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zephyr

[ zef-er ]

noun

a gentle, mild breeze.

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More about zephyr

The noun zephyr “west wind, the west wind personified, the god of the west wind” comes from Latin Zephyrus, a borrowing of Greek éDz “(any) westerly wind, the west wind.” Greek poets conceived the winds as minor deities who live and feast in their own palaces or as unruly elemental forces controlled by the god Aeolus. For the Greeks, éDz was the bringer of gentle spring and early summer breezes. Since at least the time of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, zephyrs have been associated with mild, gentle weather. Traditional etymology connects éDz with óDz “the west, darkness,” but there is no further etymology for either word. Zephyr entered English before a.d 1000.

how is zephyr used?

There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds …

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876

Isaac had dunked from the foul line, moving through the air with such power, authority and grace that he looked like a seasoned professional. Or a prehistoric bird riding a zephyr.

Floyd Skloot, "The Wings of the Wind," Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1997
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Word of the day

-à-

[ vee-zuh-vee; French vee-za-vee ]

preposition

in relation to; compared with: income -à- expenditures.

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More about -à-

The mere fact that -à- functions as an adverb, adjective, preposition, and noun all but guarantees many meanings, all semantically related: as an adverb the phrase means “face to face”; as an attributive adjective “face-to-face”; as a preposition “compared with; in relation to”; and as a noun “a person face to face with or opposite another one; a date at a social affair; a person of equal rank or authority.” The still obviously French term -à- has at least as many meanings as the English one. The French noun vis comes from Vulgar Latin īܲ “face,” from Latin īܲ “sight, vision, faculty of sight, form, appearance.” īܲ is a derivative of the verb ŧ “to see, see with the mind’s eye, notice.” վ-à- entered English in the mid-18th century.

how is -à- used?

Until recently, at least in the United States, our notions of privacy have been rooted in the Fourth Amendment’s delineation of the federal government’s powers -à- the individual citizen.

Glenn S. Gerstell, "I Work for N.S.A. We Cannot Afford to Lose the Digital Revolution." New York Times, September 10, 2019

I’m a stockbroker, and … my timing has been off lately vis-a-vis the market …

Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, 1994
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Word of the day

philippic

[ fi-lip-ik ]

noun

any speech or discourse of bitter denunciation.

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More about philippic

The adjective and noun philippic come from Latin Philippicus “of or pertaining to King Philip II of Macedon” (the father of Alexander the Great), from Greek ʳ󾱱辱ó with the same meaning. ʳ󾱱辱ó is usually used in the plural, ʳ󾱱辱ó, with the plural noun óǾ “speeches” understood. The original ʳ󾱱辱ó óǾ were three speeches delivered by the Athenian statesman Demosthenes against King Philip of Macedon between 351 and 341 b.c. The second set of philippics were the 14 orations that the Roman statesman and man of letters Marcus Tullius Cicero delivered against Mark Antony between 44 and 43 b.c. Cicero himself called these speeches (ōrātiōnēs) Philippicae “Philippic (orations).” The speeches not unnaturally enraged Mark Antony, who ensured that Cicero’s name stood at the head of the list of proscriptions. The adjective sense of philippic entered English in the mid-16th century.

how is philippic used?

Ms. Goldstein’s book is meticulously fair and disarmingly balanced, serving up historical commentary instead of a searing philippic.

Alexander Nazaryan, "Exorcising Ghosts From Classrooms," New York Times, August 24, 2014

… his philippic against King Leopold for the atrocities he sanctioned called the attention of the whole world to conditions that constituted a disgrace to modern civilization.

Archibald Henderson, Mark Twain, 1911
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