Homophones 1

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 6, 2013

integrant \IN-ti-gruhnt\, adjective:

1. making up or being a part of a whole; constituent.

noun:
1. an integrant part.
2. a solid, rigid sheet of building material composed of several layers of the same or of different materials.

First-class relics were taken from the body or any of its integrant parts, such as limbs, ashes, and bones.
-- Alice Fulton, The Nightingales of Troy, 2010

They begin in earnest to win back their public, found to be an integrant of their attachment, after all. It is not easy.
-- Robert Coover, Prick Songs & Descants, 1969

Integrant comes from the Latin word integrāre meaning "to integrate." It is also related to the word integer.

Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word

Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help

On This Day:
Saturday July 6, 2013

This is the 187th day of the year, with 178 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: airship

In July 1919, a British dirigible, R-34, made the first round-trip transatlantic flight. Despite great achievements, airships were virtually abandoned in the late 1930s because of their cost, slow speed, and intrinsic vulnerability to stormy weather.

Holidays

Malawi: Republic Day / Independence Day.
Feast day of St. Romulus of Fiesole, St. Dominica, St. Mary Goretti, St. Goar, St. Modwenna, St. Godeleva, St. Sexburga, and St. Sisoes.
Comoros: Independence Day.
Lithuania: Day of Statehood.

Events

1519 - Charles of Spain was elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona.
1699 - Pirate Captain William Kidd was captured in Boston, Massachusetts, and deported to England.
1777 - During the American Revolution, British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga. 
1885 - French scientist Louis Pasteur successfully tested an anti-rabies vaccine.
1917 - In World War I, forces led by Lawrence of Arabia captured Aqaba from the Turks.
1923 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed and its constitution instituted. 
1933 - Baseball's first all-star game was held.
1941 - In Nazi-occupied Holland, Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family were forced to take refuge in a secret sealed-off area of a warehouse.
1944 - In Hartford, Connecticut, a fire broke out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, killing 167 people and injuring 682.
1953 - "Name That Tune" premiered on television.
1957 - Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to win all the major singles championships.
1967 - After its secession from Nigeria, the breakaway Republic of Biafra was attacked by Nigerian government forces, beginning the Biafran War.
1976 - The United States Naval Academy admitted women for the first time.
2005 - The International Olympic Committee announced that London will host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
2006 - Felipe Calderón (born Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa) is elected President of Mexico after a very close election.

Births

1747 - John Paul Jones, American naval officer.
1907 - Frida Kahlo, Mexican surrealist and expressionist painter.
1921 - Nancy Reagan (Anne Robbins-Davis), American actress, wife of 40th U.S. President.
1925 - Merv Griffin, American talk show host, entertainer, pianist, television personality. and executive.
1927 - Bill Haley, American musician, singer.
1927 - Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison), American film actress.
1935 - The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tibetan spiritual leader.
1946 - George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States of America (2001-).

Deaths

1962 - William Faulkner, American novelist and short-story writer.
1971 - Louis Armstrong (called "Satchmo," which was a diminutive of "Satchel Mouth") , American jazz musician.
1998 - Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye), American cowboy actor and singer.

Spanish Word of the Day: tijeras

Spanish Word of the Day
Saturday, July 6, 2013

Yesterday's Word - Previous Words - Help

tijeras, noun
scissors

If you want to say ‘a pair of’ something in Spanish, the most usual way is to use unos or unas, depending on whether the word is masculine or feminine, and then the noun in the plural.

unas tijeras
a pair of scissors

Some other words which follow this pattern are gloves, jeans and glasses.

unos guantes
a pair of gloves

unos jeans
a pair of jeans

unos anteojos Latin America
a pair of glasses

unas gafas Spain
a pair of glasses

Word of the Day - blighter

Word of the Day for Friday, July 5, 2013

blighter \BLAHY-ter\, noun British Slang.:

1. a chap; bloke.

noun:
1. a contemptible, worthless person, especially a man; scoundrel or rascal.

The blighter had shoulders fully as broad as the girl was high, and legs like a dragon.
-- E.E. Knight, Dragon Outcast, 2007

I was sorry for the poor blighter, but after all, I reflected, a chappie who had lived all his life with Lady Malvem, in a small village in the interior of Shropshire, wouldn't have much to kick at in a prison.
-- P.G. Wodehouse, "Jeeves and The Unbidden Guest," Enter Jeeves, 1916

Lord Clive was a blighter and so were most of the other viceroys. Blighters ask for bribes; blighters try to cheat the Accounts Department…
-- Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar, 2006

Blighter entered English in the early 1800s as a variation on the more common word blight, which is of unknown origin.

Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word

Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help

On This Day:
Friday July 5, 2013

This is the 186th day of the year, with 179 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: museums, galleries

Ancient art was displayed in caves. As time went by, artists' work was displayed in homes and then in galleries and museums; art museums developed from great private collections assembled by royalty, the aristocracy, and the wealthy. A form of art collecting was practiced in the earliest civilizations, with precious objects and artworks stored in temples, tombs, sanctuaries, and the palaces and treasuries of kings. Such collections frequently included booty taken from conquered peoples, and served to exalt the power and glory of a king or a priestly caste rather than to display art objects for their innate significance. The great private collections of European royalty began to be opened to public viewing, and eventually monarchs and aristocrats began donating their holdings to the public. The movement of artworks from private collections into museums has been a dominant feature of art collecting ever since.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Antony-Mary Zaccaria, and St. Athanasius the Athonite.
Cape Verde: Independence Day.
Slovakia: Day of the Slav Missionaries / Saint Cyril and Methodius Day.
Venezuela: Independence Day.
Algeria: Independence Day.

Events

1791 - George Hammond was appointed the first British ambassador to the United States.
1811 - Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain. 
1865 - William Booth founded the Salvation Army, in London. 
1892 - Andrew Beard was was issued a patent for the rotary engine.
1935 - The National Labor Relations Act was passed in the U.S.
1943 - The Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, began.
1946 - The bikini, designed by Louis Reard, made its debut during an outdoor fashion show in Paris. 
1951 - Dr. William Shockley announced that he had invented the junction transistor.
1975 - Cape Verde Islands officially became independent after 500 years of Portuguese rule. 
1975 - Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a major men's singles championship.
1989 - The sitcom Seinfeld aired its first episode.
2004 - The first presidential elections were held in Indonesia.

Births

1801 - David G. Farragut, American Civil War naval hero.
1810 - P.T. (Phineus Taylor) Barnum, American circus showman.
1853 - Cecil Rhodes, South African statesman.
1867 - Andrew Ellicott Douglass, American astronomer and archaeologist.
1879 - Dwight F. Davis, American tennis Hall-of-Famer, founder of Davis Cup.
1889 - Jean Cocteau, French poet, novelist, artist, and film director.
1902 - Henry Cabot Lodge, American diplomat.
1911 - Georges Pompidou, French premier (1962-8) and president (1969-74).
1950 - Huey Lewis (born Hugh Anthony Cregg, III), American musician.
1958 - Bill Watterson, American cartoonist, and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
1963 - Edith Falco, American actress.

Deaths

2002 - Ted Williams, American baseball Hall-of-Famer and member of the Boston Red Sox.
2004 - R.W. Burchfield, editor of Oxford English Dictionary, British lexicographer.
2004 - Rodger Ward, American race car driver.
2006 - Kenneth Lay, American businessman, best known for his role in the widely-reported corruption scandal that led to the downfall of Enron Corporation.

TAPA - lid, top,

Spanish Word of the Day
Friday, July 5, 2013

Yesterday's Word - Previous Words - Help

tapa, noun
lid; top; tapa

The general meaning of tapa is a covering for something:

una caja de plástico con una tapa metálica
a plastic box with a metal lid

No puedo sacarle la tapa a esta botella.
I can’t get the top off this bottle.

So how does this word come to refer to tapas, the vast range of snacks available in Spanish bars to go with your drink?
There are various theories. What they all have in common is that the glasses of drink being served were covered with something to protect the drink. In time, a snack was placed on this covering, so tapa came to mean not only the lid itself, but also the food that was on it.

Content By 
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2006. All rights reserved.

Dandy - Word of the day

Word of the Day for Thursday, July 4, 2013

dandy \DAN-dee\, noun:

1. Informal. something or someone of exceptional or first-rate quality: Your reply was a dandy.
2. a man who is excessively concerned about his clothes and appearance; a fop.

adjective:
1. characteristic of a dandy; foppish.
2. Informal. fine; excellent; first-rate: a dandy vacation spot.

But I actually was fine and dandy. I didn't have to put it on.
-- Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, 1975

Oh, will you? Oh, won't that be just dandy? Now I just know I can get that coat. I just know they'll let me have it, if I talk to them right.
-- Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy, 1925

Yankee Doodle keep it up, Yankee Doodle dandy...
-- Traditional, 1770?

The origin of dandy is unknown, but it arose in the late 1700s on the Scottish border. Its popularity reached an all-time high at the turn of the twentieth century.

Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word

Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help

Fact of the day

On This Day:
Thursday July 4, 2013

This is the 185th day of the year, with 180 days remaining in 2013.

Fact of the Day: America The Beautiful

The national hymn, "America The Beautiful," was published in "The Congregationalist" in 1895. The poem was written by a Wellesley College English literature professor, Katharine Lee Bates, to commemorate the Fourth of July.

Holidays

United States: Independence Day.
Feast day of The Martyrs of Dorchester, St. Andrew of Crete, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St. Ulric of Augsburg, St. Bertha of Blangy, and St. Odo of Canterbury.
Wisconsin: Indian Rights Day.

Events

1776 - The Continental Congress adopted the "Declaration of Independence."
1802 - The United States Military Academy officially opened at West Point, New York. 
1817 - Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
1832 - "America," written by Dr Samuel Francis Smith, was sung in public for the first time, at the Park Street Church in Boston.
1845 - Henry David Thoreau began his two-year simple living experiment at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. 
1848 - The "Communist Manifesto" was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
1894 - After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.
1946 - The United States granted the Philippine Islands their independence.
1955 - "The Soupy Sales Show" premiered on TV.
1959 - America's 49-star flag, honoring Alaskan statehood, was officially unfurled.
1960 - The 50-star flag, to include Hawaii, made its debut, in Philadelphia.
1966 - President Lyndon Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act.
1970 - Casey Kasem hosted "American Top 40" on the radio for the first time.
1976 - The United States celebrates its bicentennial.
1997 - NASA's Mars Pathfinder became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars in more than two decades.
2003 - Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault after a woman accused him of sexual misconduct. The case is later dismissed (September 1, 2004) and the charges dropped when the accuser says she will no longer cooperate.
2004 - The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Births

1804 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, American author.
1826 - Stephen Foster, American songwriter.
1872 - Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States of America (1923-1929).
1883 - Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist.
1900 - Louis Armstrong (Satchmo), American jazz trumpeter and singer.
1911 - Mitch Miller, American musician, record company executive, producer, arranger.
1918 - Ann Landers (Esther Pauline Friedman) and Abigail Van Buren (Pauline Esther Friedman), American advice columnists.
1927 - Neil Simon, American award-winning playwright.
1930 - George Steinbrenner, American businessman and baseball executive.
1958 - Kirk Pengilly, Australian musician.

Deaths

1826 - John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America.
1826 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America .
1831 - James Monroe, 5th President of the United States of America.
1995 - Eva Gabor, Hungarian actress.
2003 - Barry White (born Barrence Eugene Carter), American singer.