chose bedevil
More about bedevil
- Bedevil, in the featured sense, was first recorded in 1760-70.
- It was formed from聽be- (an older prefix for forming verbs) and devil, which was first recorded before 900 and came from Late Latin diabolus.
- Diabolus itself came from Greek聽诲颈谩产辞濒辞蝉, “slanderer,” which came from 诲颈补产谩濒濒别颈苍, “to assault someone’s character,” or literally “to throw across.”
EXAMPLES OF BEDEVIL
- The complex math problem bedeviled the students, leaving them puzzled and uncertain about the correct solution.
- The persistent technical glitches in the computer program bedeviled the developers, making it difficult for them to meet their deadline.
brouhaha
[ broo-hah-hah ]
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noun
excited public interest, discussion, or the like, as the clamor attending some sensational event.
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Why Dictionary.com chose brouhaha
More about brouhaha
- Brouhaha was first recorded in English around 1885-90.
- It comes from the French phrase brou, ha, ha!, which was an exclamation used by characters representing the devil in 16th-century French drama.
- Brouhaha perhaps originally comes from a distortion of the Hebrew recited phrase b膩r奴kh habb膩 (besh膿m 膬d艒nai), which means 鈥渂lessed is he who comes (in the name of the Lord)鈥� from Psalms 118:26.
EXAMPLES OF BROUHAHA
- The brouhaha surrounding the controversial film reached its peak with protesters gathering outside the theater.
- Social media erupted in a brouhaha when a celebrity made an offhand comment, sparking a heated online argument.
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