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

Schadenfreude

SHAW-den-FROI-duh

noun

pleasure or delight in the misfortune or misery of others

1989Len DeightonSpy LineIt was no use showing anger. No one was exempt from Tessa's Schadenfreude.1994Tom ClancyDebt of HonorThe American economy would be twice blessed. Toss in a little schadenfreude for their Japanese colleagues, and even before the Street opened for business, people were primed for a big trading day.1996David Irving Goebbels 'Any observations must be sober and objective in tenor,' his third directive that day added, 'devoid of either triumph or Schadenfreude.' 1999Bill CasselmanCanadian SayingsThis Shaudenfreude bristles in many Canadian folk sayings and is the psychological motive force that drives people to create them.

Labels: Bill Casselman, David Irving, Len Deighton, Tom Clancy

Permalink: Schadenfreude
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:

jus gentium

yoos GEN-tee-uhm

noun

international law

1840Joseph-Pierre ProudhonWhat is PropertyReligion, laws, marriage, were the privileges of freemen, and, in the beginning, of nobles only. Dii majorum gentium—gods of the patrician families; jus gentium—right of nations; that is, of families or nobles. The slave and the plebeian had no families; their children were treated as the offspring of animals. Beasts they were born, beasts they must live.1866O. A. BrownsonThe American RepublicThe knowledge of the natural law has been transmitted from Adam to us through two channels—reason, which is in every man, and in immediate relation with the Creator, and the traditions of the primitive instruction embodied in language and what the Romans call jus gentium, or law common to all civilized nations.1984Tom ClancyThe Hunt for Red OctoberAdmiralty is jus gentium—the same legal codes theoretically apply to all countries.

Labels: Joseph-Pierre Proudhon, O. A. Brownson, Tom Clancy

Permalink: jus gentium
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:

biocide

BAI-o-said

noun

a pesticide to kill living organisms

1989Tom ClancyClear and Present DangerIt was a fancy name for poison, and poison was exactly what it was, a biocide that was supposed to kill the cancer a little faster than it killed the patient.

Labels: Tom Clancy

Permalink: biocide
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:

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

Permalink: kulak
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:

ARCHIVES
» 2009.01
» 2009.02
» 2009.03
» 2009.04
» 2009.05
» 2009.06
» 2009.07
» 2009.08
» 2009.09
» 2009.10
» 2009.11
» 2009.12
» 2010.01
» 2010.02
» 2010.03
» 2010.04
» 2010.05
» 2010.06
» 2010.07
» 2010.08