Whether you love or hate this August heat, here are 10 words to help you describe it. blistering – (figuratively) hot enough to raise blisters I can’t work in this blistering heat. boiling (figuratively) hot enough to change something from a liquid to a gas I was boiling so I took off my cardigan. humid – containing or characterised by a great deal of water vapour It was a humid day and she was dripping with sweat. piping – extremely hot Despite the piping hot weather, he stayed indoors. roasting – (figuratively) hot enough to cook You must be roasting with that c...
In this instalment of summer-themed posts, we’ll be hanging out with the word Hammock. hammock (n.): a hanging bed of canvas or rope netting (usually suspended between two trees); swings easily. The hammock manifests across the world in many shapes and sizes, textures and titles and for many cultures, the hammock is preferable to a regular mattress for sleeping. The word 'hammock' surfaced in the 1650s and has gone down swingingly ever since. It is derived from the 1550s Spanish word 'hamaca', and apparently the Haitian 'amaca' meaning ‘fish net’. Most of us will have used them for relaxing in on a warm summer’s day. However, for ma...
The word of choice this week is inspired by a story I was told in France earlier this summer – it is strange how often the stories behind words can come up in conversation and this one was a bit potty. After a little research it seemed that there were many popular theories surrounding this word with no clear winner. However, none of the stories are without erm… charm and are perhaps worth a thought! loo noun British informal • a toilet: The first recorded appearance of this word, rather unsurprisingly, appears in James Joyce’s Ulysses. First published in its entirety in 1922, in Paris where Joyce was living at the time – even the very first recording of the word links to France. Even ...
Following the inevitably short-lived spell of wonderful weather we had in the UK this Bank Holiday, it seems only fitting that this week’s blog is weather-related! Just one slight twist, instead of looking into one just word, we’ll be looking into four… The seasons: four cyclic subdivisions of our calendar year that mark shifts in hours of sunlight, the weather and nature. But why the names 'spring', 'summer', 'autumn' and 'winter'? In the 14th century, what we now know as 'spring' was called 'springing-time', presumably a reference to the blossoming of plant life; the spring of the leaf. Through the centuries, the ...
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