At last, a book for the American Idle. Here is a punny new dictionary of inventive definitions of real words.
Acrimony: Spousal support payments following bitter divorce
Friction: Novel that rubs you the wrong way
Negligence: Woman's forgotten dressing gown
Zinfandel: Heathen wine
Ranging from the merely fetched (Spaniel: Iberian canine) to the far-fetched (Buccaneer: Piracy in corn pricing) to the neurologically suspect (Giraffe: Very tall spotted decanter), Semantricks will surprise, delight, and even stump the most word-wary pundits. Suffix it to say, you'll never look at diphthong the same way again.
At last, a book for the American Idle. Here is a punny new dictionary of inventive definitions of real words.
Acrimony: Spousal support payments following bitter divorce
Friction: Novel that rubs you the wrong way
Negligence: Woman's forgotten dressing gown
Zinfandel: Heathen wine
Ranging from the merely fetched (Spaniel: Iberian canine) to the far-fetched (Buccaneer: Piracy in corn pricing) to the neurologically suspect (Giraffe: Very tall spotted decanter), Semantricks will surprise, delight, and even stump the most word-wary pundits. Suffix it to say, you'll never look at diphthong the same way again.
Semantricks: A Dictionary of Words You Thought You Knew
144
Semantricks: A Dictionary of Words You Thought You Knew
144eBookFirst Edition (First Edition)
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Overview
At last, a book for the American Idle. Here is a punny new dictionary of inventive definitions of real words.
Acrimony: Spousal support payments following bitter divorce
Friction: Novel that rubs you the wrong way
Negligence: Woman's forgotten dressing gown
Zinfandel: Heathen wine
Ranging from the merely fetched (Spaniel: Iberian canine) to the far-fetched (Buccaneer: Piracy in corn pricing) to the neurologically suspect (Giraffe: Very tall spotted decanter), Semantricks will surprise, delight, and even stump the most word-wary pundits. Suffix it to say, you'll never look at diphthong the same way again.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429981729 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 06/24/2008 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Lewis M. Gediman is president of The Gediman Research Group, Inc. and a consulting affiliate of Dialogue Resource, Inc. - both marketing research and consulting firms. He lives and, when he can't avoid it, works in Stamford, Connecticut, where he takes frequent long walks and occasional umbrage. His breadth of vision and depth of thinking is perhaps best expressed in the guiding principle: "I never met a word I couldn't distort." A dedicated fitness buff, he enjoys watching people exercise and eat sensibly.
Nino DeNicola, a longtime, if reluctant, colleague of Lew Gediman is president of Dialogue Resource, Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina. His training in clinical psychology and years of experience leading Synectics-inspired innovation workshops have been of no use whatsoever in his contributions to Semantricks. While English is not his first language, and he has trouble with even the most rudimentary of phrases, he welcomes reader comments and feedback.
Though not quick to admit it, Paul Gediman is the son of Lewis M. He was a book reviewer and book review editor before entering the field of marketing communications. He lives in Ann Arbor, where his hobbies include narrative embroidery and faulty logic.
Michael B. Laudor has both undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, either of which alone you might think would keep a person from participating in this book. He lives in Orange County, New York.
Lewis M. Gediman is president of The Gediman Research Group, Inc. and a consulting affiliate of Dialogue Resource, Inc. – both marketing research and consulting firms. He lives and, when he can’t avoid it, works in Stamford, Connecticut, where he takes frequent long walks and occasional umbrage. His breadth of vision and depth of thinking is perhaps best expressed in the guiding principle: “I never met a word I couldn’t distort.” A dedicated fitness buff, he enjoys watching people exercise and eat sensibly.
Nino DeNicola, a longtime, if reluctant, colleague of Lew Gediman is president of Dialogue Resource, Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina. His training in clinical psychology and years of experience leading Synectics-inspired innovation workshops have been of no use whatsoever in his contributions to Semantricks. While English is not his first language, and he has trouble with even the most rudimentary of phrases, he welcomes reader comments and feedback.
Though not quick to admit it, Paul Gediman is the son of Lewis M. He was a book reviewer and book review editor before entering the field of marketing communications. He lives in Ann Arbor, where his hobbies include narrative embroidery and faulty logic.
Michael B. Laudor has both undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, either of which alone you might think would keep a person from participating in Semantricks. He lives in Orange County, New York.
Read an Excerpt
Semantricks
A Dictionary of Words You Thought You Knew
By Lewis M. Gediman, Nino DeNicola, Paul Gediman, Michael B. Laudor
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2008 Lewis M. GedimanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-8172-9
CHAPTER 1
A Through F
ABSINTHE: Most effective form of birth control
ABUNDANCE: A rhythmic wriggling of the buttocks to music
ABYSS: Given a head cold, as good as a bile
ACCORDION: Treaty or agreement arrived at under musical duress
ACERBIC: Bitterly Balkan
ACIDIC: Of or pertaining to Cockney branch of Orthodox Jewish sect
ACRIMONY: Spousal support payments following bitter divorce
ACTUARIAL: Having a mathematically very high probability of being real
ADAGE: Proverbial commercials
ADENOID: Basic component of standard Hebrew prayer intro
AGHAST: Horrified by petrolprices
AGNOSTIC: One who believes that the sinus cavity can never be truly comprehended
ALIGN: Shortest distance between two points
ALKALINE: Detroit Tigers' baseball great
ALLEGORY: Bloody symbolism
AMENORRHEA: Evangelical excess
* * *
AMULET: Charmed egg dish
ANAL: Once a year, grudgingly
DOILY: Once a day, decoratively
ANEMONE: Intestinal purge
CINEMA: Filmed intestinal purge
* * *
ANGLOPHILE: Fanatic fisherman
* * *
ANTELOPE: To run away with an insect and marry it
ENVELOPE: To run away with stationery and marry it
CANTALOUPE: To be unable to run away and marry
PENELOPE: Enclosure for holding stuff that runs away and marries
DAVEY LOPES: Baseball player who runs away and marries
ANTICS: Play of frolicsome insects
ANTI-SOCIAL: Bad party thrown by parent's sister
ANTWERP: Nerdy Belgian insect
ANVIL: Medicine for pounding headache
* * *
APOSTROPHE: Award for defection from true belief
ATROPHY: Award for excellence in immobility
CATASTROPHE: Award for hell-raising felines
APPALLING: L. Pauling's black sheep brother
APPELLATION: Of or pertaining to vast mountain range and associated system of trailer parks in the eastern United States
ARCHERY: Superior, pointedly knowing manner
ARKANSAS: Obscure carpentry tool
ARTILLERY: Military weaponry that launches paintings
ARUGULA: (1) Sound of vintageautomobile horn (2) One Jewish nut pastry
ASPHALT: Mulish culpability
ASSAULTED: Aggressively overseasoned
ASSIDUOUS: Diligently non-alkaline
HALF-ASSIDUOUS: Carelessly non-alkaline
ASTARTE: Phoenician goddess of foreplay
ATTRITION: Paradoxically, subtraction
AU LAIT (FR.): Crowd's cry at French cowfight
AVID: Eager Roman poet
LIVID: Angry Roman poet
AVOCADO: Mexican lawyer
* * *
BABOON: Simian favor
BADINAGE (FR.): Poor dressing of a wound
BAGUETTE (FR.): Forget about the bread
BALL BEARING: Pertaining to the function of an athletic supporter
BALTIC: Involuntary genital spasm
BANAL: Unimaginatively retentive
BANGLADESH: What angry Southeast Asian executives do
BECKON: Tempting breakfast meat
BEACON: Illuminated beckon
BEHOOVE: Where honey is made
BELLINI (IT.): Blintzes
BESTIAL: Superlative
BÊTE NOIRE (FR.): In roulette, to put money on black
BILIOUS: Peevish reaction to unexpectedly large invoice
BIMBO: Where female airheads go when they die, to await assignment to heaven orhell
BISHOPRIC: Unpleasant high-ranking clergyman
BLIMP: Fat electronic signal, as on a radar screen
BOLSTER: Opinion surveyor who inflates the numbers
* * *
BONKERS: Eccentric employees of financial institution
BUNKERS: Untruthful bonkers
BLINKERS: Exposed bunkers
BORDELLO: A category of red wine
BOTOX: Prior to 2004, perennially paralyzed Boston baseball club
BOUNDARY: Trampoline park
* * *
BOVINE: Of or pertaining to the god of cows
BRATWURST: Most ill-behaved kid on the block
BRAVURA: Really terrific women's undergarment
BROUHAHA: Extreme keg party
BRUSSELS: Business side of Belgian hairbrush
BUCCANEER: Piracy in corn pricing
BUCHAREST: Italian reading aid
BUCKINGHAM: Rodeo pig
BUCOLIC: Farm infant's malady
BUDAPEST: Eastern religious nuisance
BULWARK: Inseminating cows, for example
BUSKIN: Van, for example
* * *
CABALLERO (SP.): Taxi driver
CABBAGE: Taxi fare
* * *
CALAMITY: Shellfish shortage
CALLIOPE: Greek goddess of circus music
CAMELOT: Sahara parking area
CANDID: Frank and open way of preparing yams
CANOPY: Is unable to urinate
* * *
CANTATA: Tinned sauce for fried fish
CAPER: Superhero's deed
CAPPICOLA: Ham-flavored soda
CARACAS: Venezuelan small flat biscuits
CARNAGE: Scene at automobile junkyard
CARNIVAL: Meat eaters' festival
CARPACCIO (IT.): (1) Parking garage (2) Auto body repair
CARRION: Hand luggage for taking dead meat on airplanes
CARTEL: Overnight stop for an automobile
CASTANET: To fish in a certain manner
CATARRH: Unpleasant sounding string instrument
CATATONIC: Feline medicine
CATEGORY: Feline roadkill
* * *
CAVALRY: Quibblers on horseback
REVELRY: Partying cavalry
CAVENDISH: Satellite signal receptor
CENTIMETER: Parking-payment machine that accepts pennies
CHEROOT: Underground part of a fruit tree
CHESAPEAKE: Only a quick glance
CHEVALIER (FR.): Driver of Chevrolet
CHLORINE: Backup performer in water ballet
CHOLER: Irritation at the top of the shirt
CHURCHILL: Cold feeling in house of worship
CICATRICE: Dutch Elm blight, for example
CLAMOR: Noisy shellfish digger
CLAPTRAP: Particularly dirty and unhealthy hooker
CLAUSTROPHOBIA: Fear of St. Nick
CLOBBER: Heavy-handed shoemaker
CLOISTER: Sheltered mollusk
COBBLESTONE: Paving material from Afghan capital
COCKSURE: Of or pertaining to Viagra-fueled confidence
COCKTAILS: Rooster stories
COGNITION: Starting device for incline railway
COLANDER: Datebook with the holey days marked
COLLAGE: Institution of higher education
COLLEEN: Long-haired Irish sheepdog
COLLOID: Sheep dog like
COLONIST: Early Americangastroenterologypractitioner
COLONNADE: Tonic for intestinal disturbance
COMMODIOUS: Comfortably spacious toilet stall
CONDOMINIUM: The least you can do about sex protection
CONICAL: Pointedly humorous
CONSUMMATE: Finish a clear soup
COPACETIC: Policeman who denies himself all pleasures
COPSE: Woodland police
COPULATE: Make love with a policeman
COQ AU VIN (FR.): Mobile hot chocolate vendor
COROLLARY: Chinese heart attack
CORSICAN: I am definitely able to
CORTISONE: In tennis, in bounds
COSSET: Gently confining ladies' foundation garment
COULIS: Pureed Chinese laborer
COVEN: Witches' cooking appliance
COVENTRY: Arboreal home of British witches
COWARDLY: Of or pertaining to risk-averse bovines
CRAMPONS: Feminine hygiene product for mountaineering
CREOSOTE: Person or language of French/Spanish/Africanorigin
CREPUSCULAR: Of or pertaining to a filled pancake that works out
CRIBBAGE: Contents of nursery
CROTCHETY: Of or pertaining to ill temper caused by twisted underwear
CRUMPET: Horn used in jam sessions
CUPOLA: Two of ...
CURFEW: Limited number of surly or cowardly fellows
CUSPIDOR: Habitual user of profane or obscene language
CUSTODY: Responsibility for egg pudding
CUTTLEFISH: Huggable cephalopod
CYCLONE: Replicated windstorm
* * *
DADAISM: Vocal utterances of an infant, directed to male parent
DAGUERREOTYPE: French mercenary
DAKOTA: The ending of a musical piece
DEBILITATED: Fatigued and depressed by large number of unpaid invoices
DECADENT: Of or pertaining to ten rotting teeth
DECANTER: The synagogue vocalist
DEIGN: Condescending Scandinavian
DELECTABLE: Tastefully impeachable
DELEGATE: Remove a fence door
DEMOCRAT: Sample political partisan
DESTITUTE: Impoverished prostitute
INSTITUTE: Home for destitutes
* * *
DIATRIBE: Evangelical weight-watchers sect
DICKER: Have sex with a woman
DOCKER: Withhold same
DUNKER: Water-based foreplay
DILDO: Pickled sexual aid
DINOSAUR: Extinct popular vocalist
DIODE: Lyric poem that is coauthored
DIPHTHONG: Gliding monosyllabic speech sound caused by scanty bathing suit
* * *
DIPSOMANIAC: Fondue fanatic
FOND DU LAC: Dipsomaniac's worst nightmare
* * *
DISCOMMODE: Unseat from the toilet
DISCREPANCY: Difference between varieties of filled thin pancakes
DIURETICS: The outpourings of L. Ron Hubbard
DIURNAL (HEB.): It were enough!
DORSAL: Threshold of rear entrance
DOXOLOGY: The study of floozies
DRAGOON: Seventeenth-century fire-breathing French cavalryman
DRESDEN: Where women's clothing hibernates in winter
DROMEDARY: (1) Arena for camel races (2) Production facility forcamel's milk and cheese
DUDGEON: Prison
HIGH DUDGEON: Tower of London
DUMPSTER: Serial dater
DUNDERHEAD: Stupid storm cloud
DOLT: Stupid lightning flash
DUNE BUGGY: Sand fly or other beach insect
DWARF: Foreshortened dock or pier
DYSPEPSIA: Gastric disturbance resulting from a certain cola beverage
* * *
ECCO! (IT.): Yuck!
ECHO: Yuck ... yuck ... yuck ... yuck
ECONOMIST: Inexpensive fog or vapor
ELEGANT: Large trunked mammal with impeccable manners
* * *
EMULSION: Strong feeling suspended
ENCUMBER: Burden with a broad decorative waistband as part of a man's formal dress
NUMBER: Quantifiably more insensate, as from too-tight encumbering
ENIGMA: Mysterious bowel purge
ENTITY: Source of nourishment for runt of the litter
EPISTOLARY: Of or pertaining to the sending of handguns through the mail
ESOPHAGUS: Ancient Greek playwright; inventor of dinner theater
EUPHONIOUS: Smooth-talking scam artist of Ancient Rome
EXTRADITION: (1) How daily newspapershandle a late-breakingstory (2) Formerly, aperiodically repeatedceremony
* * *
FACTORY: Facility formanufacturing discrete pieces of information
FALLACIOUS: Of or pertaining to the belief that you can't get STDs from oral sex
FALLOW: Idle fellow
CALLOW: Shallow fallow
SALLOW: Pallid fallow
TALLOW: Wax statue of fallow
* * *
FANFARE: Metered cost of cooling device
FARCICAL: Ludicrously Persian
FASCIST: Most swift Nazi
FASTIDIOUS: In female adolescents, of or pertaining to the rapid development of breasts
* * *
TITILLATING: Of or pertaining to the delayed development of breasts
FAUX PAS (FR.): Bogus paternity suit
FECKLESS: (1) Of or pertaining to celibate Irishman (2) Phony neck adornment
FECUND: Ordinal between foist and furred
FELINE: Queue at the pet vet cashier's window
FELONY: What a pretty girl is like, if underage
FEMUR: Lady legbone
FINICKY: Of or pertaining to certain fussy Scandinavians
FIRTH: Initial ordinal number
FROTH: Ordinal number after thrid
FLAGEOLET (FR.): Scourging oneself by pelting with small beans
FLAGRANT: Outrageously aromatic
FLAGRANTE DELICTO: Wildly aromatic delicatessen
FLANDERS: Has affairs in western Belgium
FLAT TIRE: Failed satire
FLATULENT: Apartment you allowed me to use
FLAX: Press agents
* * *
FLOCK: Herd of flax
FLAKE: Eccentric press agent
FLECK: Yiddish press agent
FLUKE: Accidental press agent
FLIPPANT: Glib, sassy insect
FLOCK: How sheep make love
FLUVIAL: Of or pertaining to water-borne viral infection
FOLDEROL: Blithe laundry finishing
FOLLY: Come after
CRÈCHE: What happens if you folly too closely
* * *
FORENSICS: Legal foreplay
FRACTION: (1) Part of a spinoff group (2) Part of a novel
FACTION: (1) Historical novel (2) What fict is strangerthan
FRICTION: Novel that rubs you the wrong way
* * *
FRAGMENT: Broken-off piece of candy
FRAGRANT: Perfumed hobo
FRENZY: Madcap Italian second city
FRIGATE: To hell with it
FONDUE: To hell with you
FRUCTOSE: To hell with them
FACTOTUM: To hell with all of them
* * *
FROG: Amphibian daze
FRAG: Bit of exploded amphibian
FROG PRINCE: Swamp detective's clue
FUNEREAL: Of or pertaining to a variety of diseases contracted by necrophiles
FUNGICIDE: Killjoy
FUNGUS: Jovial proprietor of a Greek diner
FURIOUS: Of or pertaining to a thick-coated animal
FUR PIECE: Country mile
* * *
FUSCHIA: Rosy time ahead
PASTURE: Opposite of fuschia
PRESCIENCE: Period between pasture and fuschia
FUSILLADE: Barrage of corkscrew pasta
FUTILITY: Power failure at Con Ed
* * *
CHAPTER 2G Through P
* * *
GALAPAGOS: Red Grange sobriquet
GARNISHEE: Confiscate by sprinkling with parsley or maraschino cherry
GASTRIC: Ability to break wind at will
* * *
GASTRITIS: Stomach ailment due to rising fuel prices
GECKO: Reptilian starting point
GHOUL: Hockey net
GOLLY: Ghoul keeper
BY GOLLY!: Hockey score
GALLEY: Female golly
GULLY: Easily deceived golly or galley
GHOULISH: Scary Hungarian entrée
GIBBON: Species of long-armed historians that feed on bananas
GIPPER: British breakfast coach
GIRAFFE: Very tall spotted decanter
GLADIATOR: (1) Happy warrior (2) Cheerfully combativeheating device
GNAWING: Gnome's chewing or biting
GNOCCHI (IT.): Locked out
GOGGLE: Rinse one's throat
GOOGLE: Search online whilegoggling
GURGLE: Sound made while Googling
GIGGLE: Laugh whilegurgling
GAGGLE: Almost throw up whilegiggling
* * *
GOBBLEDYGOOK: Messy snack consumed in haste
GONFALON: Absent quite a while
GORGONZOLA: Emile's ugly sister
GRAVEL: Humble oneself in the driveway
GRAVITAS: Swedish cured salmon to which attention must be paid
* * *
GRIZZLY: Unshaven bear
GRISLY: Dead grizzly
GROSSLY: Ten-day-old grisly
GROUPER: Reef fish that likes to follow schools of rockfish
GRUELING: Of or pertaining to the difficult or painful consumption of thin porridge
GUMBO: Fifth Marx brother
GUNG HO: Enthusiastic African-American streetwalker
GUSTATORY: Of or relating to patio dining on a windy day
* * *
HAMLET: Baby pig
HANDICAP: Paradoxically, inconvenient headgear
HARLOT: Hookers' parking facility
HARPOON: Nag about, pointedly
HASSIDISM: Orthodox Jewish cruelty
HATCHBACK: Quasimodo's car
HEBEPHRENIC: Deliriously Jewish
HEDDA GABLER: Topmost part of Norwegian turkey
HEGEMONY: Gardener's fee
HELSINKI: Particular subsection of tough Manhattan West Side neighborhood
HEMOGLOBIN: A grotesque blood-sucking spirit
HERBIVORE: (1) Previously presentvegetarian (2) Already knew about
* * *
HEXAGON: Vanished curse
OCTOGON: Vanished octopus
PENTAGON: Vanished reason
HIGHFALUTIN: Snobbish piccoloplaying
HISPANIC: That guy's high anxiety
HOCKEY: Love bite
HOKEY: Uninspired hockey
* * *
HICKEY: Rustic hockey
HOLLOW: Insincere greeting
HALLOW: Sacred greeting
HALO: Heavenly greeting
HELLO: Opposite of halo
HOMICIDE: Murder of mashed chick peas
HOOKAH: Moroccan streetwalker
HOOTENANNY: An amusing child's nurse
HOOTERS: Owl boobs
HOROSCOPE: Instrument for measuring degree of fright or dread
HUBRIS: Excessive pride in Jewish ritual circumcision
HUGUENOT: Seventeenth-century French space traveler
HUMPHREY: What Quasimodo changed his name to after successful surgery
HUMPTY DUMPTY: Love em and leave em
* * *
HUNKY DORY: Hungarian rowboat
HURRICANE: Motorized walking stick
HUSKY: What you use to enter your home
* * *
IGLOO: Adhesive used by Eskimos
ILK: Ailing elk
BILK: Cheating ilk
* * *
IMPEDIMENTA: Foot shackles
INDISTINCT: Where the dirty dishes go
INDUBITABLE: Without question, not possible
INEFFABLE: Determinedly chaste
INFLUENZA: Italian clout
INGOT: Entered successfully
INKLING: A small pen blot
INSCRUTABLE: Unrelentingly virginal
INSIPID: Not drinkable in small takes
INSOUCIANT (FR.): Penniless but blas
INSTIGATE: Ready-made fence entrance
INVOICE: Prepared to sing for payment
IRASCIBLE: Not indelible
IV: Small medical device found on outside walls of New England college buildings
* * *
JAMBALAYA: Dish made by boiling fruit and sugar to a thick consistency and cooking with rice, sausage, and chicken
JEJUNE: M-month between M-May and J-July
JOCULAR: Of or pertaining to a cheerful athlete
JUNTA: Powerful group of gamesmen
* * *
KANGAROO: Marsupial regret
KETTLE: Yiddish cowboy's charge
KGB: Secretive Russian insect
KHOMEINI: What number (of)?
* * *
KIERKEGAARD: Hildegard's brother
BEAUREGARD: Hildegard's (riverboat gambler) boyfriend
KINDLING: Small relatives
KINDRED: Morbid fear of relatives
KINETIC: Busy southern New England state
KLONDIKE: Alaskan lesbian
KOPECK: Auxiliary health insurance payment in Russia
* * *
KVETCH: Yiddish sailboat
KITSCH: Campy kvetch
* * *
LACHRYMOSE: Be unrepentant (although tearful)
LAHORE: French streetwalker
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Semantricks by Lewis M. Gediman, Nino DeNicola, Paul Gediman, Michael B. Laudor. Copyright © 2008 Lewis M. Gediman. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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