My Science School

Baton

The word baton can refer to the thin stick used by a conductor to direct an orchestra, the short stick passed by one runner to another in a relay race or even a staff of authority or office. A relay runner carries and passes a metal or wooden baton to the next runner, and a baton twirler in a parade spins and throws a long, metal baton in the air as she marches. Police officers carry batons as well, heavy sticks that can be used as weapons. This is the original meaning of baton, from the Latin bastum, "stout staff."

Origin

The word, which has been around since the 1540s, is from the French word baton. This in turn is derived from French baston meaning stick, staff or rod and this is probably from the Greek baston for support.

Usage

If their exchange of batons had been more efficient, they probably would have won a medal in the race.

The majorette twirled the baton.

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Ludicrous

Meaning:

Ludicrous is an adjective used to describe something that is unreasonable or that cannot be taken seriously. Over time, ludicrous took on a more negative flavor. Now a ludicrous statement might be funny, but it's also ridiculous, hard to believe, off the wall, or even stupid. When people say "That idea is ludicrous!" it usually means the idea could never happen: the notion is laughable. Saying Neil Armstrong was the third President would be a ludicrous statement.

Origin:

The word finds its origin in the early 17th Century in the sense 'sportive, intended as a jest. It is borrowed from Latin ludicrous, probably from ludicrum, meaning 'stage play' and ous.

Usage:

It was ludicrous of him to think he could scale Mount Everest alone.

The serious and the absurd have to be learnt together; but ludicrous theatrical buffoonery is fit only for foreigners.

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Panache

A confident and stylish way of doing things or presenting things; a flamboyant or grand manner. It also refers to an ornamental tuft mounted on hats and helmets.

Origin

Panache derives via Middle French from Late Latin "pinnaculum", meaning "small wing" or "gable,". In both French and English, panache originally referred to a showy, feathery plume on a hat or helmet, which was worn by some royal guards. Few can match the panache of French poet and soldier Cyrano de Bergerac. In his dying moments, he declared that the one thing left to him was his panache, and that assertion at once demonstrates the meaning of the word and draws upon its history. Panache derives via Middle French from Late Latin pinnaculum, meaning "small wing" or "gable," a root that also gave English the word pinnacle. In both French and English, panache originally referred to a showy, feathery plume on a hat or helmet; its "dashing" figurative sense developed from the verve and swagger of one bold enough to wear such an adornment in public. When the dying Cyrano turned his huge nose heavenward and spoke of his panache, his nose became the literal and figurative pinnacle of a multifaceted pun.

Usage

Roger Federer dominated the professional tennis circuit with panache.

She played the role of hostess with great panache.

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Quizzical

This adjective means seeming to ask a question without saying anything: expressing slight uncertainty or amusement. Its source is from the great Spanish novel "Don Quixote," whose title character is given to unrealistic schemes and great chivalry. In the middle of a recession and high unemployment, it would be quixotic to imagine that you could quit your job and find another easily.

Origin:

The word is said to have its origin in the 18th Century, from the word quiz, which referred to an odd person. Over centuries, the meaning of the word quiz came to mean question, and the adjective quizzical too became associated the way it is now. 'Quiz' was also used as a name for a kind of toy, something like a yo-yo, which was popular around 1790. The word is nevertheless hard to account for, and so is its later meaning of 'to question or interrogate'. This emerged in the mid-19th century and gave rise to the most common use of the term today, for a type of entertainment based on a test of a person's knowledge.

Example:

She wore a quizzical look as she walked towards me.

There was a quizzical expression on his face.

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Bagatelle

Meaning:

The noun has two meanings- a board game with small balls that you try to hit into holes; and, a small or unimportant thing or amount. It probably developed from the table made with raised sides for trou madame, which was also played with ivory balls and continued to be popular into the later 19th century, after which it developed into bar billiards, with influences from the French/Belgian game billard russe (with supposed Russian origins). A bagatelle variant using fixed metal pins, billard japonais, eventually led to the development of pachinko and pinball. Bagatelle is also laterally related to miniature golf.

Origin:

As a game, bagatelle traces its origins to the early 19th Century. As an unimportant thing, the word finds its origins in the mid 17th Century, from French, from Italian bagatella, where baga means baggage, or from Latin baca, meaning 'berry'. Table games involving sticks and balls evolved from efforts to bring outdoor games like ground billiards, croquet, and bowling inside for play during inclement weather. They are attested in general by the 15th century, although the 19th-century idea that bagatelle itself derived from the English "shovel-board" described in Charles Cotton's 1674 Compleat Gamester has since been disregarded.

Usage:

That orange candy cost a mere bagatelle.

The question of who will pick up the coffee is a mere bagatelle in the overall planning of the conference

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Fluke

The word is a noun referring to an unlikely chance occurrence, especially a surprising piece of luck.

Originally a term used in games such as billiards, it denotes a lucky stroke.

Origin

The word is said to have been around since the 12th Century. Its origin itself is not clear although it is possibly an English dialect word. One of the origin stories point to the Low German word flugel (meaning wing), though how this is exactly related to the context of "luck" does not seem to I have been established.

Usage

Her second and third awards proved that her first was not a fluke, as many had alleged.

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Blockbuster

The word blockbuster is used to denote something of great power or size. The word is used in particular in the entertainment industry to tell about the success of a film, book or other commercial successes.

Origin

The word has been around only from the 1940s and is also used as block-buster at times. In fact, the word was first used to correspond to a large bomb that could bust blocks in the built-up city square.

So blockbuster initially corresponded to the widespread destruction that they could cause. The entertainment sense of the word, like a spectacularly successful production, was first attested only in 1952 but has gone on to become the more used form nowadays.

Usage

That author has a reputation of writing blockbuster novels.

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Reputation

Meaning:

The noun stands for the opinion that people have about something or someone based on what has happened in the past.

Origin:

The word finds its origins in Middle English from Latin reputare meaning think over, from re meaning ‘expression’, and putare meaning think.

Usage:

The national highway has a reputation for being prone to accidents

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Tailspin

Meaning:

Tailspin means a state of confusion or panic, a situation in which something dramatically fails or gets out of control. It also means an emotional breakdown. Tailspin is used as a noun and a verb.

Origin:

First used in 1917, it originally meant "rapid spiralling descent of an aircraft" from "tail" + "spin". The term took on the figurative sense of "a state characterised by loss of control" from 1928.

Example sentences:

The pandemic threw the economy into a tailspin.

Stock prices went into a tailspin following the failure of the President in the election.

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Ambidextrous

It is an adjective, and means, to be able to use the right and left hands equally well. It also means (something) designed to be used by left-handed and right-handed people with equal ease.

Origin:

Ambidextrous has its origin in Latin, from the words ambi (both or both sides) and dexter (favourable or right-handed). The word has been used in this context since the end of the 16th Century.

Example:

She was thrilled to be ambidextrous.

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