Aristophanes of Byzantium with the compiling of the first dictionary , which he simply called Leixis , or Words , in 200 BC. So now we know that folks have been consulting them for at least 2,200 years, but they offer more meaning than meanings alone. Théophile Gautier read them to improve his poetry, Walter Pater regularly consulted them to keep his prose warm and marmoreal. Of all people, Mae West may have the most memorable line about one. After learning that she had inspired the name for a life jacket, she said, “I’ve been in Who’s Who and in “What’s What” but this is the first time I’ve ever been in a dictionary .” What would she have said if she knew her ample bosom had also inspired the name for what happens to a parachute when one of the lines comes across the top and it forms a giant bra? Finally, I find it boundlessly charming to discover that one of the very first dictionaries for young people was called the Promptorium Parvuloru —in English, “The Prompt for the Young” or “Treasure House of Words for the Young.” Thus, a dictionary doesn’t merely give us a little information about a word or two we are looking up, but it prompts us to think longer and harder about them. Writing in a letter to Fransesco Sastres (August 21, 1784), Dr. Johnson said, “ Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than
none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.” For some reason, in Spain and Mexico dictionaries are called “donkey-killers,” perhaps because of the mulish demands on them to carry great loads of meaning across treacherous lands of meaninglessness.
DINOSAUR
A humungous, mostly carnivorous, occasionally herbivorous, now extinct reptile of the Mesozoic Era. Coined, in 1841, by Richard Owen, from the Greek deinos , terrible, and sauros , lizard. No ordinary neologism, but a dramatic coining that was minted shortly after Darwin’s radical publication of the Descent of Man . Together, the discoveries of fossils and human origins were arguments marshaled against the contemporary belief that the world was only 6,000 years old. Bishop Ussher, of Dublin, pinned the time down to the precise day and hour: January 1, 4004 BCE at 9 A.M. In its own way that historical fact underscores Emerson’s definition of language as “fossil poetr y.” In defense of science, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote, “ Dinosaur should be a term of praise, not opprobrium. Dinosaurs reigned for more than 100 million years and died through no fault of their own. Homo sapiens is nowhere near a million years old, and has limited prospects, entirely self-imposed, for extended geological longevity.” Figuratively, a dinosaur suggests something or someone terribly outdated. Companion words include saurian , lizardlike,
and the ever-popular lounge-lizard , a ladies’ man or a bar slut who slinks around bars chatting up rich women or men with come-on lines a million years out of date.
DRACHENFUTTER
An olive branch to your lover or spouse. This raspy but funny-sounding word is Old German for “dragon fodder,” or “food for the dragon.” According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary, dragon derives from the Latin draconem , and the earlier Greek drakon , serpent, and derkomai , to see, which Skeat says reflects its “supposedly sharp sight.” If the reader dares to edge up close enough to feel the breath of this beastly word, you’ll learn that it refers to a timorous peace offering, a guilt gift, to an angry spouse or doubting lover. Think of a box of chocolates, red roses, a diamond ring. The word suggests that we starve the beast of lust, feed the dragon of love . For the temptations are never-ending, as suggested in that “sparkler of a word,” as Novobatsky and Shea call the old gems, gandermooner , a man who takes more than a gander at other women during the moon or month after his wife gives birth. Companion words include draconian , strict in discipline, and dragoon , a mounted soldier
none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.” For some reason, in Spain and Mexico dictionaries are called “donkey-killers,” perhaps because of the mulish demands on them to carry great loads of meaning across treacherous lands of meaninglessness.
DINOSAUR
A humungous, mostly carnivorous, occasionally herbivorous, now extinct reptile of the Mesozoic Era. Coined, in 1841, by Richard Owen, from the Greek deinos , terrible, and sauros , lizard. No ordinary neologism, but a dramatic coining that was minted shortly after Darwin’s radical publication of the Descent of Man . Together, the discoveries of fossils and human origins were arguments marshaled against the contemporary belief that the world was only 6,000 years old. Bishop Ussher, of Dublin, pinned the time down to the precise day and hour: January 1, 4004 BCE at 9 A.M. In its own way that historical fact underscores Emerson’s definition of language as “fossil poetr y.” In defense of science, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote, “ Dinosaur should be a term of praise, not opprobrium. Dinosaurs reigned for more than 100 million years and died through no fault of their own. Homo sapiens is nowhere near a million years old, and has limited prospects, entirely self-imposed, for extended geological longevity.” Figuratively, a dinosaur suggests something or someone terribly outdated. Companion words include saurian , lizardlike,
and the ever-popular lounge-lizard , a ladies’ man or a bar slut who slinks around bars chatting up rich women or men with come-on lines a million years out of date.
DRACHENFUTTER
An olive branch to your lover or spouse. This raspy but funny-sounding word is Old German for “dragon fodder,” or “food for the dragon.” According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary, dragon derives from the Latin draconem , and the earlier Greek drakon , serpent, and derkomai , to see, which Skeat says reflects its “supposedly sharp sight.” If the reader dares to edge up close enough to feel the breath of this beastly word, you’ll learn that it refers to a timorous peace offering, a guilt gift, to an angry spouse or doubting lover. Think of a box of chocolates, red roses, a diamond ring. The word suggests that we starve the beast of lust, feed the dragon of love . For the temptations are never-ending, as suggested in that “sparkler of a word,” as Novobatsky and Shea call the old gems, gandermooner , a man who takes more than a gander at other women during the moon or month after his wife gives birth. Companion words include draconian , strict in discipline, and dragoon , a mounted soldier
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