playwright

 

A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.

Penrose stairs

 The Penrose stairs or Penrose steps, also dubbed the impossible staircase, is an impossible object created by Oscar Reutersvärd in 1937 and later independently discovered and made popular by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose. A variation on the Penrose triangle, it is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three-dimensional Euclidean geometry but possible in some non-eucliean geometry like in nil geometry.

 

Neuroinformatics

 

Neuroinformatics is the field that combines informatics and neuroscience. Neuroinformatics is related with neuroscience data and information processing by artificial neural networks. There are three main directions where neuroinformatics has to be applied:

• the development of computational models of the nervous system and neural processes.
• the development of tools for analyzing and modeling neuroscience data,
• the development of tools and databases for management and sharing of neuroscience data at all levels of analysis

 

exsanguinate

 

exsanguinate (third-person singular simple present exsanguinates, present participle exsanguinating, simple past and past participle exsanguinated)

1. (transitive) To kill by means of blood loss.
2. (intransitive) To die by means of blood loss.
3. (transitive) To drain a body (living or dead) of blood.

 

dank

 Dark, damp and humid.

cootie catcher

 A fortune teller (also called a cootie catcher, chatterbox, salt cellar, whirlybird, or paku-paku) is a form of origami used in children's games. Parts of the fortune teller are labelled with colors or numbers that serve as options for a player to choose from, and on the inside are eight flaps, each concealing a message. The person operating the fortune teller manipulates the device based on the choices made by the player, and finally one of the hidden messages is revealed. These messages may purport to answer questions (hence the name) or they may be activities that the player must perform. 

 

pottle

 pottle

half a gallon

Oology

 Oology (or oölogy) is a branch of ornithology studying bird eggs, nests and breeding behaviour. The word is derived from the Greek oion, meaning egg. Oology can also refer to the hobby of collecting wild birds' eggs, sometimes called egg collecting, birdnesting or egging, which is now illegal in many jurisdictions.

 

Egg collecting was still popular in the early 20th century, even as its scientific value became less prominent. Egg collectors built large collections and traded with one another. Frequently, collectors would go to extreme lengths to obtain eggs of rare birds. For example, Charles Bendire was willing to have his teeth broken to remove a rare egg that became stuck in his mouth. He had placed the egg in his mouth while climbing down a tree.

yeuk

 

yeuk (plural yeuks)

1. (Scotland) itch, a prickly feeling

holoalphabetic sentence

 A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding. 

 

Estoppel

 Estoppel is a judicial device in common law legal systems whereby a court may prevent or "estop" a person from making assertions or from going back on his or her word; the person being sanctioned is "estopped".

jomo

 JOMO

Joy of missing out

 

abiogenesis

 In biology, abiogenesis (from a-‘not’ + Greek bios ‘life’ + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes. Many proposals have been made for different stages of the process. 

 

half term

 

half term (plural half terms)

1. (UK) A short school holiday in the middle of the term.
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see half,‎ term.

guydom

 

guydom (uncountable)

(informal) The quality of being a guy, or man. 

 

imposthume

 

imposthume (plural imposthumes)

1. (obsolete) An abscess.
2. (obsolete) A person suffering from an abscess.

metrocentric

 

metrocentric (comparative more metrocentric, superlative most metrocentric)

1. Focusing on a metropolis, or large city.

 

Campanology

 Campanology (/kæmpəˈnɒlədʒi/) is the scientific and musical study of bells. It encompasses the technology of bells – how they are founded, tuned and rung – as well as the history, methods, and traditions of bellringing as an art.

 

It is common to collect together a set of tuned bells and treat the whole as one musical instrument. Such collections – such as a Flemish carillon, a Russian zvon, or an English "ring of bells" used for change ringing – have their own practices and challenges; and campanology is likewise the study of perfecting such instruments and composing and performing music for them. 

 

In this sense, however, the word campanology is most often used in reference to relatively large bells, often hung in a tower. It is not usually applied to assemblages of smaller bells, such as a glockenspiel, a collection of tubular bells, or an Indonesian gamelan.

Gytrash

 

The Gytrash , a legendary black dog known in Northern England, was said to haunt lonely roads awaiting travelers. Appearing in the shape of horses, mules, cranes or dogs, the Gytrash haunt solitary ways and lead people astray, but they can also be benevolent, guiding lost travelers to the right road. They are usually feared.

In some parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, the Gytrash was known as the Shagfoal and took the form of a spectral mule or donkey with eyes that glowed like burning coals. In this form, the beast was believed to be purely malevolent. 

 

liminality

 In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.

More recently, usage of the term has broadened to describe political and cultural change as well as rites. During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt.

amanuensis

 An amanuensis (/əˌmænjuˈɛnsɪs/) is a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another, and also refers to a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority. In one example Eric Fenby assisted the blind composer Frederick Delius in writing down the notes that Delius dictated. 

 

Torschlusspanik

 

Torschlusspanik f (genitive Torschlusspanik, no plural)

eleventh hour panic (the fear that time to act is running out)

From Tor +‎ Schluss +‎ Panik, literally “gate-shut panic”. For safety reasons city gates used to be shut at nightfall (Torschluss, from Tor +‎ Schluss), leaving latecomers no other choice than to stay outside, thereby exposing them to various dangers. 

 

Rhyolite

 Rhyolite (/ˈraɪ.əlaɪt/ RY-ə-lyte) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase. It is the extrusive equivalent to granite.

 

ingester

 

ingester (plural ingesters)

One who ingests.

rerebrace

 A rerebrace (sometimes known as an upper cannon) is a piece of armour designed to protect the upper arms (above the elbow). Splint rerebraces were a feature of Byzantine armour in the Early Medieval period. The rerebrace seems to have re-emerged in England, in the early 14th century. As part of the full plate armour of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance the rerebrace was a tubular piece of armour between the shoulder defences (spaulder or pauldron) and the elbow protection (couter).