I’m sure you’re aware that a sultana is a dried seedless raisin type thing and absolutely delicious when included in sticky buns which have been toasted and spread generously with butter and… Sorry, got distracted for a moment there.
An apochromatic lens is one which reduces spherical and chromatic aberrations. (The first part is where stuff looks a weird shape in the photo despite being fine in reality and the other bit is that weird purple haze you sometimes see round the edges of photographic subjects.)
You know how you’re aware a thing exists, but it had never occurred to you there was a specific word for it? (Or is that just me?) Well, those little strandy bits in an egg, which join the yolk to the ends of the egg, inside the shell, are known as chalaza.
Abiogenesis is the formation of living organisms from non-living substances. It sounds an unlikely thing to happen, but unless it was created from nothing at all, then this must be how life started on Earth. Unless it was brought here by aliens, in which case abiogenesis must have occurred on whichever planet they came from.
Oh, and the spontaneous generation of living forms is also called abiogenesis. Gosh, who’d have thought that explaining the creation of life would be complicated?
Here’s a fluffy, baby living organism. If you don’t know how babies are created, ask strangers on the bus. You’ll be sure to get a seat to yourself.
If something (or I suppose someone) is lactiferous, then they’re producing milk, or a milk like fluid. That makes sense as ‘lacto’ refers to milk and ‘ferous’ implies having or forming.
Euphorbias can probably be described as lactiferous as the sap of these plants looks very like milk. Don’t go drinking it though, as it’s a strong irritant.
I spotted today’s word whilst looking up last week’s. Perilymph is the liquid inside your ear which sloshes about and makes you dizzy if you spin round really fast. (Come on, I never actually said these posts wold be useful, did I?)
I’ve always thought of peril as being a mild sort of trouble – the kind of thing you’d face with your chums before going home for lashings of ginger beer. The variations of perilled and perilling appeared even more benign.
I thought wrong.
Peril actually mean serious and immediate danger.
Don’t know about you, but I’d rather avoid any and all forms of perilousness.
To swish something (a rejection slip perhaps) is to move it through the air, so that it makes a sound. Helpfully my dictionary describes the noise produced as ‘a swishing sound’.
To be magnanimous is to be nobly generous rather than petty in feelings or actions. Hmmm, I do try to behave with magnanimity, but sometimes I get annoyed and fail to react magnanimously.
Do you like this word? It’s a bit of a tongue mangler, isn’t it? Decidedly tricky to illustrate too.
Umm… Aha! If someone who’d annoyed me fell into the sea I’d probably be magnanimous enough to throw them a life bouy – if I didn’t have to go far to find one and I wasn’t busy or anything.
A tribulation is a great affliction or oppression, or the cause of that. The occupants of many abbeys suffered tribulations during the reformation ordered by Henry VIII.
It’s a good thing I looked it up before using it anywhere as I’d always imagined it meant a minor source of annoyance. Perhaps I was associating it with trivial?
Did you know what the word meant?