Today’s word, in association with the legendary Oxford English Dictionary, is
(1a) ?An attractive person.
(b) A court favourite. Obs.
(2) The buffoon of Spanish comedy.
Used in a sentence in a1670 by J. Hacket:
“The Lord Marquess of Buckingham, then a great Gratioso, was put on by the Prince to ask the King’s liking to this Amourous Adventure.”
Click on the word for further information, and here for the Daily Lexeme archive.
Schott’s Vocab is a repository of unconsidered lexicographical trifles — some serious, others frivolous, some neologized, others newly newsworthy. Each day, Schott's Vocab explores news sites around the world to find words and phrases that encapsulate the times in which we live or shed light on a story of note. If language is the archives of history, as Emerson believed, then Schott’s Vocab is an attempt to index those archives on the fly.
Ben Schott is the author of “Schott’s Original Miscellany,” its two sequels, and the yearbook “Schott’s Almanac.” He is a contributing columnist to The Times’s Op-Ed page. He lives in London and New York.
His Web site can be viewed at benschott.com, and his Opinion pieces here.
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In association with the inestimable Oxford English Dictionary, Schott's Vocab offers a Daily Lexeme – the archive of which can be viewed here.
Below are the weekend competitions from weeks past. Co-vocabularists are invited to peruse the wisdom and wit of their fellow readers, and post any esprit de l'escalier that may have just presented itself.
April 18
The burden of student debt which delays graduates from buying property, founding businesses, or starting families.
April 18
This weekend, co-vocabularists have generously proposed spellings for the sounds that surround us.
April 18
Sluggish or languorous inertia; supineness, indecision, procrastination.
April 15
This weekend, co-vocabularsists are invited to dance across their keyboards to provide the spelling of the sounds that surround us.
From fracking to vaccines to global warming, a look at the irrational side of debates supposedly waged using science.
