Dictionary Highlights: Day 23

Berea - a city in NE Ohio, near Cleveland. 19,567.

berakhah - a blessing or benediction, usually recited according to a traditional formula.

I think ArtScroll transliterates it "bracha" but there are so many different transliterations of this word.

bertha - a collar or trimming, as of lace, worn about the shoulders by women, as over a low-necked waist or dress.

bespectacled - wearing eyeglasses.

I'll take "unnecessarily fancy words" for $200, Alex.

bestiary - a collection of moralized fables, esp. as written in the Middle Ages, about actual or mythical animals.

Beverly -

1.	a city in NE Massachusetts. 37,655.

2.	Also, Bev⋅er⋅ley. a female or male given name: from an Old English word meaning “dweller at the beaver meadow.”

Dweller at the beaver meadow? I can't wait to inform every Beverly I meet about this lovely fact.

Dictionary Highlights: Day 22

Bedloe's Island - former name of Liberty Island

the bee's knees - Older Slang. (esp. in the 1920s) a person or thing that is wonderful, great, or marvelous: Her new roadster is simply the bee's knees.

I hope this expression makes a comeback

beefalo -

1.	a hybrid animal that is 3/8 to 3/32 buffalo, the remaining genetic component being domestic cow, bred for disease resistance and for meat with low fat content.

2.	the meat of such an animal

Why 3/8 to 3/32 buffalo? Is 1/4 buffalo to buffaloy to crowd out the beef?

Bellatrix - a blue-white giant star in the constellation Orion, with apparent magnitude +1.63.

belly-helve - In metalworking, a triphammer in which the cams act at a point along the helve, partway between the fulcrum and the head.

belly-wash - any barely drinkable liquid or beverage, as inferior soda, beer, coffee, or soup.

The image this triggered in my mind is some pot-bellied guy starring in an Axe body wash commercial.

belomancy - divination using arrows drawn at random from a quiver or other holder.

bench jockey - a vociferous player, coach, or manager who makes a specialty of baiting or harassing the umpires or opposing players, usually from the bench.

Reminds me of an episode of Pete & Pete. I love orange lazarus.

Dictionary Highlights: Day 21

Bayard -

1.	a magical legendary horse in medieval chivalric romances.

2.	a mock-heroic name for any horse.

3.	Archaic. a bay horse.

If you used definition 2 of this word, I doubt most people would get the insult.

bay window -

1.	an alcove of a room, projecting from an outside wall and having its own windows, esp. one having its own foundations. Compare bow window, oriel.

2.	Informal. a large, protruding belly; paunch

Love the second definition. I will add this to my daily vocabulary.

beam weapon - a laser-beam or particle-beam weapon, also called a directed energy device.

I can't believe this is in the dictionary. Do we have all this crazy sci-fi stuff yet?

beat poets - numerous U.S. poets concentrated in California in the 1950s and noted chiefly for their rejection of poetic as well as social conventions, exemplified through experimental, often informal phrasing and diction and formless verse that attempts to capture spontaneity of thought and feeling.

I'd love to go to one of these esoteric poetry slams, recite a string of brand names, and call it a poem.

beau -

1.	a frequent and attentive male companion.

2.	a male escort for a girl or woman.

3.	a dandy; fop.

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!