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Seldom-Used Words

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Handley, a little more from dictionary.com;

Word Origin & History

Parthian - 1526, native or inhabitant of Parthia (ancient kingdom northeast of Persia in western Asia), from O.Pers. Parthava- "Parthian," dial. variant of the stem Parsa-, source of Persia. Phrase Parthian shot (1590) is in reference to their horsemen, who were expert at racing forward, turning, and shooting arrows backward at the moment of retreat.

Og, one can see by looking at them that they can do some serious damage. It is wonderful to know that these ancient weapons are still revered and used. Thank you once again for all that you share, here, for everyone's benefit.
 
AllardChardon said:
Og, that is very interesting and thank you for posting the picture, but I cannot read all the names of the weapons very well. Would you list them for me, so I can look them up and learn a little more, please?

parti pris - noun a preconceived opinion: PREJUDICE
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The French meaning is that one has already taken a side, therefore is not susceptible to conversion to the other side of an argument.
 
AllardChardon said:
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parure - noun a matched set of jewelry or other ornaments
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Victorian Parures were often over-ornate and showy. In the 1920s and 30s the descendants of the original owners tended to have them broken up to make more practical and smaller jewellery.

08311-4252.p00_camee-collier-couleur-utilisee-parure-set-visage-strass-cheval-hippique-equitation-condition-excellente-mythologie-humaine-sans-poincons-fr.jpg


The Duchess of Windsor, formerly Mrs Simpson, had several Art Deco parures.
 
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Yes, Og, I have seen several sets of very ornate jewelry, formerly jewelery, both real and paste in my historical research and always find it fascinating. Also, I suppose one could say that being born into a liberal Democratic family made me susceptible to parti pris. I have not strayed very far from my roots.

parthenocarpy - noun the production of fruits without fertilization
 
I can't possibly look through 184 pages of words, but I will post my favorite:

antidisestablishmentarianism

noun

opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, especially the Anglican Church in 19th-century England.

In contrast, my wife's favorite word is "poop."
 
Welcome, 2981notrohrm. I am going to call you twenty-nine for short. It is a great word. One we anti-establishment adolescents in the 60s loved to spell together in unison, for fun. Kinda like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

parterre - noun 1. an ornamental garden with paths between the beds 2. the part of the floor of a theater behind the orchestra; esp: PARQUET CIRCLE
 
Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, Whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, and harts.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopomp -- another fine word I had to look up while reading Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid series.
 
Weird Harold said:
Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός - psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage. Frequently depicted on funerary art, psychopomps have been associated at different times and in different cultures with horses, Whip-poor-wills, ravens, dogs, crows, owls, sparrows, cuckoos, and harts.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopomp -- another fine word I had to look up while reading Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid series.
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There is a memorable Psychopomp in Powell and Pressburger's film A Matter of Life and Death. The hero 'dies' in a WW2 bomber but the psychopomp misses him in the English fog. Between the time of the 'death' and the psychopomp finding the hero, the hero has fallen in love with an American girl - should they be allowed to live together on "stolen" time?

A short story by Haydn Middleton is called 'Psychopomp' and ends in unbirth. Weird.
 
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Great word, Harold, thanks so much for contributing it. I did not know what a hart was, so I clicked on it and learned even more.

parsimony - noun 1.a. carefulness with money or resources: THRIFT b. NIGGARDLINESS, STINGINESS 2. economy on the use of a means to an end
 
Thought this entry may be of interest to this thread:

Hapax legomenon

(pron.: /ˈhæpɨks lɨˈɡɒmɨnɒn/ also /ˈhæpæks/ or /ˈheɪpæks/; pl. hapax legomena; sometimes abbreviated to hapax, pl. hapaxes) is a word which occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works, even though it occurs more than once in that work. Hapax legomenon is a transliteration of Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, meaning "(something) said (only) once".

Note that hapax legomenon refers to a word's appearance in a body of text and to neither its origin nor its prevalence in speech. It thus differs from a nonce word, which may never be recorded, or which may find currency and may be widely recorded, or which may appear several times in the work which coins it, and so on.
 
AllardChardon said:
...

parterre - noun 1. an ornamental garden with paths between the beds 2. the part of the floor of a theater behind the orchestra; esp: PARQUET CIRCLE
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Parterre from the Chateau de Villandry

3431445689_e3e8aef8c0_z.jpg


Elizabeth Garden recreated at Kenilworth Castle.

img_4654.jpg
 
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Gaslamp_Society said:
Thought this entry may be of interest to this thread:

Hapax legomenon

(pron.: /ˈhæpɨks lɨˈɡɒmɨnɒn/ also /ˈhæpæks/ or /ˈheɪpæks/; pl. hapax legomena; sometimes abbreviated to hapax, pl. hapaxes) is a word which occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works, even though it occurs more than once in that work. Hapax legomenon is a transliteration of Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, meaning "(something) said (only) once".

Note that hapax legomenon refers to a word's appearance in a body of text and to neither its origin nor its prevalence in speech. It thus differs from a nonce word, which may never be recorded, or which may find currency and may be widely recorded, or which may appear several times in the work which coins it, and so on.
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Sometimes we Literotica authors use that feature. I have intrusive sheep, occuring once. :D
 
Welcome, Gaslamp Society. That is not only a great word but an even better definition.

Og, you read my mind and posted pictures of parterres, which are so lovely, thank you so much!

For the SciFi set;

parsec - noun a unit of measure for interstellar space equal to a distance having a heliocentric parallax of one second or to 206,265 times the radius of the earth's orbit or to 3.26 light years or to 19.2 million miles
 
Handley_Page said:
I like the idea of an athlete being Polydispic rather than dehydrated.
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I guess the mens sana in corpore sano dictum keeps minds as well as bodies from being parched. I think the time I felt most like a 'proper' scholar at the ancient seat of learning where I did my undergraduate degree was relaxing with a bit of reading for an essay after rugby practice. Most of the time I wasn't very typical of their usual matriculands, LOL.

I spent some time yesterday weeding up

pis-en-lit

This is the French name for dandelions, the young leaves are used in salad and apparently have a diuretic tendency.

It's getting actually warm and Spring-like here, I think I might have a surreptitious chop at those poor old roses.
:rose:
 
Hello Naoko, baby dandelion greens are often added to the salad mixes that are sold in bags at the supermarkets. I have so many types of dandelions in my yard, it is crazy. I take my spade and go out and give them a good topping every year. If I don't they will flower and seed two to three times during the growing months and spread like wildfire. Between the blackberry wars and the dandelion skirmishes, I have plenty to do. LOL

Parousia - noun SECOND COMING
 
AllardChardon said:
Hello Naoko, baby dandelion greens are often added to the salad mixes that are sold in bags at the supermarkets. I have so many types of dandelions in my yard, it is crazy. I take my spade and go out and give them a good topping every year. If I don't they will flower and seed two to three times during the growing months and spread like wildfire. Between the blackberry wars and the dandelion skirmishes, I have plenty to do. LOL

Parousia - noun SECOND COMING
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LOL, we can set up a cross-Atlantic pis-en-lit salad business! although my dandelions look small but tough - a bit like me. They make sure of their second, third and ongoing comings, dandelions, don't they.

Any signs of flowers in the Buddha garden yet? I had a little go at the roses - mostly it was picking off the black-spotted leaves. It's definitely Spring, I was pinching off lots of greenfly.

:rose:
 
Naoko, it has been raining steadily for almost a week and so the flowers are in a holding pattern, waiting for the sun, which is supposed to appear again some time tomorrow. Alas, no flowers in the Buddha garden as yet, but lots of greenery in anticipation of buds.

paronymous - adj 1. CONJUGATE 2.a. formed from a word in another language b. having a form similar to that of a cognate foreign word
 
Welcome, Gweedzss. That is not really a word, but thanks for the heads-up.

paronomasia - noun a play on words: PUN
 
AllardChardon said:
Naoko, it has been raining steadily for almost a week and so the flowers are in a holding pattern, waiting for the sun, which is supposed to appear again some time tomorrow. Alas, no flowers in the Buddha garden as yet, but lots of greenery in anticipation of buds.

paronymous - adj 1. CONJUGATE 2.a. formed from a word in another language b. having a form similar to that of a cognate foreign word
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My dictionary gives an additional meaning for paronym, although it puts the period on the wrong side of the quotation mark: A word that is a derivative of another and has a related meaning: "wisdom" is a paronym of "wise."
 
Carlus, I went with paronymous instead of paronym because my dictionary defines the latter as "a paronymous word", which leads no where. Circular definitions are an impediment to knowledge.

parol - noun WORD OF MOUTH (prove by ~)
 
AllardChardon said:
Carlus, I went with paronymous instead of paronym because my dictionary defines the latter as "a paronymous word", which leads no where. Circular definitions are an impediment to knowledge.
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Agreed. I had no intent to criticize. I just thought I'd mention the other definition.
 
Carlus, I did not take it as criticism, just the facts. My dictionary is inferior and I have not taken the time to get a better one. Someday I just might. Thanks for the additional information.

Parnassian - adj 1. Parnassus, mountain in Greece sacred to Apollo and the Muses: of or relating to poetry 2. Parnassus;[(1866) an anthology of poetry]: of or relating to a school of French poets of the second half of the 19th centuty emphasizing metrical form rather than emotion
 
AllardChardon said:
...

Parnassian - adj 1. Parnassus, mountain in Greece sacred to Apollo and the Muses: of or relating to poetry 2. Parnassus;[(1866) an anthology of poetry]: of or relating to a school of French poets of the second half of the 19th centuty emphasizing metrical form rather than emotion
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Parnassian also means the acme of poetry, the best work inspired by the Muses, which is why some objected to the French school claiming to be 'Parnassian' when they were mechanical pedants.
 
That is very good to know, Og, thanks for the information.

parlous(1) - adj 1. fraught with danger or risk: HAZARDOUS 2. obs: dangerously shrewd or cunning

parlous(2) - adv to a very great extent: EXCEEDINGLY
 
LOL, I feel peculiarly entitled to this one:

Pigling
a little or young pig
Synonyms: hoggett, piglet, shoat.

200px-Pigling_Bland_Cover.jpg
 
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