Wednesday, April 23, 2008

365* New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing) 4/23/8: glabrous

glabrous adj : smooth; especially : having a surface without hairs or projections
The DYK quots William Carlos Williams use of the word in "Sunday in the Park", but indicates that it's more likely to be found ni scientific contexts. It goes on to say that "although Latin glaber, our word's source, can simply mean 'bald,' when 'glabrous' refers to skin with no hair in scientific English, it usually means skin that never had hair (such as the skin of our palms)." Rating 8/10 bald spots.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"