Word of the day - Prelapsarian

Let's make a list of little known and interesting words.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Apr 6 2006, 02:24 PM) [snapback]235894[/snapback]</div>

Good one. Sounds a bit dirty, doesn't it?

[a. late L. {umac}s{umac}fruct-us (whence Sp. and Pg. usufructo, It. usu-, usofrutto, Pr. usufrug), ad. L. {umac}sus-fructus (abl. {umac}s{umac}-fruct{umac}). Cf. USUFRUIT.]

1. Law. The right of temporary possession, use, or enjoyment of the advantages of property belonging to another, so far as may be had without causing damage or prejudice to this. Also transf.
c1630 SIR T. HOPE Minor Practicks (1734) 252 After the Usu-fruct is once lawfully constitute by a Seasin. 1681 STAIR Instit. xvi. 327 Usufruct is the power of disposal of the use and fruits, saving the Substance of the thing. 1710 J. HARRIS Lex. Techn. II. s.v. Services, Services Personal, are those due from a Thing to a Person, and of these they account..Usufruct, Use and Habitation. 1766 BLACKSTONE Comm. II. 105 A subject therefore hath only the usufruct, and not the absolute property of the soil. 1839 CARLYLE Chartism x. 176 Lawsuits in chancery for some short usufruct of a bit of land. 1853 J. H. NEWMAN Hist. Sk. (1873) I. I. ii. 74 They held it [sc. Sogdiana] in possession..for 90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and enjoyment of it. 1868 BROWNING Ring & Bk. II. 211 He owned some usufruct, had moneys' use Lifelong.
fig. 1863 PATMORE Angel in Ho. I. II. ii, Could eternal life afford That tyranny should thus deduct From this fair land..A year of the sweet usufruct.

b. An office of which one is usufructuary. rare.
1848 HALLAM Suppl. Notes Hist. Mid. Ages 116 M. Guérard..is of opinion that, though benefices were ultimately fiefs, in the first stage of the monarchy they were only usufructs.

2. gen. Use, enjoyment, or profitable possession (of something).
1811 LAMB Elia I. Bachelor's Compl., In the rich man's houses and pictures..I have a temporary usufruct at least. 1835 GRESWELL Parables IV. 490 No more than preliminary to the usufruct of the Kingdom itself. 1863 KINGLAKE Crimea I. 41 Which of the rival Churches should have the control and usufruct of every holy shrine.

b. esp. Beneficial use or enjoyment of land. Also fig. and transf.
1864 MARSH Man & Nat. 35 Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption. 1870 HUXLEY Lay Serm. xii. 313 Depriving man of the usufruct of one of the most fertile fields of his great patrimony, Nature. 1898 HARCOURT in Times 30 March 8/2 The ‘usufruct’ of Port Arthur and Ta-lien-wan had been granted to Russia. ‘Usufruct’ appears to be a new word [in this connection].

3. attrib., as usufruct discipline, right.
1845 R. W. HAMILTON Pop. Educ. iv. 69 A sordid, utilitarian, usufruct, discipline of the youthful mind. 1881 ‘H. H.’ Century of Dishonor 115 The usufruct right of the Indians to the lands occupied by them.

Hence usu{sm}fruction = sense 2b.
1846 Congressional Globe 27 May 862/3 They saw..that they could..get the whole [boundary-line], at least for a long time, under our own delusive project of joint usufruction.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Apr 6 2006, 03:06 PM) [snapback]235911[/snapback]</div>

Just use it figuratively, as in

"I remember those prelapsarian days well, the days before the neocons took over the white house."

 

How about

"I looked forward to having usufruct of my friend's girlfriend during the prelapsarian days of her youth, but was forestalled by unaccustomed pusilanimity".

 

Also zastruga; chiefly as pl. sastrugi (-). [a. G. sastruga, f. dial. Russ. zastrúga small ridge, furrow, f. zastrugá to plane, smooth, f. strug plane.]

One of a series of irregular ridges formed on a snow surface by wind erosion and deposition, aligned parallel to the direction of the prevailing wind.

1840 E. J. SABINE tr. von Wrangell's Narr. Exped. Polar Sea vii. 146 We were guided by the wave-like stripes of snow (sastrugi) which are formed, either on the plains on land or on the level ice of the sea, by any wind of long continuance. Ibid. 147 It often happens that the true permanent sastruga has been obliterated by another produced by temporary winds. 1878 E. L. MOSS Shores of Polar Sea vi. 42 The sloping shore hills are barred with ‘sastrugi’wind-made ridges of snowbut the abrupt scooped-out rifts between them are smothered over with fleecy powder in gentle undulations. 1911 R. F. SCOTT Jrnl. in Last Exped. (1913) I. 517 The hard surface gave place to regular sastrugi. 1937 Geogr. Jrnl. LXXXIX. 195 He remarks on sastrugi 6 inches high, then for three days very few. 1960 Times 17 Feb. 10/3 Much of the traverse was conducted over a difficult surface rippled with sastrugi. 1975 E. HILLARY Nothing venture, Nothing Win xiii. 243 The surface, which had appeared so smooth from above, was..liberally peppered with large sastrugisome of them up to three feet in height. 1979 R. FIENNES Hell on Ice v. 70 The sastruga ripples we encountered along the summit ridges. 1982 B. W. ALDISS Helliconia Spring ii. 89 Only Yuli had experience of the tundras and zastrugi, which stretched away to the north of the Quzint.

 

Pugnacious - from Latin [f. L. pugnx, -ci- combative (f. pugn-re to fight, f. pugn-us fist)

All too appropriate for Priuschat, I'm afraid.