Word of the day

[Richard Ruck]

what have you signed up to get these words?

http://www.askoxford.com/

[Great Plum]

I wonder what I should ask Oxford about!

[Richard Ruck]

I seem to have missed yesterday's...

Oh well, here's today's:

fencible

• noun (usu. fencibles) historical - a soldier belonging to a British militia which could be called up only for service on home soil.

— origin Middle English (in the sense ‘fit or suitable for defence’): shortening of defensible.

[darthmaul]

I seem to have missed yesterday's...

Oh well, here's today's:

fencible

• noun (usu. fencibles) historical - a soldier belonging to a British militia which could be called up only for service on home soil.

— origin Middle English (in the sense ‘fit or suitable for defence’): shortening of defensible.

I wonder...!

And these words really are quite something aren't they.

[Richard Ruck]

Well at first I was just trying to keep up with the posts (Ruthie does post quickly, doesn't she?) and then all the silliness started.

Re. words, I'm happy when they come up with 'English' words. Not so bothered with words which have just been lifted from another language.

[darthmaul]

Well at first I was just trying to keep up with the posts (Ruthie does post quickly, doesn't she?) and then all the silliness started.

Re. words, I'm happy when they come up with 'English' words. Not so bothered with words which have just been lifted from another language.

Mad poster extraordinaire I think!

Foreign words are never quite so exciting as the ridiculous English words which no one but Stephen Fry can get away with...!

[Richard Ruck]

Another one for students of architecture:

modillion

• noun Architecture a projecting bracket under the corona of a cornice in the Corinthian and other orders.

— origin mid 16th cent.: from French modillon, from Italian modiglione, based on Latin mutulus ‘mutule’.

[Richard Ruck]

I like this one :

Godwottery

• noun [mass noun] Brit. humorous - an affected quality of archaism, excessive fussiness, and sentimentality.

— origin 1930s: from the line ‘A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!’, in T. E. Brown's poem My Garden (1876).

[Great Plum]

That's good!

[Katharine]

I like this one :

Godwottery

• noun [mass noun] Brit. humorous - an affected quality of archaism, excessive fussiness, and sentimentality.

— origin 1930s: from the line ‘A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!’, in T. E. Brown's poem My Garden (1876).

I like it, and I bet many wouldn't think it a real word! Does Scrabble recognise it?

[Richard Ruck]

Today's word:

limen

• noun (pl. limens or limina) Psychology - a threshold below which a stimulus is not perceived or is not distinguished from another.

— origin mid 17th cent.: from Latin, ‘threshold’.

[englishangel]

Today's word:

limen

• noun (pl. limens or limina) Psychology - a threshold below which a stimulus is not perceived or is not distinguished from another.

— origin mid 17th cent.: from Latin, ‘threshold’.

Like this high frequency sound that scares the teenagers off I suppose.

[Richard Ruck]

Like this high frequency sound that scares the teenagers off I suppose.

This seems to work, doesnt it?

Here's today's - another fencing term :

sixte

• noun Fencing - the sixth of the eight parrying positions.

— origin late 19th cent.: French, from Latin sextus ‘sixth’

[ben ashton]

i invented the word 'oijhg''today,
any idea what it could mean?

[Richard Ruck]

jougs

• plural noun historical - a hinged iron collar chained to a wall or post, used in medieval Scotland as an instrument of punishment.

— origin late 16th cent.: from French joug or Latin jugum ‘yoke’.