Here's a practical source where you can quickly enter a word, and a definition, example sentence, and long list of synonyms and similar words appear. Additionally, there appear to be possibly many literary references for each word. Enter pariah, for example, and you'll see the word's use by writers such as Twain and Kipling. The site doesn't offer anything on etymology that I've come across in a few minutes of browsing.

My apologies in advance if this site is for primarily commercial purposes.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com

Edit: Well, there are advertisements here and links to sales, but those are easily avoided if your mouse finger's under control.

I remember receiving this one in the mail, but all the pop-ups annoyed me, iirc, so I didn't add it to my list.

That's really cool--thanks, WW! I like the little cartoon drawings, too. I asked it about pot, and it gave several meanings I hadn't thought of, and this one which I hadn't heard of:
8. pot - a resistor with three terminals, the third being an adjustable center terminal; used to adjust voltages in radios and TV sets

Many centuries ago, when I was a young disc jockey, we referred to the large knobs on a radio mixer board -- the ones that turned volume up and down -- as "pots."

short for potentiometer I think

short for potentiometer

Yup. It's been in my active vocabulary since 1965 or earlier.

...and the "volume" control, if my source is accurate (and I don't see how this could be just another Urban Legend) comes from the fact that the perceived loudness coming from a loudspeaker is directly related to the VOLUME of air it displaces as the electromagnet drives the cone back and forth.

(Doesn't this whole sub-thread belong in the Joke/Antenna forum instead?)

just another Urban Legend

Volume has had this sense in music since 1822 according to the OED

When I wuz at school, we had us a science teacher who was into ham radio like a rat up a drainpipe. We got chapter and verse on radio/electrical/electronic terminology, including pots and the derivation of volume, plus more about valves (tubes to you USns) than I ever wanted to know, even when I was wiring them up for real in my first home-made amp, which was a doozy, 200 watts RMS.

It went, as Nigel Tufnell would say, up to eleven. I had to abandon it (sob) when the valves I was using became unavailable. Funny thing is that now, some thirty years later, they are making the damned things again!

I have an audiophile chum who has invested many thousands of dollars (US) into a stereo system which is located like a shrine in his home. If one is foolish enough to ask even the simplest question about it, thereby showing the tiniest bit of interest, he is likely to run on at length about topics which induce an hypnotic state in mere (non-audiophile) mortals. One of his favourite dissertations is about tubes (valves) versus solid-state thingies. He will carry on about softness and gentility and other non-scientific considerations, which justify the expenditure of wheelbarrows full of money on sets which contain tubes (valves). My recommendation: don't ask.

I have an audiophile chum who has invested many thousands of dollars (US) into a stereo system which is located like a shrine in his home. If one is foolish enough to ask even the simplest question about it, thereby showing the tiniest bit of interest, he is likely to run on at length about topics which induce an hypnotic state in mere (non-audiophile) mortals. One of his favourite dissertations is about tubes (valves) versus solid-state thingies. He will carry on about softness and gentility and other non-scientific considerations, which justify the expenditure of wheelbarrows full of money on sets which contain tubes (valves). My recommendation: don't ask.
That was wonderfully written, my friend.

Thank you, Jackie, for a kind and encouraging comment. These have been in short supply on this board of late, which detracts from the friendly and positive tone which is the ideal.

The Old Padre

Me too. You too Jackie and many others, indeed all of you here, at most times (although there are lots of discussions that are well over my head), who have helped me laugh, learn and think better.
Bees (honey) and Owls (wisdom) for all.
Smart can be good,
Kind wisdom always is.

"short for potentiometer"
I was just getting ready to type this very sentence.
Happily I can say it was not in my vocabulary till a long time after 1965.

k

"There are many instances where only a portion of an output voltage from a signal source is needed. If we allowed the full output voltage from a home CD player to be driven into the input of an amplifier, the amplifier would play at or near full power at all times. This would become quite annoying in a very short period of time. To reduce the overall volume, we need to allow only a fraction of the full signal through to the amplifier. To control the level of the signal, we use a potentiometer. A potentiometer (also know as a 'pot') is a modified resistor. Potentiometers can be used to allow a change in the resistance in a circuit or as a variable voltage divider (in the case of a volume control). If you have a rotary volume control on your TV or radio, it is (more than likely) a potentiometer being used as a variable voltage divider.* A potentiometer generally has 3 terminals. 2 of the terminals are connected to the opposite ends of a resistive element. The 3rd terminal (usually, is physically in-between the other 2 terminals) is called the wiper. The wiper is a contact (actually, generally many very small contacts) that slides along the resistive element. "

http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/potentio.htm