The adjective stentorian, meaning “extremely loud,” comes from the name of brazen-voiced Stentor, a Greek herald in The Iliad, whose voice was said to be as powerful as that of 50 men. The noun and verb mentor come from The Odyssey. In that Greek...
fire wagon n.— «“Fire wagon” is traditionally a term for ice hockey, but it described the next few minutes after NR’s opening goal as the teams traded end-to-end action and close scoring chances.» —“Warriors boot Bulldogs 4-2″ by Andrew...
Nigel n.— «That’s the kind of people these “Nigels”—the airline parlance for BA flight crews—are. They don’t panic because they’ve worked it all out beforehand.» —“Take notice of what Nigel does and you should be prepared for all eventualities” by...
purple water n.— «An alternative to using gray water is treating it with a home sanitizer system to create what’s known as “purple water.” While it’s not safe enough to drink, purple water is considered safe enough for use on lawns, golf courses...
flake n.— «A big flake of straw thrown out onto the snow, along with some scratch feed, made it a bit more tempting a place to explore and soon half the flock were out in the sun.» —“Spring cleaning in January” by Vicki Biggs-Anderson Cook County...
scuffled v.— «The defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers scuffled through the first half of the season. Manager Tom Lasorda said he is growing weary of hearing about how hard his players are trying.» —“Randolph Says Guidry Survived on...