Tuesday, July 26, 2011

#566 genteel

genteel- affectedly proper or refined; excessively polite; respectable, polite, and well-bred; appropriate to polite or fashionable society

C16 from French gentil well-born

The area is home to several renowned lodges where one can chase gobblers in genteel southern luxury.

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Monday, July 25, 2011

#565 genre

genre- kind, category, or sort, especially of literary or artistic work; a category

C19 from French, from Old French gendre; gender

And what about those authors whose "genre" is hard to pin down but whose vision of the future is not sweetness and light, like Kurt Vonnegut (Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle).

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Sunday, July 24, 2011

#564 genocide

genocide- the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group

C29 from geno, from Greek genos race + cide

Turkey strongly rejects the term genocide to describe the mass killings of Armenians back in 1915.

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Saturday, July 23, 2011

#563 genial

genial- cheerful, easygoing, and warm in manner of behaviour; pleasantly warm, so as to give life growth, or health: the genial sunshine

C16 from Latin genialis relating to birth or marriage, from genius tutelary deity

A very extended landscape, however genial, is also sober in its effect on the mind.

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Friday, July 22, 2011

#562 gendarme

gendarme- a member of the police force in France or in countries formerly influenced or controlled by France; a sharp pinnacle of rock on a mountain ridge, especially in the Alps

C16 from French, from gens d'armes people of arms

A gendarme in one of the towns estimated that at least 100 Nigerian women were working there as prostitutes.

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Thursday, July 21, 2011

#561 geld

geld- to castrate a horse or other animal; to deprive of virility or vitality; emasculate; weaken

C13 from Old Norse gelda, from geldr barren

- a tax on land levied in late Anglo-Saxon and Norman England

Old English gield service, tax; related to Old Norse gjald tribute, Old High German geltl retribution, income

Nevertheless, they stood in some degree of subjection to the lord, since the geld due to the State was paid through the lord as responsible to the sheriff for all who held land within the manor.

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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

#560 geek

geek- a sideshow performer who bites the heads off or eats live animals

C19 variant of Scottish geck fool, from Middle Low German geck

The term geek is characterized by extreme passion for, and expertise, in an unexpected specialization.

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