Snide (adjective)

Pronunciation: [snId]

Definition: In speaking of what someone says or writes: condescendingly malicious, sneering, 'snooty.'

Usage: Today's word has all the properties of an English word of pure-bred Germanic origin (though see Etymology), untainted by borrowing from any of our traditional sources. This being the case, the adverb "snidely" and noun "snideness" are perfectly acceptable.

Suggested Usage: Snideness is not simple rudeness; it is a jab that suggests the utterer is in some sense superior: "I didn't like the snide comment she made about having to adjust to 'plebeian' flights to Paris since the Concorde flights were discontinued." Of course, there are many shades of superiority: "I was taken aback by his snide remark that you ride either a Harley or a motorized scooter."

Etymology: No one seems to know where today's word comes from. Stef Wates, to whom we are indebted for suggesting it, finds it hard to believe that this word is unrelated to Yiddish shnaydn (from German "schneiden") "to cut" or Dutch snijden "to cut." After all, a snide remark is a cutting remark. The problem with this theory is that today's word originally meant "false, bogus, counterfeit," as snide jewelry or snide political causes. This meaning of the word can be traced back to 1859 while the current sense is traceable only to 1933. Words, like so many other things, are not always what they seem.

Pullulate (verb)

Pronunciation: ['pê-lyê-leyt]

Definition: (1) To sprout many buds, as deciduous trees and shrubs pullulate in the spring; (2) to reproduce in numbers, to teem (with).

Usage: No, it isn't what the coach does in the fourth quarter when you aren't performing, but a youthful word (see Etymology) expressing birth and growth. The noun is "pullulation" and the adjective is "pullulative," though the British seem to prefer "pullulant," if the Oxford English Dictionary is any indication.

Suggested Usage: Amaze your friends and make them give you strange looks by using this word, "I just love all the pullulation that comes with the first days of spring!" However, anything that buds in any sense of the word may be described by this word: "Sheila has reached that dangerous stage in her development when her opinions are just beginning to pullulate."

Etymology: Today's word comes from the Latin verb "pullulare" (past participle, "pullulatus"), from pullulus "very young," diminutive of pullus "young, young bird." If you are thinking "pullet," you are absolutely correct—that word comes from the same Latin root. But the original root was pau- "little, few," which also occurs in Latin paucus "small, few," pauper "poor," and the name "Paul" (from "Paullus"). In English and other Germanic languages the Proto-Indo-European [p] became [f], so we are not surprised that English has a word "few."

Glower (verb)

Pronunciation: ['gla-wêr]

Definition: To stare menacingly.

Usage: In the motion picture world glowering is known as "the slow burn," an expression of barely contained fury with the eyes focused on the person at fault.

Suggested Usage: Glowering always bothers people, so it is usually used defensively: "I hate it when mama glowers at me until I start my homework." "My dad doesn't speak but just glowers when I come home late." Here's another useful use: "You don't have to glower like that just because I smashed one burger in your cargo pants!"

Etymology: Middle English gloren, possibly from Norwegian dialect glyra "to look askance." It is less likely a blend of glare + scour "search" (ME glaren + scuren).

Crenate (adjective)

Pronunciation: ['kree-neyt]

Definition: Having an edge scored with indentations or scalloped, as the edge of a coin; serrate. Certain leaves and seashells are also crenate.

Usage: "Crenately" is the adverb; "crenation" is the noun. "Crenation" is used in medicine to describe the shrunken appearance of red blood cells in a hypertonic solution. 

Suggested Usage: From a metaphorical pen with purple ink, one might see a sentence like "Denis stared at Yasmin, his forehead crenate with anger and concern." Today's word is a good one to describe a knobby or serrate(d) appearance.

Etymology: We denizens of the twenty-first century are hardly the first to make up nonce words. "Crenate" comes from Late Medieval Latin "crenatus" from crena "notch," created from a reading of an uncertain Latin word in a corrupt passage in Pliny the Elder. Today's rather obscure word shares this etymology with a much more common one: "cranny," probably borrowed from the Old French descendent of the Latin noun, "crena."

Widdershins (withershins) (adverb)

Pronunciation: ['wid-êr-shinz]

Definition: Moving in a direction opposite the usual; moving counterclockwise or in the contrary direction (of the sun, especially).

Usage: Today's word is basically an adverb but may be used as an adjective without the final [s]. As a predicate adjective, however, the [s] is usually left on. D. H. Lawrence wrote in 'Plumed Serpent' (1926) "She made up her mind, to be alone, and to cut herself off from all the mechanical widdershin contacts. He, too, was widdershins, unwinding the sensations of disintegration and anti-life."

Suggested Usage: Today's word is another wonderword from the land of kilts and bagpipes that we should all fight to keep alive: "Gerard does everything widdershins; he will either turn out a grandiose success or an abrupt failure." Niches for this word abound in everyday conversations: "Remember, the prophets agree that you get nowhere walking widdershins up the escalator."

Etymology: Middle Low German weddersinnes based on wider "back," whence German wider "against" and wieder "again." The English adverb wither "wrong, perverse" is rarely used any more. The "shins" is from earlier "sinnes" and is related to Latin sentire "sense, feel" since both go back to an original root *sent- "go in or choose a direction." We borrowed "sense" from the noun of this verb. The same root also turns up in English send "to cause someone to go in a direction."

Stogy (noun)

Pronunciation: ['sto-gee]

Definition: (1) A cheap cigar; (2) Far less often used to refer to rough, cheap workshoes.

Usage: A less desirable spelling is "stogie," an erroneous back derivation from the plural, "stogies." That is, it was derived by removing the plural "-s" marker but without replacing the "ie" with "y," as in "puppy: puppies," "lily : lilies," "pony : ponies."

Suggested Usage: This is a slang term, best used in jest: "No, he doesn't get the stogies he smokes at the cigar shop; I think he rolls them himself." "My neighbor from Cuba hasn't been home lately, so we'll have to smoke these stogies I got at the newsstand."

Etymology: A clipping from around 1853 of "Conestoga," the name of a town in Pennsylvania where one of the first cigar-making factories in the U. S. was built. Cigars made in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York were popular during the Civil War era, with those from the Pennsylvania factory being particularly well known.

Hopefully (adverb)

Pronunciation: ['hop-fêl-i]

Definition: In a manner characterized by a combination of desire and expectation.

Usage: Constructions like "Hopefully, it won't rain" are often condemned because such statements contain nothing capable of hope for the adverb to modify. But it is odd that similar constructions using "frankly," "sadly" and "mercifully" are likely to pass without comment—"hopefully" has for some reason been singled out for disapprobation. Although there is now general acceptance that such "sentence adverbs" may be used to indicate the speaker's frame of mind, you may wish to avoid them if your speech or writing is going to be critically scrutinized. The noun and verb "hope" are parents to the adjective "hopeful" and its opposite "hopeless," and their associated nouns "hopefulness" and "hopelessness."

Suggested Usage:
Test the knee-jerk pedants by using "hopefully" appropriately: "Hopefully, I'll be in the casino tonight." (You wouldn't go if you weren't hopeful.) But beware that a sentence adverb can be misinterpreted if people are the subject of your sentence: "They're to be married, hopefully, in the spring." (Do you hope for a spring wedding, or is their betrothal to be founded on nothing more than hope?)

Etymology: "Hope" seems to have simply sprung into existence as Old English "hopa, hopian." The suffix "-ful" comes from "full," a Germanic word that has undergone the usual transformation of [p] to [f] as it evolved from the Proto-Indo-European *pel. The PIE word spawned Greek polus, "much," and plethos, "many." From these we derive the prefix "poly-" which indicates an abundance, and the noun "plethora," a super-abundance. The same PIE root underlies Latin plenus, "full," from which we have English "plenitude" and "plenty."