A gait is a way of walking, either an individual’s particular way of moving from one place to another, or an animal’s pace of moving, such as a trot, gallop, or canter. It can be used as a verb to train an animal to walk a certain way. Incidentally gait did come from gate, which meant way. While gate, which is an opening in a barrier, usually a fence, came from the Norse gat, which meant opening. Gate can also be a verb, meaning to put a gate in something. …
Effete is an adjective describing something as feminine or effeminate. An alternative definition is for something to lack effectiveness, to not have strength or bravery or to be unable to act. Its derivatives include effetely and effeteness. In the seventeenth century, effete meant being past the childbearing years, or to not be fertile. One can see the transition of this to other topics, so that governments and armies were not fertile, or ineffective. Examples Dinesh Gundu Rao, who had invited the wrath of the party by describing …
To debark is to disembark, which is to get off of an airplane or ship or other mode of transportation. Both can also be the act of removing someone or something from the same vessels. Both have noun forms of debarkation and disembarkation, which refer to the location the person debarked at. Additionally, one can debark a tree, or remove the bark from a tree. One would then be a debarker. Examples Four Smith County Jail trusties, equipped with chainsaws and straight-draw shave tools, which are used to debark felled …
Do you take a bath or bathe? That probably seems like a silly question, but it’s one I hear quite often. A single letter makes one a noun and the other a verb while also changing their pronunciations. So, let’s take a moment to go over bath vs. bathe quickly and how you can use both words. Bath vs. Bathe: What Is the Diff? The difference between bath and bathe is pretty simple, but I always see confusion around the …
For something to be specious it has to appear to be correct or true, but in reality is false or incorrect. There is a slight connotation of it being related to appearances, that the specious item has an allure that is untrue. Its derivatives include speciously and speciousness. Spurious, on the other hand, is something that is founded on illogical reasoning or false facts. It can be something that is similar in appearance to something else, without being the genuine item (e.g., drugs). This usage is found …
Lesser describes something has being smaller than something else, or having less of a certain quality. Not to be confused with fewer. Lesser is an adjective that is used before the noun it modifies. To be lesser-known is somewhat famous, but not of wide acclaim. Lessor is a person who leases their property. It is commonly used in reference to airplanes. It has two pronunciations in British English with the stress being allowed on either syllable. In the United States it has only one accepted …
The dictionary lists a loop-the-loop as a thrill ride that sends its passengers in a complete 360 degree circle. It is more commonly used to describe anything doing the same movement. A plane can loop the loop in the sky when turns in a vertical circle. It follows the general rule of phrasal verbs that are hyphenated when used as a noun or adjective but separate words when used in verb form. The word loop comes from the Scottish Gaelic lùb which means to bend. Other phrases …
A spit is a stick which holds meat or other items over a fire, usually to allow the food to turn while it is roasted. Spit is also another word for saliva or the fluid made by one’s mouth. It can also be a small bit of land which leads into a body of water. To spit is to propel something (usually saliva) from your mouth or to put something on a spit (i.e., impale). If you put something on a spit this morning, you spitted it, you can also …
Lately, I’ve been seeing people saying, “all of the sudden” instead of “all of a sudden.” But which one is correct? It drives me insane because, to me, one sounds incorrect. All of a sudden is the correct idiomatic expression, which means suddenly. Keep reading to understand the difference between all of a sudden and all of the sudden. Learn its definition, origin, and some examples of the phrase in a sentence. Is it All of a Sudden or All …
The correct idiom is happy medium and not happy median. The confusion of a phrase based on its pronunciation is called an eggcorn. Medium is the middle term for size, in between large and small. It is also the name for people who believe they can channel thoughts from the dead, and the term for materials used by an artist. Median is the middle of a set of numbers, as well as the divider in a road. But while happy median does make logical sense, the standardphrase, which has …