trepan (v.tr.): to use a trephine on (the skull) trephine (n.): a surgical instrument for cutting out circular sections (as of bone or corneal tissue) Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a verb in the English language whose meaning is to cut out circular sections of someone’s skull. Hooray!
haplology (n.): contraction of a word by omission of one or more similar sounds or syllables (as in mineralogy for hypothetical mineralology or \’prä-blE\ for probably) This word came up when I was following a tangent into a blog post on over- and under-negation at the Language Log. I’ve been familiar with the phenomenon of [...]
blind (adj.): sightlessdeaf (adj.): lacking or deficient in the sense of hearing Don’t have a ton to say about these words except to discuss their etymologies, both of which are unclear. According to Merriam-Webster, both blind and deaf have been around since Old English. The best suggestion they have for investigating blind‘s origin, though, is [...]
Holy crap! What an excellent word! dysphemism (n.): the substitution of a disagreeable, offensive, or disparaging expression for an agreeable or inoffensive one; also : an expression so substituted “Dysphemism” is the precise opposite of the much more common “euphemism,” the substitution of a less offensive or vulgar word for one moreso. An example off [...]
bustard (n.): any of a family (Otididae) of large chiefly terrestrial Old World and Australian game birds Heh heh. BUSTARD.
schedule (v. tr.): to appoint, assign, or designate for a fixed time. First, the nerd-out: “Schedule” has a fascinating etymology. Merriam-Webster has it as follows: Middle English, from Medieval Latin scedula slip, page, charter, from Late Latin schedula slip of paper, diminutive of Latin *scheda strip of papyrus, probably back-formation from Latin schedium impromptu speech, [...]
