An Italian word, aparently meaning a falsehood, a lie.
Bugia
"Have you been eating the cookies?" "No! Honest, I haven't."
"Then what is all that powdered sugar doing on your chest?"
Bugia, or liar's cookies, leave a telltale trail.
Having prickles, thorns, or a sting.
A favorite claim of skin lotions, the ability to soften.
nainsook
A fine, soft, plain woven cotton fabric. The cotton used in nainsook is typically mercerized,
polished, then combed to produce a soft, lustrous finish. It is used for infants clothing,
blouses, dresses and lingerie.
fritillary
n.,
pl. 3lar#ies 5< ModL Fritillaria < L fritillus, dice box: from markings on the petals or wings6
1 any of a genus (Fritillaria) of perennial, bulbous plants of the lily family, with nodding, bell-shaped flowers
2 any of certain medium-sized nymphalid butterflies, usually having brownish wings with silver spots on the undersides
ponerology: division of theology
dealing with evil.
Here comes a lot of unsought, but I hope welcome information:
Indo-European Roots
ENTRY:
ter-1
DEFINITION:
To rub, turn; with some derivatives referring to twisting, boring, drilling, and piercing;
and others referring to the rubbing of cereal grain to remove the husks, and thence to
the process of threshing either by the trampling of oxen or by flailing with flails. Oldest
form *ter1-, with variant *tre1-, contracted to *tr-.
Derivatives include trite, detriment, thrash, trauma, and truant.
I. Full-grade form *ter()-. 1a. trite, triturate; attrition, contrite, detriment, from
Latin terere (past participle trtus), to rub away, thresh, tread, wear out; b. teredo,
from Greek terdn, a kind of biting worm. 2. Suffixed form *ter-et-. terete, from
Latin teres (stem teret-), rounded, smooth. 3. Suffixed form *ter-sko-. a. thrash,
thresh, from Old English therscan, to thresh; b. threshold, from Old English
therscold, threscold, sill of a door (over which one treads; second element obscure).
Both a and b from Germanic *therskan, *threskan, to thresh, tread.
II. O-grade form *tor()-. 1. toreutics, from Greek toreus, a boring tool. 2.
Suffixed form *tor()-mo-, hole. derma2, from Old High German darm, gut, from
Germanic *tharma-. 3. Suffixed form *tor()-no-. turn; attorn, attorney, contour,
detour, return, from Greek tornos, tool for drawing a circle, circle, lathe.
III. Zero-grade form *tr-. drill1, from Middle Dutch drillen, to drill, from Germanic
*thr-.
IV. Variant form *tr- (< *tre-). 1. throw, from Old English thrwan, to turn,
twist, from Germanic *thrw-. 2. Suffixed form *tr-tu-. thread, from Old English thr
d, thread, from Germanic *thrdu-, twisted yarn. 3. Suffixed form *tr-m (<
*tre- or *t-). monotreme, trematode, from Greek trma, perforation. 4. Suffixed
form *tr-ti- (< *tre- or *t-). atresia, from Greek trsis, perforation.
V. Extended form *tr- (< *tri-). 1. Probably suffixed form *tr-n-. septentrion,
from Latin tri, plow ox. 2. Suffixed form *tr-dhlo-. tribulation, from Latin trbulum,
a threshing sledge.
VI. Various extended forms 1. Forms *tr-, *trau-. trauma, from Greek trauma,
hurt, wound. 2. Form *trb-. diatribe, triboelectricity, tribology, trypsin, from Greek
trbein, to rub, thresh, pound, wear out. 3. Form *trg-, *trag-. a. trogon, trout, from
Greek trgein, to gnaw; b. dredge2, from Greek tragma, sweetmeat. 4. Form
*trup-. trepan1; trypanosome, from Greek trup, hole. 5. Possible form *trg-.
truant, from Old French truant, beggar. (Pokorny 3. ter- 1071.)
From another site, toreutics is the study of art work in metal.
related to verb "to object". A couple sources called it a noun, but it looks to me like an
adjective, and not a good one to use as a noun.
Botanical term = appearing in autumn or late summer.
A stupid coinage if I ever heard one: A collector of matchbook covers.
so divine vegetables gone bad would be cornpone?
A stupid coinage
You'd prefer phillocofocoist?
Dear etaoin: I hadn't heard of corn pone for a long time. My mother always called it "johnnycake".
And I didn't know until I just looked it up that "pone" is from an Indian word.
Dear Faldage: locofoco I hadn't heard for a long time. But doesn't fit, because book matches
are safety type, meaning the require special ignition strip, for safety. The locofocos did not.
And the locofocos were not in books.
Even the book matches could be dangerous. I saw a guy in Philippines light a cigarette, holding
the book of matches between index and social finger, with strike strip near his palm. Sweat had
made match heads brittle, and a burning chunk popped onto heads of matches in the book,
and a flame shot out into web between fingers, causing a horrible burn.
Italian saying
le bugie hanno le gambe corte
Lies have short legs (it means that they cannot run fast, and so are quickly discovered)
Dear emanuela: But even though they have short legs, lies travel widely.
Cording to Mr. Twain, a lie gets half way round the world before the truth can get its boots on.
And, as we all know, halfway round the world is farther away than all the way round the world.
I was surprised to see trite amongst the 'ter-1' derivatives. But I guess the connection is through rub away and wear out. A trite saying would be one that is worn out through overuse.
When I was a boy we had a craze for collecting match book covers (pleased to say I have now recovered) and my American Godfather sent me a box - by mail - containing around five hundred covers with the matches still in them. The box was held by customs and questions were asked that resulted in my father and me having to go up to London and visit the customs people and the American Embassy where we had to add our sworn statements (or his, I guess) to one that had already been extracted from my Godfather that these were for collecting purposes and that there had been no intent to commit arson. I don't recall the term 'phillumenist' being used in those days.
Incidentally, I assume the self-burner you describe was not a Philippino philumenist. Was he philosophical or did he sing out like a philomel?
The Scripps-Howard word list defines "bugia" as "Algerian geographical name> L. a low
candlestick with a short handle.
So, how did it also come to mean "a lie"?