threshold

threshold

\THRESH-hohld\

DEFINITION

noun

1

: the section of wood or stone that lies under a door

2

a : the means or place of entry : entrance b : the place or point of beginning

3

: the point or level at which a physical or mental effect begins to be produced

 

EXAMPLES

She fell in love with the old house from the moment she first stepped across the threshold.

"The protracted delegate fight has raised the possibility that none of the three contenders will reach the threshold needed to secure the nomination before the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in August." — From an article by Michael Finnegan and John Hoeffel in the Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

The earliest known use of "threshold" in the English language is from Alfred the Great's Old English translation of the Roman philosopher Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae. In this translation, which was written around 888, "threshold" appears as "þeorscwold" (that first letter is called a thorn and it was used in Old English and Middle English to indicate the sounds produced by "th" in "thin" and "this"). The origins of this Old English word are not known, though it is believed to be related to Old English "threscan," from which we get the words "thresh," meaning "to separate seed from (a harvested plant) using a machine or tool" and "thrash," meaning, among other things "to beat soundly with or as if with a stick or whip."

 

nebbish

nebbish

\NEB-ish\

DEFINITION

noun

: a timid, meek, or ineffectual person

EXAMPLES

As a teenager, Lyle was a nebbish who could never stand up to the bullies who gave him such a hard time.

"The play started off deadly dull and only picked up when Lore came on stage. He embodied the myopic, nebbish caricature…. His best moments came in Act II, when he attempted to woo Gretchen. His Robert was so bad at it that it was comical." — From a review by Kathy Greenberg in the Tampa Tribune, February 29, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

"From what I read …. it looks like Pa isn't anything like the nebbish Ma is always making him out to be…." Sounds like poor Pa got a bum rap, at least according to a 1951 book review that appeared in The New York Times. The unfortunate Pa unwittingly demonstrates much about the etymology of "nebbish," which derives from the Yiddish "nebekh," meaning "poor" or "unfortunate." As you might expect for a timid word like "nebbish," the journey from Yiddish to English wasn't accomplished in a single bold leap of spelling and meaning. In its earliest English uses in the 1840s, it was spelled "nebbich" and used interjectionally as an expression of dismay.

Kitchen Backsplash

I found this in a Better Homes and Gardens online article about backsplashes.

 This is so beautiful, kudos to the owner for making the commitment to color and pattern!

The ivory in both the tile and the cabinets ties it together very well.



alleviate

alleviate

\uh-LEE-vee-ayt\

DEFINITION

verb

a : relieve, lessen: as b : to make (as suffering) more bearable c : to partially remove or correct

EXAMPLES

Mom suggested that ibuprofen and tea would perhaps alleviate some of the misery of my cold.

"Public health officials are pushing to alleviate crowds at Boston's emergency rooms by redirecting patients without life-threatening ailments to one of the city's 25 community health centers …" — From an article by Andrew Ryan in The Boston Globe, March 6, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

"Alleviate" derives from the past participle of Late Latin "alleviare" ("to lighten or relieve"), which in turn was formed by combining the prefix "ad-" and the adjective "levis," a Latin word meaning "light" or "having little weight." ("Levis" comes from the same ancient word that gave rise to "light" in English.) We acquired "alleviate" in the 15th century, and for the first few centuries the word could mean either "to cause (something) to have less weight" or "to make (something) more tolerable." The literal "make lighter" sense is no longer used, however, so today we have only the "relieve" sense. Incidentally, not only is "alleviate" a synonym of "relieve," it's also a cousin; "relieve" comes from "levare" ("to raise"), which in turn comes from "levis."

Book Shelf Closet Door

This is brilliant!

What a great way to add extra storage without using more wall space.

High five to who ever designed this.

comix

• comix

• \KAH-miks\

• DEFINITION

noun

: comic books or comic strips

• EXAMPLES

Raw, founded by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly in 1980, was the leading avant-garde comix journal of its time.

"[George Kuchar] became involved in comix through his neighbor in San Francisco in the 1980s, Art Spiegelman; he went on to do many comix storyboards as well as underground comix." -- From an article by Charles Bernstein and Susan Bee in The Brooklyn Rail, December, 2011

• DID YOU KNOW?

Comix (which are typically understood as distinct from comics in that they intend a mature audience) got their start in the 1960s. Our earliest evidence of the word "comix" used as a generic term dates to 1969, but it had begun appearing in the titles of specific works a little earlier than that: one example is the title of R. Crumb's highly influential Zap Comix, first published in 1968. The kind of alteration that changed "comics" to "comix" isn't a 20th century phenomenon: the word "pox," as in "chicken pox," began as "pocks" but has been spelled with an "x" since around 1475. A similar kind of alteration, though in this case going from a simpler spelling to a less intuitive one, is the word "phat," which is most likely a variation of "fat." "Phat" dates to 1963.

abnegate

• abnegate

• \AB-nih-gayt\

• DEFINITION

verb

1

: deny, renounce

2

: surrender, relinquish

• EXAMPLES

The mayor has ordered the city's finance control board to abnegate its powers.

"Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is charged with protecting reliability, abnegated its statutory responsibilities as the rule was being written." -- From an article in The Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2011

• DID YOU KNOW?

There's no denying that the Latin root "negare" has given English some useful words. That verb, which means "to deny," is the ultimate source of the noun "abnegation," a synonym of "denial" that began appearing in English manuscripts in the 14th century. By the 17th century, people had concluded that if there was a noun "abnegation," there ought to be a related verb "abnegate," and so they created one by a process called "back-formation" (that's the process of trimming a suffix or prefix off a long word to make a shorter one). But "abnegate" and "abnegation" are not the only English offspring of "negare." That root is also an ancestor of other nay-saying terms such as "deny," "negate," and "renegade."