Word of the Day
More about chutzpa
Chutzpa is one of many colorful, and very useful, English words of Yiddish origin. Also commonly spelled chutzpah (among other forms), chutzpa was borrowed into English in the late 1800s from Yiddish khutspa “impudence; gall; audacity; nerve,” from Aramaic ḥūṣpā. Chutzpa often has a negative connotation, as in “The unruly siblings had the chutzpa to correct their father on manners.” The qualities of chutzpa, however, can also be positive, as in “The employees showed a great deal of chutzpa when they demanded pay raises.”
how is chutzpa used?
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to write a book called “The Problem With Everything,” but chutzpah is something essayist and cultural critic Meghan Daum has always possessed in spades.
Selling these artifacts at these prices requires more than a list of customers with too much disposable income. It takes hard work, chutzpa and catalog copy that ignites neural brush fires in the amygdala.
ipso facto
adverb
by the fact itself; by the very nature of the deed: to be condemned ipso facto.
More about ipso facto
First recorded in English in the mid-1500s, ipso facto is an adverb that comes directly from the Latin phrase ipsō factō “by the fact itself, by the very fact.” Ipso facto is often used when the very fact that one thing occurs is a direct consequence of another, as in “Having won all the gold medals in the sport’s Olympic events, she was ipso facto the best gymnast in the world.” Latin factō is the ablative form of factum “deed, act, fact,” and ipsō is the ablative of ipsum “very, same, itself,” among other senses. Ipso appears in other Latin expressions used in English, especially in law, including eo ipso “by that very fact” and ipso jure “by the law itself.”
how is ipso facto used?
… the notion that cars made in Germany would ipso facto be better crafted than others … this would have seemed curious indeed just a generation before.
I had, it seemed, defined myself as a “popular” writer, and if one is popular, then, ipso facto, one is not to be taken seriously.
lacuna
noun
a gap or missing part, as in a manuscript, series, or logical argument; hiatus.
More about lacuna
In Latin lacūna means “ditch, pit, gap, deficiency, hole, hole where water collects.” Modern French lagune “lagoon,” Italian laguna “lagoon,” and Spanish laguna “lagoon, gap” are obvious developments from lacūna. Lacūna in turn is a derivative of lacus “basin, tub, cistern, pond, lake,” the source (through Old French) of English lake. Latin lacus is also related to Scots Gaelic and Irish loch. Lacuna entered English in the 17th century.
how is lacuna used?
I hardly know what to say after that, for there is a lacuna in the story, a line of verse missing from the elegy.
Attending to the mundane and the momentous, they punch in on the dark side of the clock, bridging the quiet lacuna between rush hours.