RORULENT
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RORULENT
• 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.)
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
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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- Slava
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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.Rorulent.
Hostile lions. You are struggling here. Panthers or
cheetahs, maybe but not lions.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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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.
Never heard cougars there roar...head them scream, but not roar.
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Try getting on all fours and roaring at it. That's sure to get it riled up.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.
What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite. ~Thomas Carlyle
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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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.
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
"I don't know whether ignorance or apathy is worse, and, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
"I don't know whether ignorance or apathy is worse, and, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
I know from experience that going to that much effort isn't necessary...may be the screaming I heard was me.Try getting on all fours and roaring at it. That's sure to get it riled up.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.
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"...
- Slava
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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.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"...
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.
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.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"...
Beck
"I don't know whether ignorance or apathy is worse, and, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
"I don't know whether ignorance or apathy is worse, and, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
- Slava
- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Thankee muchly, Beck. You even gave me a new word to suggest to the Good Doctor, bloom.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.
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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