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

kulak

KYOO-lak

noun

a prosperous Russian farmer

1842Nikolai Vasilievich GogolDead SoulsI wonder whether you were born a bear or whether you have come to it through your rustic life, with its tilling of crops and its trading with peasants? Yet no; I believe that, even if you had received a fashionable education, and had mixed with society, and had lived in St. Petersburg, you would still have been just the kulak that you are.1934George Bernard ShawOn the Rocks...an attempt to exterminate the old Conservative professional class and the kulak or prosperous farmer class has been checked only by the discovery that they cannot as yet be done without.1986Tom Clancy and Larry BondRed Storm RisingThey couldn't run the risk of State sponsorship for a whole new generation of kulaks.

Labels: George Bernard Shaw, Larry Bond, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Tom Clancy

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Entry By: CJ Cooney
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jejune

ji-JOON

adjective

uninteresting; insipid; dull

1703William DampierA Voyage to New HollandIt has been Objected against me by some that my Accounts and Descriptions of Things are dry and jejune, not filled with variety of pleasant Matter to divert and gratify the Curious Reader. How far this is true, I must leave to the World to judge.1830Edward Bulwer-LyttonPaul CliffordTo the former decent alternative she knew Paul's great and jejune aversion; and she consequently had little fear for his morals or his safety, in thus abandoning him for a while to chance.1842Nikolai Vasilievich GogolDead SoulsInstantly it became plain that he at least was of an age of discretion, and not one of your jejune chatterboxes and harum-scarums; for, although his hair was still thick and black, he had long ago passed his fortieth year.1880Mark TwainA Tramp AbroadContrasted with the inconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things were flippantly modern—jejune—mere matters of day-before-yesterday.1922Samuel Hopkins AdamsFrom a Bench in Our SquareJust as decidedly she was quaint and piquant and quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience.1980Alan Dean FosterCachalotHow jejune!

Labels: Alan Dean Foster, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Mark Twain, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Samuel Hopkins Adams, William Dampier

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Entry By: CJ Cooney
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