 of material to spall off. noun a splinter or chip, especially of rock. ORIGIN late Middle English (as a noun): of unknown origin. The verb dates from the mid 18th cent.
ziggurat |noun (in ancient Mesopotamia) a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium bc and probably inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9). [One of Chiang's stories is about the Tower of Babel.]
homunculus (also homuncule) noun (pl. homunculi or homuncules) a very small human or humanoid creature.• historical a microscopic but fully formed human being from which a fetes was formerly believed to develop. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Latin, diminutive of homo, homin- ‘man’.
parthenogenesis noun [ mass noun ] Biology reproduction from an ovum without fertilisation, especially as a normal process in some invertebrates and lower plants. cyclic parthenogenesis is well displayed in aphids. DERIVATIVES parthenogenetic adjective ,parthenogenetically adverb ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: modern Latin, from Greek parthenos ‘virgin’ + genesis ‘creation’. [I knew this one only from my Greek mythology - Zeus, you know.]
paralinguistic adjective relating to or denoting paralanguage or the non-lexical elements of communication by speech.
tautology noun (pl. tautologies) [ mass noun ] the saying of the same thing twice over in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g. they arrived one after the other in succession).• [ count noun ] a phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words.• Logic a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form. DERIVATIVES tautological adjective ,tautologically adverb, tautologist noun,tautologize (also tautologise) verb, tautologous adjective ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: via late Latin from Greek, from tautologies ‘repeating what has been said’, from tauto- ‘same’ + -logos (see -logy) . [I LOVE TO USE THIS: i.e. repeat something someone has just said - it adds a nice touch of humour to a scene.]
This last word is not from Chiang. I got it from the Manchester Guardian and I guess I should have known it before. It is used commonly now in Europe, more than in North America: Shoah noun (the Shoah: another term for the Holocaust (see holocaust). ORIGIN modern Hebrew, literally ‘catastrophe.
There. Another day, another blog.