Nutriment is something that increases growth or sustains life. In medical terminology it may refer to something which causes the healing of human tissue. It is a mass noun without a plural form. While nutriment and nutrition come from the same Latin root word, they are not synonyms. Nutrition is the act of consuming the correct …
Repertoire is a mass noun for the variety of skills a person or company is capable of accomplishing. Usually it is used in reference to musicians or theater companies and what parts or pieces they are prepared to perform. However, this term is common enough it can be used outside of …
When it’s time to face the consequences of your decisions, you may have heard somebody tell you it’s time to pay the piper. Paying the piper is an old term, revived by a 19th-century poet but dating back much further. Its sad yet interesting origins are said to stem from …
Snobbery is the action of a person who thinks he or she is more important or worthwhile than others. The plural form is snobberies. A person who thinks or acts this way is called a snob. Something can be snobby, snobbier, or the snobbiest. Another adjective form is snobbish. The adverb form is snobbishly. And the back-formation …
Vox populi is a Latin phrase which literally means voice of the people. In English usage, it means the opinion of the majority or what most people think. In the United States it is most commonly pronounced (vox pop u leye), but outside the United States it is (vox pop u …
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All get-out is a mass noun which means to an extreme. It is used in comparison to another item, usually with the word as. Get-out is hyphenated in one dictionary entry, however, most users do not include the hyphen and simply make the phrase in three words instead of two. The phrase originates in …
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The idiom whole nine yards speaks to the extent of someone’s effort. If you go the whole nine yards, you thought of everything, you used every resource, you looked into every possibility. Or if it is used as mass noun to describe a group, that group includes everything possible. See the examples below for …
Sine die is an adverb borrowed from Latin which literally means without day. It is used in English to describe something as not having a future designation. Another synonym is indefinitely. Sine die is almost exclusively used in conjunction with the verb adjourn. It is a designation used in government organizations. If a …
For a person to take a shine to someone else, he or she likes the other person immediately and to a great extent. It is usually used in reference to two people meeting for the first time, or the moment when they begin to get along. The verb take can be conjugated through all …
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Himself is a pronoun that is used to reference a male (either human or animal) that has previously been mentioned in the text. It is reflexive. Sometimes it is used to reference the person’s self, or his being. Hisself is listed as a dialectal variation for himself. While it is an official word, most would …