Friday, June 29, 2012

Thursday, June 28, 2012

rorqual

rorqual
  1. Any whale with longitudinal skin folds running from below the mouth to the navel, allowing the capacity mouth to expand greatly when feeding.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

chrestomathy

chrestomathy
  1. A collection of written passages, used to learn an unfamiliar language.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Monday, June 25, 2012

fissiparous

fissiparous
  1. Factious, fragmenting, or tending to break into pieces.
  2. (biology): Of cells that reproduce through fission, splitting into two.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Friday, June 22, 2012

Thursday, June 21, 2012

draconian

draconian

  1. Very severe, oppressive or strict.
    The despot chose a draconian punishment.
    The Nazi regime was draconian.
    The mayor announced draconian budget cuts today.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

prestidigitation

prestidigitation
  1. A performance of or skill in performing magic or conjuring tricks with the hands; sleight of hand.
  2. A show of skill or deceitful cleverness.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Monday, June 18, 2012

Ruritanian

Ruritanian

  1. Of or having the characteristics of adventure, romance, and intrigue, as in works of romantic fiction.
    • 2007, Walter Lippman, Public Opinion‎, chapter X, page 79
      These claims were called the Greater Ruritania by the cultivated classes who regarded Kipling, Treitschke, and Maurice Barres as one hundred percent Ruritanian. But the grandiose idea aroused no enthusiasm abroad. So holding this finest flower of the Ruritanian genius, as their poet laureate said, to their hearts, Ruritania's statesmen went forth to divide and conquer.
  2. Used to describe a fictitious and generic foreign government or person, used to state a general or hypothetical situation.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Teletext

Teletext (or "broadcast teletext") is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules. Subtitle (or closed captioning) information is also transmitted in the teletext signal, typically on page 888 or 777.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Friday, June 15, 2012

lacuna

lacuna

  1. A small opening; a small pit or depression; a small blank space; a gap or vacancy; a hiatus.
  2. An absent part, especially in a book or other piece of writing, often referring to an ancient manuscript or similar.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

euphony

euphony

  1. A pronunciation of letters and syllables which is pleasing to the ear.
  2. Good phonetic quality of certain words.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

worm


A worm drive is a gear arrangement in which a worm (which is a gear in the form of a screw) meshes with a worm gear (which is similar in appearance to a spur gear, and is also called a worm wheel). The terminology is often confused by imprecise use of the term worm gear to refer to the worm, the worm gear, or the worm drive as a unit.

Like other gear arrangements, a worm drive can reduce rotational speed or allow higher torque to be transmitted. The image shows a section of a gear box with a worm gear being driven by a worm. A worm is an example of a screw, one of the six simple machines.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Zmeoaică

The Zmeoaică (plural: zmeoaice) is a character of the Romanian mythology. It is a negative character, the wife of a zmeu.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Redux

"Redux" is a post-positive adjective meaning "brought back, restored" (from the Latin reducere - to bring back) used in literature and film titles.

Works of literature using the word in the title are John Dryden's Astraea Redux (1662), "a poem on the happy restoration and return of His Sacred Majesty"; Anthony Trollope's Phineas Redux (1873), the sequel to Phineas Finn (1867); and John Updike's Rabbit Redux (1970), the second in his sequence of novels about the character Rabbit Angstrom.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

WinProm

WinProm is a computer program written by a mathematician Edward Earl of San Diego. The program uses USGS Digital Elevation Model (DEM) databases to automatically calculate peaks, ridges, and key cols. It is intended to help calculate the prominence of a peak in the cases when the key col is very far away from a high-prominence peak.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Daqin

Daqin is the ancient Chinese name for the Roman Empire and, depending on context, the Near East, especially Syria. It literally means "Great Qin", Qin (Chinese: ; pinyin: Qín) being the name of the founding dynasty of the Chinese Empire. Historian John Foster defined it as "...the Roman Empire, or rather that part of it which alone was known to the Chinese, Syria."

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

polder


A polder is a low-lying tract of land enclosed by embankments (barriers) known as dikes, that forms an artificial hydrological entity, meaning it has no connection with outside water other than through manually-operated devices. There are three types of polder:

  • Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the sea bed.
  • Flood plains separated from the sea or river by a dike.
  • Marshes separated from the surrounding water by a dike and consequently drained.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Speculaas


Speculaas is a type of shortcrust biscuit, traditionally baked for consumption on St Nicholas' Eve in the Netherlands (December 5) and Belgium (December 6). In recent decades it has become available all year round. Speculaas are thin, very crunchy, slightly browned and, most significantly, have some image or figure (often from the traditional stories about St. Nicholas) stamped on the front side before baking; the back is flat.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Hopjes


Hopjes are a type of Dutch sweets with a slight coffee and caramel flavour that originated in the 18th century.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

burgemeester

In the Netherlands and Belgium, burgemeester is an appointed government position, whose main responsibility is chairing the executive and legislative councils of a municipality.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

DESCENDER

DESCENDER

the part of a lowercase letter (as p) that descends below the main body of the letter, or a letter that has one of these things.

lordosis

  Lordosis is historically defined as an abnormal inward curvature of the lumbar spine.