As the list gets longer, it'll be useful to see what words have already been posted (if you'd rather not duplicate). It may be interesting to see what kinds of words have been used, too.
To that end, I've started this alphabetical list. When you post a new word to the thread, please also add it here.
Time for a new thread idea, at times its always fun to see new words each day so I figured it would be fun to have a thread dedicated for posting a word with the definition. I'll start:
Paradox: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
I like Sarah Palin's recent addition to the English vocabulary: refudiate. In an interview she called upon both Barack and Michelle Obama to refudiate the position that the Tea Party is racist. It sounds like she meant repudiate. I will cut her some slack as the thin air while on her glacier stroll probably caused some HACE to occur.
BIVOUAC: A French word generally said to have been introduced during the Thirty Years' War. Originally meaning a night-watch by a whole army under arms to prevent surprise. In modern parlance the word is used to mean a temporary encampment in the open without tents. Also used in the French language to mean "mistake".
-------------- "Wait by the river long enough and the bodies of your enemies will float by"...Sun Tsu
Oxymoron, plural oxymora: a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly.”
Origin:
1650–60; < LL oxymorum < presumed Gk *oxýmōron, neut. of *oxýmōros sharp-dull, equiv. to oxý ( s ) sharp ( see oxy-1 ) + mōrós dull ( see moron)
It's fun to read the definitions from different dictionaries on Dictionary.com. The above was from Random House. From the World English Dictionary: "rhetoric an epigrammatic effect, by which contradictory terms are used in conjunction: living death ; fiend angelical." From the American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: 'A rhetorical device in which two seemingly contradictory words are used together for effect: “She is just a poor little rich girl.”'
-------------- May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey
de·noue·ment [dey-noo-mahn]
–noun
1. the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel.
2. the place in the plot at which this occurs.
3. the outcome or resolution of a doubtful series of occurrences.
Origin:
1745–55; < F: lit., an untying, equiv. to dénouer to untie, OF desnoer (des- de- + noer to knot < L nōdāre, deriv. of nōdus knot) + -ment -ment
—Synonyms
3. solution, conclusion, end, upshot
-------------- May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey
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