What are /r/words' favorite Products & Services?

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> Tension - from M.Fr. tension, from L. tensionem (nom. tensio) "a stretching" (in M.L. "a struggle, contest"), from tensus, pp. of tendere "to stretch," from PIE root ten- "stretch"

> Extend - from Anglo-Fr. estendre (late 13c.), O.Fr. estendre "stretch out, extend, increase," from L. extendere "stretch out," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + tendere "to stretch"

Same root.

http://www.etymonline.com/

But to answer your question, it comes from extend--the same way flexion comes from flex, or extortion comes from extort. "extension" and "tension" are unrelated except by etymology.

For the noun in your first example: snatch: (def. 1.2 here). I had to hunt a bit for a dictionary that mentioned the sense I wanted: many of them just say "a bit or fragment of something", but it very strongly connotes an aural fragment, to my mind.

For the verb or for your second example, I've got nothing, I'm afraid.

You're correct.

This is a good example of where Google can be "wrong". Back when everyone had a Webster's there is a similar phenomenon with some definitions being lacking. Remember, Google's philosophy isn't so far from that of filmmaker Ed Wood. 80% success rate is done and done. It's tremendously effective in a lot of domains, but you always have to take their search results in context, check sources, etc.

https://www.wordnik.com/words/alliteration

One runs across smifligate in Chapter 27 of Nicholas Nickelby. Even in this passage Dickens is perhaps hinting that the word was considered obscure by the 1830s, but then again maybe he's just again hammering the point that Mrs. Nickleby lacks sophistication:

>...Mr. Pyke threatened with many oaths to ‘smifligate’ a very old man with a lantern who accidentally stumbled in her way—to the great terror of Mrs. Nickleby, who, conjecturing more from Mr. Pyke’s excitement than any previous acquaintance with the etymology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expression, lest something should occur. Fortunately, however, Mr. Pyke confined himself to mere verbal smifligation, and they reached their box with no more serious interruption by the way, than a desire on the part of the same pugnacious gentleman to ‘smash’ the assistant box-keeper for happening to mistake the number.

Ngram data supports your hypothesis, showing "preexisting" became more popular in books around the 70s.

(Though take it with a grain of salt, as their OCR often drops the hyphen in hyphenated words)

And there's also "preëxisting" if you want to be pretentious.

Maximalism is a reactionary movement specifically against Minimalism.

Edit: oh right it's in oxforddictionaries, though they presume a political bent.

Yup, that's the Villiers text I quoted.

Of course we'll give u/cyberboy1432 credit for his intuition – but reject the political interpretation.

The end of the 19th century was somewhat obsessed with the not always very savory details of Parisian night-life (which attracted Forain, btw) and its demimondaines, and also a great period for various artistic and literary movements cataloged as XXX-ism.

So journalists of the contemporary tabloid equivalents had to come up with a funny term describing what the French would call "élégance tapageuse" (raucous elegance). Being journalistic prose I wouldn't read too much into it. 😉

Thinking it over, perhaps it's a combination of "chut" and "pschitt" (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DwvChrgQEc) which gave "pschutt"? Then it would be "bubbly elegance", ha ha! But as a slang word "pschutt" is dead as a dodo.

P. – S. For translations try DeepL, I deem it better than Google and you can fine-tune the result by clicking on the dubious words.

Penultimate means "second to last". It's used when discussing, for example, items in a series or collection. "That is my penultimate shirt" means "That's my second to last shirt" -- so I'd better do laundry.

"The beginning of the end" is used when discussing the development of a situation, where things start to go downhill, never to improve.

Ade's Fables, 1914:

Another might suggest that he was hiding a great Sorrow, his whole Existence having been embittered by the faithlessness of some Creature.

Then they would take a Vote and decide that he was a plain Mutt.

The Chauncey who refuses to reciprocate will excite more Conversation than a regular Union Lover, but it is Lucky for him that he does not hear all the Conversation.

Walter at the age of twenty-five thought he was too old and sedate to be a Diner-Out and a Dancing Devil.

When he was 28, however, he had become Hep to the large and luminous Truth that the man who sits in his Lodgings reading Dumas may overlook many a Bet.

curiologic is a corruption (probably influenced by "curious") of kyriologic. kyriologic/kyriology is the original form. cyriologic is another, perhaps intermediate, variation

Judging from this German wikipedia page and the text of the referenced book, Spinnifax is the sidekick of Zäpfel Kern, a German knockoff of Pinocchio from 1905 that seems to have slipped into obscurity.

As far as I recall, my student dictionary from school had that. I think it was a Collins dictionary.

Just had a look on Amazon and this one seems to be good:
Easier English Student Dictionary: Over 32,000 Terms Clearly Defined (Easier English) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0747566240/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Scg8BbZA97SYR

It sounds similar to a protection racket:

> a criminal system of taking money from people in exchange for agreeing not to hurt them or damage their property

I think of extortion as more general than a protection racket.

looks like goddammit was always more popular.

Drax doesn't have a meaning as a name, nor as any kind of normal English word (or any other commonly-spoken language). It is used as an obscure place name in England and an extremely obscure term in the anatomy of sea sponges. The "thinker" definition given by the submitter is definitely made up by them. All that said, any other meaning you decide on is certainly no less valid than that other submitter's.

Look for citations for uncommon words on Wordnik, which includes examples from Twitter: https://www.wordnik.com/words/extractivism

If I were you and felt strongly that you should include the term, I'd start the paper with a "Note:" section in italics explaining a good reason why you choose to use that term in the paper, even though it's uncommon.

Retard: Delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment. IE: "All my effort has become retarded simply because of my stupid approach!"

Setback or Misfortune might also work if your not comfortable using the word Retard.

I use thesaurus as my source for words with similar meanings here are a bunch more you can look into. Disappointment, Disgruntled, Letdown, Left Out, Setback, Misfortune, Disaster, Fiasco, Hindrance, Failure, Blunder, Stumbling Block, Discontent. Some of these may work while others not so much, Sometimes you have to stray away from the word you are looking for to find others that might be a closer match.

I don't know how much this reflects his book, but I found Steven Pinker's chapter on swearing in The Stuff of Thought to be really insightful. Of course, I've forgotten most of it now...

http://www.openculture.com/2012/08/steven_pinker_explains_the_neuroscience_of_swearing.html

One response to your question is that you are limiting yourself to your own cultural circles. Curse words still have their power in the wider culture and you still have to be careful in many many contexts. Another is the possibility that you just haven't tried hard enough to find equivalents.

There’s a web page called Ludwig guru It is also an app. Well, here you can learn the words in context. For instance, the word mettle this web page define it like, courage, spirit, nerve and then gives you a few sentences using this word. There is a premium service, but I just use the web service on my browser, I don't need more.

Recently that was one of the suggestions as an alternate title for openSUSE linux, which has green as its primary branding color. Learning the word was interesting, but even more thankfully, it seems likely that the name isn't going to be changed after all.

distressed, depressed? suggest you look at thesaurus suggestions around words that are thematically fitting...

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/disappointed

edit: whoops, repeated myself. Meant 'Distressed'.

It’s a form of metonymy, generally speaking — using the general name of something instead of referring to its attributes. There’s a great Masterclass page on it here.

More specifically, it seems you might be referring to synecdoche, when the part stands in for the whole and vice-versa. Google’s example matches your other definitions: “a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in ‘England lost by six wickets’ (meaning ‘ the English cricket team’)”.

Appreciate the feedback, I just wanted to make sure it's a real word.

Yea you're right, it's pretty hard to confuse what it means here, especially in the context I'm using it in... but I really can't think of another word that would work here...

https://www.powerthesaurus.org/contactlessly/synonyms

Anyone have any suggestions? :D

Well, this is all a bit vague, but before about around 2000(?) share was just something you did with a pie, prizemoney or something else concrete. In general, something good, unless it was blame. Good children learned to share.

Then something bad happened to share. Perhaps it started with the invidious teacher question "Johnny, is there something you'd like to share with the rest of the class????" And she wasn't talking about his pocketful of lollies.

Share started to apply to things you didn't want a bar of. It became a way of distributing unwelcome opinions, negative assessments or just stuff to spoil someone's day. "I just wanted to share with you some feedback we've been getting on your customer service soft skills." The expression places some artificial distance between the speaker and the shared material. Yeah, share.

Look, the old meaning still obtains. But this new connotation has definite weasel word odours and you'll usually know it when you hear it.

If this subject interests you, there are better explainers than I. Try Don Watson's "Worst Words: A compendium of contemporary cant, gibberish and jargon". The writer is a former political speechwriter and has a few books on this subject.

And, on the other side of "deep", there's always the game "Flappy Monsters of Lovecraft".

I still say, there's nothing new under the sun. 😆

this book might help

Or for a phrase/word in English, it could be a misdeed, a megalomaniac might be inclined to do this because they are falsely doing the right thing, unintentional action, misdirected action

I haven't given you a single word sorry, its a challenging (but good) question!

My Word List is a good dictionary/vocabulary app:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fortylove.mywordlist.free

It has over 800,000 words and terms from Wiktionary.
You can look up words and texts from any app, such as Kindle and Facebook, save your words and track your progress as you learn them.

I am sure there must be dictionaries or websites catering to readers of specific much-published authors. Such as Dickens, for example. These lists would only contain words no longer common today, as these are the only words that need explaining.

But there are a lot of books published that call themselves "dictionary" or "concordance", even though they do NOT contain any vocabulary! So beware what you buy!

I only found one book so far that really seems to concern itself with vocabulary (albeit not in an academical but in an entertaining manner): https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Dickens-Distinctly-Dickensian-Words/dp/0762460776/

Quoted from Bernstein's Reverse Dictionary,

>awesome, imposing: august

>awesome, ominous: portentous

>awesome, intimidating, challenging: formidable