Comments by troopie

  • Creatures that live within underwater caves and aquifers, usually invertebrates, though terrestrial air-breathing subterranean animals are also sometimes included.

    May 21, 2008

  • Stygofauna usually live within freshwater aquifers, but are also found in marine caves and wells along coasts.

    May 21, 2008

  • Not to be confused with Troglobites.

    May 21, 2008

  • Not a word one needs every day but what the hell!

    May 21, 2008

  • To force or impose (one's self, remarks, opinions, etc.) on others with undue insistence or without solicitation.

    Moreover, crime is something which the citizen is happy to forget when it does not obtrude itself into public consciousness.

    -- "Voting On Crime", Irish Times, May 30, 1997

    For the next few months, Polidori continued to obtrude himself on Byron's attention in every possible way -- popping into every conversation, sulking when he was ignored, challenging Percy Bysshe Shelley to a duel, attacking an apothecary and getting arrested "accidentally" banging his employer on the knee with an oar and saying he wasn't sorry -- until finally Byron dismissed him.

    -- Angeline Goreau, "Physician, Behave Thyself", New York Times, September 3, 1989

    He was, in his relationships with his few close friends, a considerate, delightful, sensitive, helpful, unpretentious person who did not obtrude his social and political views, nor make agreeing with them a condition of steadfast friendship.

    -- Alden Whitman, "Daring Lindbergh Attained the Unattainable With Historic Flight Across Atlantic", New York Times, August 27, 1974

    And, as is common in books sewn together from previously published essays, certain redundancies obtrude.

    -- Maxine Kumin, "First, Perfect Fear; Then, Universal Love", New York Times, October 17, 1993

    Obtrude is from Latin obtrudere, "to thrust upon, to force," from ob, "in front of, before" + trudere, "to push, to thrust."

    May 19, 2008

  • Pompous or high speech

    L. altus, high, and loquor, loquens, speaking.] Lofty speech; pompous language.

    May 7, 2008

  • 1. Apathy; a lack of care or interest; indifference

    2. Spiritual or mental sloth;

    3. boredom

    Acedia is a Latin word, from Greek akedia, literally meaning "absence of caring".

    May 7, 2008

  • Non-smoker, non-smoking

    May 7, 2008

  • 1. To pay for; to buy.

    2. To pay the penalty for; atone for.

    3. To pay as penalty, to suffer.

    4. To endure, to experience, to tolerate. (Confused with abide.)

    5. To endure; to abide. (Confused with abide.)

    Old English �?bycgan (corresponding to a- + buy), from Germanic.

    "Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear." - Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream

    "But nought that wanteth rest can long aby." - Spenser

    May 7, 2008

  • Discordant; contrary; -- opposed to consonant.

    Latin ab + sonans, past preterite of sonare to sound.

    May 7, 2008

  • Having a protuberant or big belly

    "

    Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan" - Cowper

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • remote, secret, hidden

    Latin abditivus, from abdere to hide

    May 7, 2008

  • At the lowest point

    May 7, 2008

  • At the lowest point

    May 7, 2008

  • cattle thief

    Latin, from abigere to drive away; ab + agere to drive.

    May 7, 2008

  • From Greek agelastos (not laughing), ultimately from gelaein (to laugh).

    May 7, 2008