Dictionary Highlights: Day 58

currency principle - the principle that banks should be permitted to issue notes only against bullion or coin.

Becuase if it read "booty, coin, or plunder" it would have been the pirate currency principle.

curtate - shortened; reduced; abbreviated.

curule chair - (in ancient Rome) a folding seat with curved legs and no back, often ornamented with ivory, used only by certain high officials.

That's right. The uncomfortable folding chair with no back is for the high officials. I'll bet they had bad backs.

curvaceous - (of a woman) having a well-shaped figure with voluptuous curves.

I am going to start telling women that they are looking rather curvaceous today. I cannot imagine how this could lead to trouble.

cush-cush - yampee

Lotta help there, Mr. Dictionary

cyclopedia - an encyclopedia

Which I will tackle after I finish the dictionary

cywydd - a form of meter in Welsh poetry consisting of rhyming couplets, each line having seven syllables: first used in the 14th century.

And the C-section is complete. It will take some time to recover. I hope I don't die of an infection in the process.

Dictionary Highlights Update

The original purpose of Dictionary Highlights was to help me get through my goal of reading the entire dictionary in one year. After realizing that's not feasible given all the other things I have going on, I'm going to take this at a slower pace.

Basically, I'll post updates on days that I have the time to read the daily prescription of 8 pages. Not sure when I'll be done, so let's just enjoy the ride.

Dictionary Highlights: Day 57

crowdy - a dish of meal, esp. oatmeal and water, or sometimes milk, stirred together; gruel; brose; porridge.

cruller - Also called French cruller. a rich, light, raised doughnut, often with a ridged surface and sometimes topped with white icing.

Why is it whenever I see the word French in front of something, my mind immediately dives into the gutter?

cruor - coagulated blood, or the portion of the blood that forms the clot.

I thought Japan had laws against cruor and unusuor punishment

cryohydrate - a mixture of ice and another substance in definite proportions such that a minimum melting or freezing point is attained.

Does your diet have the right balance of cryohydrates?

cryotron - a cryogenic device that uses the principle that a varying magnetic field can cause the resistance of a superconducting element to change rapidly between its high normal and low superconductive values: used as a switch and as a computer-memory element.

Also a potential villain for the next Transformers movie

crypotozoology - the study of evidence tending to substantiate the existence of, or the search for, creatures whose reported existence is unproved, as the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness monster.

This is science?

Cubba - a female day name for Wednesday

cuckoo spit - Also called frog spit. a frothy secretion found on plants, exuded by the young of certain insects, as the froghoppers, and serving as a protective covering.

cuittle - to wheedle, cajole, or coax.

That's three more words to look up. Big help there, dictionary!

culex - any of numerous mosquitoes constituting the widespread genus Culex, distinguished by the habit in the adult of holding the body parallel to the feeding or resting surface, as the common house mosquito, C. pipiens.

From Nickelodeon's The Tomorrow People.

cummingtonite - an amphibole mineral, magnesium-iron silicate, similar in composition to anthophyllite but richer in iron.

That shipment of minerals I ordered a week ago, is it cummingtonite?

The Broken Window Fallacy

One of the most annoying fallacies people spread around. You hear this nonsense all over the news, claiming how these public works projects will create wealth and give people jobs. But in the end, government can only spend money that it takes from the people either through taxation, interest rates, or inflating the currency. In any case, it is like trying to gain nutrition by drinking your own blood.

Try Harder