Word - 180

ZANY \ZAY-nee\ noun

1 : a subordinate clown or acrobat in old comedies who mimics ludicrously the tricks of the principal

2 : one who acts the buffoon to amuse others

*3 : a foolish, eccentric, or crazy person

Example sentence:

My brother's friends are an unpredictable bunch of zanies.

Did you know?

Zanies have been theatrical buffoons since the heyday of the Italian commedia dell'arte, which introduced those knavish clowns. The Italian "zanni" was a stock servant character, often an intelligent and proud valet with abundant common sense, a love of practical jokes, and a tendency to be quarrelsome, cowardly, envious, vindictive, and treacherous. Zanni, the Italian name for the character, comes from a dialect nickname for Giovanni, the Italian form of John. The character quickly spread throughout European theater circles, inspiring such familiar characters as Pierrot and Harlequin, and by the late 1500s an anglicized version of the noun "zany" was introduced to English-speaking audiences by no less a playwright than William Shakespeare (in Love's Labour's Lost).

Word - 179

FRIEZE \FREEZ\ noun

1 : the part of an entablature between the architrave and the cornice

2 : a sculptured or richly ornamented band (as on a building or piece of furniture)

*3 : a band, line, or series suggesting a frieze

Example sentence:
"The house commands a hilltop and is forbidding, imposing, but softened with a frieze of beautiful American elms." (Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary)

Did you know?

Today's word is not the only "frieze" in English. The other "frieze" refers to a kind of heavy wool fabric. Both of the "frieze" homographs derive from French, but each entered that language through a different channel. The woolen homograph is from the Middle Dutch word "vriese," which also refers to coarse wool. The "frieze" that we are featuring as our word today is from the Latin word "frisium," meaning "embroidered cloth." That word evolved from "phrygium" and "Phrygia," the name of an ancient country of Asia Minor whose people excelled in metalwork, wood carving, and (unsurprisingly) embroidery. That embroidery lineage influenced the use of "frieze" for the middle division of an entablature, which commonly has a decorated surface resembling embroidered cloth.

Word - 178

TREPID \TREP-id\ adjective

: timorous, fearful

Example sentence:
After dark, the less trepid among us would venture as far as the front porch of the empty house, where the smallest creak would send us screaming.

Did you know?

Don't be afraid to use "trepid." After all, it has been in the English language for more than 350 years -- longer, by 30 years, than its antonym "intrepid." "Trepid" (from Latin "trepidus," meaning "alarmed" or "agitated") isn't used as much as "intrepid," but it can be a good word at times. Bill Kaufman, for example, found a use for it in a May 7, 2000 Newsday article, in which an aquarium volunteer is "asked if she is perhaps a little trepid about swimming with sharks in a 12-foot deep, 120,000 gallon tank." (Her fearless reply: "Not really.") The more intrepid among you might even consider using "trepidate" for "to tremble with fear" and "trepidant," meaning "timid" or "trembling." These are uncommon words, granted, but they haven't breathed their last.

Word - 177

YOKEL \YOH-kul\ noun

: a naive or gullible inhabitant of a rural area or small town

Example sentence:
"I was trying to get off the subway," complained Amy, "but some befuddled yokels were blocking the door, trying to figure out if this was their stop."

Did you know?

The origins of "yokel" are uncertain, but it might have come from the dialectal English word "yokel," meaning "green woodpecker." Other words for supposedly naive country folk are "chawbacon" (from "chaw," meaning "chew," and "bacon"), "hayseed" (which has obvious connections to country life), and "clodhopper" (indicating a clumsy, heavy-footed rustic). But city slickers don't always have the last word: rural folk have had their share of labels for city-dwellers too. One simple example from current use is the often disparaging use of the adjective "citified." A more colorful (albeit historical) example is "cockney," which literally means "cock's egg," or more broadly "misshapen egg." In the past, this word often designated a spoiled or foppish townsman -- as opposed to the sturdy countryman, that is.

Word - 176

MEANDER \mee-AN-der\ verb

*1 : to follow a winding or intricate course

2 : to wander aimlessly or casually without urgent destination

: ramble

Example sentence:
As we meandered through the underground maze, we stumbled upon a pile of stones that appeared to mark a burial site.

Did you know?

"Roam," "ramble," and "meander" all mean to move about from place to place without a plan or definite purpose, but each suggests wandering in a unique way. "Roam" refers to carefree wandering over a wide area often for pleasure (as in, "I roamed over the hills for hours"). "Ramble" stresses carelessness and indifference to one’s course or objective (for instance, "the speaker rambled on without ever coming to the point"). "Meander," which comes from Greek "Maiandros," an old name for a river in Asia Minor, implies a winding course and lazy movement, and it is still sometimes associated with rivers (as in, "the river meandered through the town"). "Meander" can also be used as a noun meaning "a winding path."