ˌæntɪəˈɡæθɪk anti-agathic: serving to prevent death; a drug that has this function This is a science fiction word. It was coined during the 1950s by James Blish as a key concept for his Cities in Flight series of novels, to designate the drugs that his characters took to give them potential immortality, allowing them to … Continue reading Anti-agathic
pɛrɪˈhiːlɪən perihelion: that point in the orbit of a planet, comet or other body at which it is closest to the sun Well, time flies. Back on January 4, when the Earth was at its closest to the sun, I started off to write about words relating to perihelion, and got side-tracked into writing about … Continue reading Perihelion: Part 2
Dunsinane Hill (NO 214316, 310m)Black Hill (NO 219319, 360m)Little Dunsinane (NO 224325, 295m)King’s Seat (NO 230330, 377m) 8.5 kilometres360 metres of ascent Do you think I may be becoming obsessed with King’s Seat? I think it’s possible. But I wanted to get some photos on this part of the ridge for another project, and I … Continue reading Sidlaws: Dunsinane to King’s Seat
I was trying to explain the content of this blog to someone the other day, and I said that it combined two states of mind, the magpie and the grasshopper—the magpie’s hoarding of appealing objects, the grasshopper’s leaping from place to place And that, in a self-referential kind of way, got me thinking about the … Continue reading Magpies & Grasshoppers
sɛrɛnˈdɪpɪtɪ serendipity: The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident. Also, the fact or an instance of such a discovery People like the word serendipity—there’s something cheerful and unexpected about that “-dipity” ending which makes them want to say it or write it, and so its original meaning has gradually eroded away. The … Continue reading Serendipity
pɛrɪˈhiːlɪən perihelion: that point in the orbit of a planet, comet or other body at which it is closest to the sun Not to be confused with the parhelion, which I wrote about last month. Today (4 January 2017), the Earth is at perihelion, its closest to the sun, a mere 98% of its average … Continue reading Perihelion: Part 1
ˈjuːltaɪd Yuletide: The Christmas season Yule is a bit of an etymological orphan. The origins of the word are obscure, but it seems to have been the name of a twelve-day pagan winter festival, celebrated among the ancient speakers of the Germanic language family, and called jól in Old Norse*. As with many other pagan … Continue reading Yuletide
saɪn sine: Originally, the length of a straight line drawn from one end of a circular arc parallel to the tangent at the other end, and terminated by the radius; in modern use, the ratio of this line to the radius ˈsiːkənt secant: Originally, the length of a straight line drawn from the centre of … Continue reading Names Of Trigonometric Functions
-aɪz -ize: a suffix used to form verbs from adjectives and nouns Ubiquitization: This is a strategy adopted by service firms in order to physically distribute their products and services ‘everywhere’. Jones & Robinson, Operations Management (2012) A variety of specific E2 carrier protein and E3 enzyme pairs impart another important level of selectivity through … Continue reading -ize
zɛnəˈfəʊbɪə xenophobia: a deep antipathy to foreigners Recent political events in the the USA, Europe and elsewhere have meant that this word keeps popping into my head. It comes from two Greek words: xenos, “stranger”, and phobos “fear”. In Greek myth, Phobos was the god of terror; a son of Mars, the god of war. … Continue reading Xenophobia