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#i really cannot find a reliable independent source for the etymology of 'ushakaron'
tanadrin · 1 year
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Favorite words
I keep a file on my computer of my favorite words, which are usually selected for phonaesthetic reasons, or because they are semantically or grammatically interesting. This is the list as of the most recent entries (”velico” and “Ushakaron”):
Individual words
analáugns (Gothic): hidden (nom. m. sg.)
anchorhold (English): the cell of an anchorite, in which the occupant is entombed as a kind of living saint
Apocryphan (invented): from World of Warcraft; proper name, of the pre-Cataclysm location “Apocryphan’s Rest” in the Badlands zone
armōsts (Gothic): poorest (nom. m. sg.)
ashkandi /,æʃ 'kɑn di/ (invented): proper name (World of Warcraft)
bearonæss /'bæɑɹ o ,næs/ (Old English): wooded headland (from bearu, "grove")
beinahrúgu (Old Norse): bone pile (dat. of beinahrúga)
carcern (Old English): prison (from Latin)
coalesce, coalescent (English)
crepuscular (English)
darkling (English): in darkness
daroð (Old English): javelin, projectile, “dart” in the older, more expansive sense
deliquesce (English), become liquid, esp. through organic decomposition
deosil (English): variant spelling of ‘deasil,’ turnwise; from Scottish Gaelic deiseil or deiseal, meaning ‘southward, sunward, counterclockwise;’ see also "widdershins," etymologically "anti-sunwise" and therefore counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere.
effloresce, efflorescence, efflorescent (English): to burst forth into bloom, to flower; from Latin effloresco, “I blossom, I flourish”
Enakro (invented): from Warcraft III; proper name, from the name of the multiplayer map “Enakro’s Way”
Eskhandar /'ɛsk hænd ,dɑɹ/ (invented): from World of Warcraft; proper name
etiäinen (Finnish): a type of folkloric apparition
exarch (English): a Byzantine provincial governor, particularly of an exarchate like Ravenna or Africa, from Greek ἔξαρχος.
fralusanō (Gothic): lost, gone away (nom. f. weak sg.)
gevaisa (invented): a tomb of living words; term of art among wizards of the Discworld; cf. Hebrew geniza, "a storeroom containing books which cannot be used, but which nevertheless cannot be destroyed because they contain God's name"
gnist (Danish): spark; related to OE gnāst, ON gniesta, SWE gnista, OHG gneisto, MHG gneiste
hellwara (Old English): ‘of the inhabitants of hell’ (gen. pl. of f. hellwaru or m. hellwaran)
hnasqus (Gothic): soft; cognate of OE hnesce, “soft,” ModE. dialectical nesh “wimpish, weak”
idaltu (Saho-Afar): elder, firstborn; cf. Homo sapiens idaltu, the (obsolete) classification of the “Herto man” specimen, human remains of about 150,000 years of age discovered in the Afar triangle, which were some of the oldest modern human remains known at the time of their description.
idreigonds (Gothic): repentant (nom. m. sg.)
iktsuarpok (English): the feeling of anticipation waiting for someone to arrive, often leading to repeatedly going outside to check for them; from Inuktitut ᐃᒃᑦᓱᐊᕐᐳᒃ itsoarpok, “goes outside repeatedly to check if a visitor has arrived yet.”
incunabulum (English): an early printed book; something in its infant stages; from Latin incunabula, ‘swaddling clothes, cradle, birthplace.” The change in ending is a result of the medieval form incunabulum, which was a singular back-formation of a noun previously found only in the plural.
incus (Latin): "anvil"
inwitwrāsen (Old English): ‘chain of deceit’
Iolanthe (Greek): proper name meaning ‘flower of the violet’
irgendwo (German): somewhere, anywhere
κακοΐλιον (Ancient Greek): proper name (‘Kakoilion’); dysphemism for Troy; compound of κᾰκός, “bad, vile, evil,” and Ἴλιον, “Ilion/Troy/Wilusa.” Translated variously as "evil Ilios" (A.T. Murray) or "Destroy" (Fagles, pun very much intended); a poetic hapax legomenon in Homer's Odyssey, used by Penelope for Troy.
kasterborous /kæs 'tɝɹ bɔɹ oʊs/ (invented): proper name of the constellation in Doctor Who containing Gallifrey; possibly Gallifreyan
lhammas (invented): the Elvish (Quenya?) name of a work of fictional sociolinguistics by J.R.R. Tolkien outlining the relationship of the languages of Middle Earth, later superseded; borrowed as a term for "a scheme of invented languages; the historical and aesthetic plan of languages in a constructed world; such scheme in the abstract, or a document laying out such a scheme"
lint (invented): quick, clever; possibly coined by Tolkien, and of no particular language; it formed the root of such words in several constructed languages of his that were unrelated, simply because he liked the sound-meaning relationship
listopad (Polish): November; literally, “leaf-fall”
mæw (Old English): seagull
mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): glossed as ‘a look shared by two people wishing the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin.’ The word is a regular derivation from ihlvpi, “to feel awkward, to be at a loss,’ with various grammatical affixes of voice, aspect, and so forth, and might be more accurately translated as ‘to make each other both feel awkward.’
narthex (English): antechamber or entrance area of some Christian churches; from Greek νάρθηξ, “giant fennel, box for ointments”
neorxnawang (Old English): ‘field of heaven’
opalescent (English): iridescent in a manner resembling opal
orcnaw (Old English): evident
razda (Gothic): voice
reordberend (Old English): ‘voice-bearer,’ i.e., a poetic word for a human being
ríastrad (Irish): battle frenzy, berserker rage, warp spasm
ruinenlust (German): literally ‘desire for ruins;’ yearning for the past evoked by ruins
Saoshyant /'saʊ ,ʃyənt/ (English): eschatological figure of Zoroastrian scripture and tradition who brings about the final renovation of the universe, the Frashokereti. From Avestan 𐬯𐬀𐬊𐬳𐬌𐬌𐬀𐬧𐬝 saoš́iiaṇt̰.
Sargasso (English): proper name applied to a region of the western Atlantic; from Portuguese sargaço, of unknown ultimate origin)
searonet (Old English): web of guile, web of cunning
Sumer (English): proper name, from Akkadian Šumeru, of uncertain origin but potentially related to Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Shin’ar, Egyptian sꜣngꜣr , and Hittite Shanhar(a), all meaning “southern Mesopotamia;” has also been linked to the Sumerian endonym 𒊕𒈪𒂵 sag̃-gig-ga, “black-headed people, the Sumerians”
talast (Old English): 2nd person singular present active indicative: thou reckonest, thou dost consider
tīrfæst (Old English): glorious
tramountayne (Middle English fr. Latin via Italian): the north; the north wind; the north star (rare) (from Latin transmontanus)
Tuscarora (English): proper name of a Native American people, from Skarure skarū’ren’, “hemp gatherers.”
Tyree (English): found as a personal name and surname (cf. Mount Tyree in Antarctica, named for a U.S. Navy rear admiral); name of a fictional planet in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; from Tiree (Scottish Gaelic Tiriodh), the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides.
Ushakaron (English): proper name of a star; according to unsourced claims, the triple star ξ Tauri, possibly from the Akkadian word for “avenger”
velico (Italian): sailing
westengryre (Old English): ‘terrors of the wasteland, terrors of the desert’
whyssyne (Middle English): cushion
wodwo (Middle English): woodwose, a wild man of the woods
þancoi (Old English): thoughtful
þystro (Old English): darkness (nom./acc. strong n. pl.)
Phrases or expressions
uncleftish beholding ("Uncleftish Beholding," by Poul Anderson, English): "atomic theory" as calqued into solely Germanic roots
proclarush taonas (Stargate SG-1, supposed ‘Ancient’ language): "Taonas, lost in fire"
varg í véum (Vǫlsunga Saga, Old Norse) "a wolf in holy places," i.e., an outlaw (equivalent to skógarmaðr)
wære fræton (Exodus, Old English): "they ate the treaty," i.e., they broke it
hapax legomenon (from Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον): a word which occurs only once in a manuscript or particular textual corpus
táiknái andsakanái (Gothic, Luke 2:34), “disputed sign,” cf. KJV, “a sign which will be contradicted.”
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