Dictionary Highlights: Day 20

baryon number - a quantum number assigned to elementary particles, baryons having baryon number 1, antibaryons −1, and all other observable particles 0; quarks have baryon number 1/3 and antiquarks −1/3.

Those other observable particles got shafted

bashibazouk - (formerly) one of a class of irregular mounted troops in the Turkish military service.

See? There is such a thing as an army irregular!

basically - fundamentally

If I get to "fundamentally" and find it is defined as "basically" I am going to kill the editor of this dictionary

Basic English - a simplified form of English restricted to an 850-word vocabulary and a few rules of grammar, intended esp. as an international auxiliary language and for use in teaching English as a foreign language: devised by Charles Kay Ogden.

I never realized this was a technical term

basinet -

1.	a globular or pointed helmet of the 14th century, often provided with a visor or aventail: evolved from the cervellière. Compare great basinet.

2.	a supplementary cap that is worn underneath a helm, as an arming cap.

bassinet -

1.	a basket with a hood over one end, for use as a baby's cradle.

2.	a style of perambulator resembling this.

Same pronunciation, slightly different spelling, totally different meanings

Bathinette - a trademarked item used for a portable bathtub for babies

Slightly different name, really unoriginal idea

batman - a soldier assigned to an officer as a servant.

I wonder if Bob Kane ever knew this word was in the dictionary

John Searle on Materialism

“‘There is exactly one overriding question in contemporary philosophy . . . . How do we fit in? . . . How can we square this self-conception of ourselves as mindful, meaning-creating, free, rational, etc., agents with a universe that consists entirely of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles?’

For the scientific naturalist, the answer is, ‘Not very well.’”

- J. P. Moreland in God is Great, God is Good (p. 34), quoting John Searle, Freedom & Neurobiology (pp. 4-5).

Dictionary Highlights: Day 19

banana oil -

1.	a sweet-smelling liquid ester, C7H14O2, a mixture of isomers derived from amyl alcohol and having the characteristic odor of bananas: used chiefly as a paint solvent and in artificial fruit flavors; amyl acetate.

2.	Slang. insincere talk; nonsense.

Mixes well with snake oil

bangtail - a racehorse.

bantling - a very young child.

Something something Michael Jackson something something. Hahahaha!

barabara - an Alaskan or north Siberian semisubterranean house built of sod or turf.

Look at our barabara, Barbara!

baraka - a spiritual power believed to be possessed by certain persons, objects, tombs, etc.

And a totally sweet Mortal Kombat character!

barefoot doctor - (in China) a layperson trained to provide a number of basic health-care services, esp. in rural areas.

Future occupation for my brother Tom (or perhaps Steve)

barghest - a legendary doglike goblin believed to portend death or misfortune.

Bar Harbor - a town on Mount Desert Island, in S Maine: summer resort. 4124.

Also the marriage location of my parents

barnstorm -

1.	to conduct a campaign or speaking tour in rural areas by making brief stops in many small towns.

2.	Theater. to tour small towns to stage theatrical performances.

3.	(of a pilot) to give exhibitions of stunt flying, participate in airplane races, etc., in the course of touring country towns and rural areas.

4.	(of a professional athletic team) to tour an area playing exhibition games after the regular season.

Dictionary Highlights: Day 18

back staff - an obsolete instrument for determining the altitude of the sun by facing away from the sun, sighting upon the horizon, adjusting a cursor until its shadow falls upon the sight through which the horizon appears, and measuring the resulting arc.

Obsolete? This looks like an awesome instrument!

backsword -

1.	a sword with only one sharp edge; broadsword.

2.	(formerly) a cudgel having a basket hilt, used in fencing exhibitions.

3.	a backswordman.

I wonder if this can be applied metaphorically to someone's wit (that half is razor sharp and the other half is dull)

backwardation - (on the London stock exchange) the fee paid by a seller of securities to the buyer for the privilege of deferring delivery of purchased securities.

badger plane - in carpentry, a plane for finishing rabbets or the like.

Badger? Rabbets? Is carpentry poaching the vocabulary of hunters?

bafflegab - confusing or generally unintelligible jargon; gobbledegook: an insurance policy written in bafflegab impenetrable to a lay person.

Baile Atha Cliath - Gaelic name of Dublin

I vote that Dublin be henceforth known only by its Gaelic name.

baked alaska - a dessert consisting of ice cream on a cake base, placed briefly in a hot oven to brown its topping of meringue.

Sounds like the title to a really stupid buddy comedy.

baleboste - a capable, efficient housewife, esp. a traditional Jewish one, devoted to maintaining a well-run home.

The many advantages of a traditional Jewish home. Gentiles, take note!

Dictionary Highlights: Day 17

avoirdrupois - Informal. bodily weight: He carries around a lot of excess avoirdupois.

I wonder why this word isn't in common usage

avunulate - a close social relationship between a maternal uncle and his nephew.

axilla -

1.	Anatomy. the armpit.

2.	Ornithology. the corresponding region under the wing of a bird.

3.	Botany. an axil

As in "the axilla fart"

axion - a hypothetical particle having no charge, zero spin, and small mass: postulated in some forms of quantum chromodynamics.

azan - (in Islamic countries) the call to prayer proclaimed five times a day by the muezzin

azimuthal quantum number - the quantum number that designates the orbital angular momentum of a particular quantum state of an electron in an atom and that assumes integral values from zero to one less than the value of the principal quantum number.

Sometimes you need more than a definition in order to understand a word

Azrael - (in Jewish and Islamic angelology) the angel who separates the soul from the body at the moment of death.

Played by Chris Katan

ba - in Egyptian religion, an aspect of the soul, represented as a human-headed bird.

Baal Shem Tov - (Israel ben Eliezer; “Besht”), c1700–60, Ukrainian teacher and religious leader: founder of the Hasidic movement of Judaism.

A group so old-fashioned, that even the ultra-Orthodox black hatters make fun of how they dress

babu -

1.	a Hindu title of address equivalent to Sir, Mr., or Esquire.

2.	a Hindu gentleman.

3.	a native Indian clerk who writes English.

4.	Usually Disparaging. any native Indian having only a limited knowledge of English.

bach - "bach it", (as in bachelor) to live alone or share living quarters with someone of the same sex, usually doing one's own housework, cooking, laundry, etc.

Dictionary Highlights: Day 16

Auge - a daughter of King Aleus who became a priestess of Athena. After being raped by Hercules she bore a son, Telephus.

I didn't realize Hercules could be such an unsavory character. I mean, he's played by Kevin Sorbo!

aught - anything whatever; any part: for aught I know

Not to be confused with ought

Aunt Jemima - Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. a black woman considered by other blacks to be subservient to or to curry favor with whites.


Not as offensive as Aunt Jo'Moma

aurify -

1.	to cause to appear golden; gild: Dawn came, and sunlight aurified the lead-gray ocean.

2.	to transmute into gold.

Another word we should all add to our daily vocabulary

austral - Of, relating to, or coming from the south.

Now we know how they named Australia

autarchy -

1.	absolute sovereignty.

2.	an autocratic government.

3.

autarky.

autarky -

1.	the condition of self-sufficiency, esp. economic, as applied to a nation.

2.	a national policy of economic independence.

Two words that sound the same, have completely different definitions, yet the first can also mean the second. The English language is confusing!

autodidact - a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education; a self-taught person.

Autolycus - Classical Mythology. a thief, the son of Hermes and Chione, and the grandfather of Odysseus. He possessed the power of changing the shape of whatever he stole and of making it and himself invisible.

aver -

1.	to assert or affirm with confidence; declare in a positive or peremptory manner.

2.	Law. to allege as a fact.

Dictionary Highlights: Day 15

astringer - a person who trains and flies short-winged hawks, as the goshawk.

astrobiology - (not in technical use) exobiology.

Really, really presumptuous to assume that we will ever encounter extraterrestrial life. The probability of any given planet being able to support any sort of life is around 10^280. Cosmologists estimate that there are 10^90 atoms in the observable universe. In addition to that is the travel problem. All planets within a 157 light year radius of us have been shown uninhabitable. No space vessel, no matter how heavily armored, will be able to accelerate to more than 10% of the speed of light without being destroyed by space dust, and wormholes are too narrow to allow anything larger than an electron to pass through them.

asymptotic freedom - a property of the force between quarks, according to quantum chromodynamics, such that they behave almost like free particles when they are close together within a hadron.

ataraxia - a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety; tranquillity.

athirst -

1.	having a keen desire; eager (often fol. by for): She has long been athirst for European travel.

2.	Archaic for thirsty

Atlantis - a legendary island, first mentioned by Plato, said to have existed in the Atlantic Ocean west of Gibraltar and to have sunk beneath the sea, but linked by some modern archaeologists with the island of Thera, the surviving remnant of a much larger island destroyed by a volcanic eruption c1500 b.c.

Never knew modern archaeology investigated this

Attic - of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Greece or of Athens.

I wonder if the ancient Greeks had attics.

audion - an early type of triode.