The Death of Fissiparous and Other Words: A Dictionary of Words & Phrases on the Verge of Extinction

urbi et orbi

OOR-bee et OR-bee

phrase

to the city and the world; to Rome and the world; to all; to everyone

1844Honore De BalzacGaudissart IIWhat idler in the streets has not beheld the Persian, that Asiatic potentate, ruffling it above the door at the corner of the Rue de la Bourse and the Rue de Richelieu, with a message to deliver urbi et orbi, 'Here I reign more tranquilly than at Lahore'?1865Jules VerneThe Moon-VoyageThe subscription opened at Baltimore, for this end extended thence to all the world—urbi et orbi.1896Henryk SienkiewiczQuo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of NeroBut he, standing on the height, with his extended right hand made the sign of the cross, blessing in the hour of death—Urbi et orbi! (the city and the world).

Labels: Henryk Sienkiewicz, Honore De Balzac, Jules Verne

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Entry By: CJ Cooney
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redound

ri-DOWND

verb

to result in something which may or may not be for the best; to overflow

1900Henryk SienkiewiczThe Knights of the CrossBut the Bohemian, Hlawa, now approached with two of Zbyszko's retainers in order to take it off from the deceased, therefore the curious surrounded Zbyszko, praising and extolling him to the skies, because they justly thought that his fame would redound to the credit of the whole Mazovian and Polish knighthood.1910Walter BiggsDrake's Great ArmadaThe total value of that which was got in this voyage is esteemed at three score thousand pounds, whereof the companies which have travailed in the voyage were to have twenty thousand pounds, the adventurers the other forty. Of which twenty thousand pounds (as I can judge) will redound some six pounds to the single share.

Labels: Henryk Sienkiewicz, Walter Biggs

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arbiter elegantiae

AR-buh-tur e-la-gan-SHEE-uh

noun

an accepted authority on social behavior and matters of taste

1896Henryk SienkiewiczQuo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of NeroThe women of Rome admired not only his pliant mind and his taste, which gained for him the title Arbiter Elegantiae, but also his body.1934E. E. Doc SmithTriplanetaryHe was therefore some little distance behind the other gladiators when Petronius rushed up to him and seized him by the arm. White and trembling, the noble was not now the exquisite Arbiter Elegantiae; nor the imperturbable Augustian.

Labels: E. E. Doc Smith, Henryk Sienkiewicz

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objectivism

awb-JEK-ti-vi-zuhm

noun

the propensity to focus on elements external to cognition, in contrast to a focus on thoughts or feelings; a philosophy holding that reality is only what one can objectively determine

1898Henryk SienkiewiczSo Runs the WorldIt was Emile Zola. A great talent, slow but powerful and a potent force, surprising objectivism if the question is about a sentiment, because it is equal to almost complete indifference, such an exceptional gift of seeing the entire soul of humanity and things that it approaches this naturalistic writer to mystics—all that gives him a very great and unusual originality.1961Ayn RandFor the New Intellectual...the name I have chosen for my philosophy is Objectivism.

Labels: Ayn Rand, Henryk Sienkiewicz

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