RORULENT

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RORULENT

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:35 pm

• rorulent •

Pronunciation: ror-ê-lênt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Abounding or bejeweled in dew, bedewed, dew-laden. 2. Covered with a white, dust-like bloom, as plums often are.

Notes: Here is a word that sounds much louder than it is. We would expect lions and bears to be rorulent but, unless they slept outside on a warm summer night, they seldom are. Although this word has been rarely used, especially since the middle of the nineteenth century, we can safely project that its noun would be rorulence. Rorulent is based on the root of roric "pertaining to dew" as a roric luster.

In Play: Anything capable of capturing dew is capable of rorulence: "Through the steam rising from her coffee, Ariel watched a lonely humming bird quenching an early morning thirst from the rorulent foxgloves in her garden." Unrefrigerated chocolate is another substance that can become rorulent in the second sense of today's word: "Maureen opened the box of chocolates that Izzy Dare had given her to find them so rorulent from age, they were hardly recognizable as chocolates."

Word History: Today's Good Word is a Latin hand-me-down (rorulentus) to French, which polished it into such a palatable form that English could not resist gulping it. The Latin word is based on ros, roris "dew". The shift between the S and the R in this root is known as 'rhotacism' and is common in Latin. It why the plural of genus is genera and that of corpus, corpora—all English borrowings. The original word apparently did not make it to English, but it emerged in Sanskrit as rasa "moisture" and in Russian rosa "dew". (Thanks today is due the mysterious and usually unrorulent Grogie of the Alpha Agora.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Wed Feb 10, 2010 1:24 pm

We've been discussing this word elsewhere.
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Enigma
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Postby Enigma » Wed Feb 10, 2010 5:46 pm

I like this word. I wish it described hostile lions.
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LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Wed Feb 10, 2010 6:37 pm

Rorulent.
Hostile lions. You are struggling here. Panthers or
cheetahs, maybe but not lions.
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Slava
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Postby Slava » Wed Feb 10, 2010 6:45 pm

Rorulent.
Hostile lions. You are struggling here. Panthers or
cheetahs, maybe but not lions.
Why not lions? Aren't they the ones that roar? I tend to think of panthers as sneaky little devils that will drop out of a tree on top of you. Cheetahs just run fast. Unless they're cheesy.
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:19 pm

We have puma here that roar. On TV the other day,
seen in someone's yard. They look like panthers.
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Postby skinem » Fri Feb 12, 2010 12:48 pm

Used to live in a typically un-rorulent (spellcheck doesn't like this word) place where we got about 6 inches of rain a year--not a lot fo dew there very often. One summer for about 6 weeks a cougar would usually slip in early mornings and drink out of our pool.

Never heard cougars there roar...head them scream, but not roar.

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Fri Feb 12, 2010 1:01 pm

try pulling its tail !!!
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Postby Enigma » Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:15 pm

Used to live in a typically un-rorulent (spellcheck doesn't like this word) place where we got about 6 inches of rain a year--not a lot fo dew there very often. One summer for about 6 weeks a cougar would usually slip in early mornings and drink out of our pool.

Never heard cougars there roar...head them scream, but not roar.
Try getting on all fours and roaring at it. That's sure to get it riled up.
What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite. ~Thomas Carlyle

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:36 pm

Surely, surely. Puma, cougar, all cats, and all roar somehow.
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Postby beck123 » Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:39 pm

Sure, they all roar: we just call it different things (back to language.) Most cats have a small repertoire of different vocalizations, and we are only now untangling their meanings. Lions roar very loudly, frequently, and in deep tones, and that's no accident: Besides being built large enough to generate a powerful sound, they are our only living cats that lead a social life, like dogs. No other cat lives in prides, or social groups. The loud, deep roar is a means of communication to dispersed members of the pride (and a warning to those of distant, neighboring prides, as well.) Deep tones travel farther than higher tones, so what we perceive as an intimidating roar is built as it is to travel long distances.

The trademark sounds of other cats generally lack the deep elements of the lion's roar, so we call them by different names: screeches, mewling, etc.
Beck

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Postby skinem » Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:32 pm

Used to live in a typically un-rorulent (spellcheck doesn't like this word) place where we got about 6 inches of rain a year--not a lot fo dew there very often. One summer for about 6 weeks a cougar would usually slip in early mornings and drink out of our pool.

Never heard cougars there roar...head them scream, but not roar.
Try getting on all fours and roaring at it. That's sure to get it riled up.
I know from experience that going to that much effort isn't necessary...may be the screaming I heard was me.


I just noticed the second definition of this word...I knew about the first, but not the second.

Nice to have a word better than "that stuff"...

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Postby Slava » Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:36 pm

I just noticed the second definition of this word...I knew about the first, but not the second.

Nice to have a word better than "that stuff"...
Agreed. Now what we need is the word for "that stuff." The plums may be rorulent with "that stuff." Is "that stuff" called rorulence? Je ne sais pas.
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Postby beck123 » Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:21 pm

I just noticed the second definition of this word...I knew about the first, but not the second.

Nice to have a word better than "that stuff"...
While "rorulent," an adjective, describes the plum with the stuff on it, the stuff itself is called "bloom." It's very common on grapes, too.
Beck

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Slava
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Postby Slava » Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:38 pm

While "rorulent," an adjective, describes the plum with the stuff on it, the stuff itself is called "bloom." It's very common on grapes, too.
Thankee muchly, Beck. You even gave me a new word to suggest to the Good Doctor, bloom.

http://www.alphadictionary.com/bb/viewt ... 5181#25181

The plums are rorulent with bloom. We're getting poetic sounding here, aren't we?


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