Word of the Week
Created | Updated Mar 4, 2004
In the dim dark recesses of h2g2 history before we moved lock, stock and barrel to our new BBC home there used to be a front page feature The h2g2 Word of the Day. It was a way to highlight some of the lesser occurring or largely obscurer words in the English language. Sadly this feature was discontinued.
Until now...
Word for the Week
I'm going to use my entry in the Post Word Play for last week as this week's word of the week. So therefore I have to thank Greebo T Cat for her choice of 9 letters for this week's word.
Halutz, halutzim
n. (alt spelling chalutz) a member of an organisation of immigrants to Israeli agricultural settlements
This word debuted on H2G2 during the past week but can be found in hazelnuts. Ok the actual word not the actual kernel.
From the Archive
This week's word rescued from the archives for your attention is something that Halutzim would undoubtedly be hoping for every time they enter their place of work.
Fructuous
adj 1. Fruitful; productive; profitable.
2. Full of, producing lots of fruit.
Nothing fructuous or profitable.
- Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales
We don't know when it was actually used in word of the day except it had to be before 16 June 2000. As on that day Matt Black used most if not all the words then on the list in an interesting posting. Included below in full for your pleonasmic delectation.
'That would, indeed, be a bad thing.'
'But, if a sententious shaveling showed up - still in his nonage with an approbious attitude - he might decide that this was his chance to act as the spiritual pintle of these people, he might glance about and think, 'oh, the anthropophagy!' and 'cast away this callipygian calamity!' Then, whether with histrionics or using vituperation, he would probably work to sequester the seraglio. But then from a corner might rise a gruntled homunculous (assuming that not everyone in participation would be feeling pusillanimous) - he might become grandiloquent and begin to fulminate. If his speech was less on the frugal side and more toward the fructuous, we might see that same said shaveling experience an ohnosecond - then begin to cachinnate and inspect more closely the furbelow (if not the merkin itself) of his (now defunct) mental escutcheon and this new, bewitching, bacchanalian kismet. One would marvel, if given the chance, at the speed with which the devout might go from an antidiluvian curmudgeon to a priapic oenophile!'
'Please forgive any catachresis in this priapic persiflage.'
How can you contribute?
- Go and check out words in the archive to avoid duplication.
- Check out the discussion threads and nominate a word that you feel was overlooked before discontinuation.
- Suggest a new word or your forgotten word in the word of the week archive conversation.
