In English, the metaphoric sense of blue-eyed is "favored, preferred"--He's the teacher's blue-eyd boy, implies he is her pet. Although pejorative (used sarcastically), the thrust is quite different from the Swedish correlate.

• flagitious • Pronunciation: flê- ji -shês Part of Speech : Adjective Meaning: 1. Brutal, vicious, atrocious, inclined toward heinous crimes. 2. Nasty, mean, irresponsibly wicked. Notes: Remember, {g} tends to be pronounces soft before front vowels (vowels pronounced in the front of the mouth), {i...

• leprechaun • Pronunciation: le -prê-kahn Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: A mythical Irish elfin, one of the mischievous Little People of Irish folklore with secrets to hidden treasure they share with those who catch them. Notes: TThere are several spelling traps in this word, beginning with the sec...

• blarney • Pronunciation: blah(r)- nee • Hear it! Part of Speech: Mass noun Meaning: 1. The ability to cajole, to flatter eloquently, with a silver tongue. 2. Nonsense, poppy-cock. Notes: Today's word is a lexical orphan, albeit an unusual one. It is unusual for a noun to refer to an activity; act...

• lease • Pronunciation: lees Part of Speech: Noun, Transitive verb Meaning: 1. [Noun] A contract for the use of property for a specified period of time in exchange for a specified amount of money. 2. [Verb] To allow someone the use of a property under a lease agreement (as in 1.) 3. To gain the us...

• blue-sky • Pronunciation: blu-skai Part of Speech: Adjective, Transitive verb Meaning: 1. [Adjective] Unrealistically optimistic, pie-in-the-sky, as blue-sky estimates of profits. 2. [Adjective] Worthless, of no value, unprofitable, as blue-sky property or stock. 3. [Verb] To subject a stock to t...

As you can see from my last post, I'm keeping a closer eye on the suggestions from this Agora than I did at YDC. We have more people helping out, now, so I have more time to do that. Flam, you happened to pick a long-time favorite of mine. I actually did it years ago at YDC but was never satisfied w...

GOOD WORDS FOR APRIL I've decided to try the following words suggested by you worthy wordy lot for April. I'm not sure that I can find enough for the "runners up" but the others clearly speak for themselves, so to speak. metaphor (Apoclima) jurisdiction (Katy Brezger) precipitate (Apoclim...

• etiolate • Pronunciation: ee -tee-ê-leyt Part of Speech: Transitive verb Meaning: 1. To bleach or make pale, especially by depriving of light. 2. To make feeble or sickly. Notes: Today's is a good but tricky word: the stress (accent) is on the first of four syllables, rather unusual for English. ...

• paronym • Pronunciation: pæ -rê-nim Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: A lexical derivative, a word that is derived from another as catty is derived from cat , and felinity is derived from feline . Notes: Paronym has several paronyms. The noun is paronymy and the two adjectives are quite similar to th...

• homonym • Pronunciation: hah -mê-nim • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: A word with the same sound as another word, as pear , pare and pair , regardless of how they are spelled; a homophone. Notes: Today's word refers to a lexical situation that is the basis of many jokes, especially puns l...

Andrew has added a link to our front page and to the daily Good Word that allows visitors to share both with a friend that might enjoy what we do. The link on the Good Word allows you to send an example of our Good Words with a friend before signing them up. We get a complaint or two a month from ir...

The Baby Name Wizard is not our creation (wish it were) but is so clever and related to what we do that we had to link it to our front page for a while. Take a look at how popular your name is and was. I was surprised to find that my name was most popular in the 1930s, when I received mine. Anyway, ...

• antonym • Pronunciation: æn-tê-nim • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: A word having the exact opposite meaning of another word, as black is the antonym of white or low is the antonym of high. Notes: If you listen closely to how people speak, you will discover that a common speech error is t...

I don't see how the fact that PIE *kakka- might be created by reduplication would prevent it from being a PIE root. Pokorny calls it a "Lallwort der Kindersprache", but a PIE form. There is no reason to believe that there were no reduplicated roots in PIE, given their prevalence in other l...