#83

pi·rate (pī'rĭt) Pronunciation Key
n.

1.
1. One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation.
2. A ship used for this purpose.
2. One who preys on others; a plunderer.
3. One who makes use of or reproduces the work of another without authorization.
4. One that operates an unlicensed, illegal television or radio station.


v. pi·rat·ed, pi·rat·ing, pi·rates

v. tr.

1. To attack and rob (a ship at sea).
2. To take (something) by piracy.
3. To make use of or reproduce (another's work) without authorization.


v. intr.
To act as a pirate; practice piracy.


[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin pīrāta, from Greek peirātēs, from peirān, to attempt, from peira, trial; see per-3 in Indo-European roots.]

pi·rat'ic (pī-rāt'ĭk), pi·rat'i·cal (-ĭ-kəl) adj., pi·rat'i·cal·ly adv.

#80

wheedle \HWEE-d'l; WEE-d'l\, transitive verb:
1. To entice by soft words or flattery; to coax.
2. To gain or get by flattery or guile.

intransitive verb:
1. To flatter; to use soft words.

Editors who wished to carry original work rather than reprints found it necessary to wheedle contributions from readers by decrying inexperience as a reason for not taking up the pen and by offering prizes for submissions.
-- Ronald Weber, Hired Pens

When Wayne and I first moved here, the settlers living within twenty miles were consumed with curiosity about our relationship, and one of 'em tried to wheedle a little matrimonial information out of me.
-- Christine Wiltz, The Last Madam

He knew what it looked like to seduce, to intimidate, to wheedle, and to console; to strike a pose or preach a sermon.
-- Simon Schama, Rembrandt's Eyes

The origin of wheedle is uncertain; it is perhaps from Old English wædlian, "to beg, to be a beggar," from wædl, "want, poverty."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for wheedle

#28

quash \KWOSH\, transitive verb:
1. (Law) To abate, annul, overthrow, or make void; as, "to quash an indictment."
2. To crush; to subdue; to suppress or extinguish summarily and completely; as, "to quash a rebellion."

The Shelby Globe attributed her death to acute heart failure and yellow jaundice and did its best to quash a curious town rumor that had her being poisoned by eating oyster sandwiches.
-- Tim Page, Dawn Powell: A Biography

The German-French entente made NATO intervention to quash the Balkan civil wars possible, and the collapse of the Soviet Union made NATO's intervention deep into the former Soviet sphere of influence permissible.
-- Thomas L. Friedman, "Was Kosovo World War III?", New York Times, July 2, 1999

[The law] . . . also installed newspaper censorship, enabling the government to quash anything "calculated to jeopardise the success of the operations of any of His Majesty's forces or to assist the enemy."
-- Philip Hoare, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand


Quash comes from Medieval French quasser, from Latin quassare, "to shake violently, to shatter," frequentative form of quatere, "to shake." Quash, "to annul," has been sense-influenced by Late Latin cassare, "to annul," from Latin cassus, "empty," whereas quash, "to crush," has been sense-influenced by squash.



lomography.com

#25

limn \LIM\, transitive verb:
1. To depict by drawing or painting.
2. To portray in words; to describe.

Oh, yes, I write, as I limn the familiar perfections of his profile, "you look very well."
-- Kimberly Elkins, "What Is Visible", The Atlantic, March 2003

In telling these people's stories Mr. Butler draws upon the same gifts of empathy and insight, the same ability to limn an entire life in a couple of pages.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "Earthlings May Endanger Your Peaceful Rationality", New York Times, March 10, 2000

But used faithfully and correctly, language can "limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers."
-- John Darnton, "In Sweden, Proof of The Power Of Words", New York Times, December 8, 1993


Limn is from Middle English limnen, alteration of luminen, from enluminen, from Medieval French enluminer, from Late Latin illuminare, "to illuminate," ultimately from Latin lumen, "light."




http://www.serrao.eu/

#8

flummox \FLUM-uhks\, transitive verb:
To confuse; to perplex.

And when a poll's results happen to upset the conventional wisdom, orconfound the experts, or flummox the pundits, then that's a poll toremember.
-- Michael Kagay, "Unexpected Results Make for Memorable Polls", New York Times, March 23, 2000

The chronological order of the Stuart, Hanover, Lancaster and TudorBritish royal houses had me flummoxed.
-- Sara Ivry, "Game Show Wannabe: I Coulda Been a Millionaire", New York Times, February 27, 2000

Flummoxed by the surreality of history and the mind-bogglingchanges unleashed by the 60's, many writers in that era became minimalists,withdrawing, turtlelike, inside their own homes and heads.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "New Wave of Writers Reinvents Literature", New York Times, April 22, 2000


The origin of flummox is unknown.

from dictionary.com

#5

ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun:
1. An ambush.

transitive verb:
1. To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
-- Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
-- Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
-- William Murchison, "What the voters chose", Human Life Review, January 1, 1995


Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.

from dictionary.com


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The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
David Richerby