bonsai
n.— «The chamber-music arrangement of “Das Lied,” begun by Arnold Schoenberg early in the last century, presents the blueprint of the piece but sounds harsh without the cushioning of more than one musician on each of the string parts. The program notes refer to it as a “bonsai” version, but there’s nothing miniature about it except the numbers: 14 players.» —“Orchestra brings vigor to a dynamic pairing” by Richard Dyer Boston Globe Apr. 26, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
After hearing our conversation about how dictionaries decide on a preferred pronunciation, and specifically about how to pronounce aioli, Vern from San Diego, California, wrote to say that a friend once made fun of him for pronouncing grimace with a...