Reading the entire dictionary front to back! Something I’ve always wanted to try. It’s time to execute the letter E!
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Your enemy is “one that attacks or tries to harm another,” or a “military opponent.” Does that really cover it all? If I suggest this definition could use some editing, does that make me… an enemy?
The question is again raised of how to define something undefinable. Energy is “a fundamental entity of nature usually regarded as the capacity for forming work.” At the end of the day, aren’t we all fundamental entities of nature?
It’s an English dictionary, so here’s English: “the language of England, the U.S., and many areas now or formerly under British rule.” And then we get sporty, because it’s also “spin imparted to a ball that is driven or rolled.” I always thought that was a baseball thing, but I guess it’s any ball. I should try it next time I go bowling.
An enterprise is “a project,” “a business organization,” or “readiness for daring action.” I suppose that third one is the one that describes everybody’s favorite starship.
Here’s a new one. An equerry is “an officer in charge of the horses of a prince or noble.” I’ll bet this shows up in a bunch of romance novels I haven’t read.
The equinox gets a purely scientific definition, “either of the two times each year when the sun appears directly overhead at the equator and day and night are everywhere on earth of equal length.” There’s a lot of other historical and spiritual to-do surrounding the equinox, but I know the dictionary can’t include everything.
Make a mistake? An error is “a usually ignorant or unintentional deviating from accuracy or truth.” The use of the word ignorant strikes me as a little judgmental. And then we get sporty again, because it’s also “a defensive misplay in baseball.”
A eustachian tube is “a tube connecting the inner cavity of the ear with the throat and equalizing air pressure on both sides of the eardrum.” Except I first read “ear” as “car” and got really confused.
The evening is “the end of the day and early part of the night,” which sounds good to me. But this has one of the geographic notes, adding that it also means afternoon for “southern and midland.” Any southerners want to chime on this?
Next we go into a dark place with evil, defined as “causing or threatening distress or harm,” “the fact of suffering, misfortune, or wrongdoing,” and “the source of sorrow, distress, or calamity.” This is followed by evildoer, defined only as “one who does evil.” That definition is so unhelpful that it’s downright evil.
Every comic book fan knows excelsior, but not the dictionary writers. To them, it’s defined as “fine curled wood shavings used especially for packing fragile items.” Okay, sure. For the record, Stan Lee always alleged that excelsior was an old-timey word meaning “upward and onward to greater glory.” That’s just a little more exciting than wood shavings.
To execrate is to “put under a curse,” or “to denounce as evil or detestable.” These two definitions seem contradictory to me.
An executor is “the person named in a will to execute it,” but then an executrix is “a female executor.” That’s too cool sounding of a word to be just that.
Exogenous is “caused or produced by factors outside the organism or system.” I’m thinking that could be pretty much anything. Exoplanet is similar, “a planet orbiting a star that is not our sun.” So, almost all planets, then? And here’s another example of the dictionary writing in first person.
Then we get even more sci-fi with extrasensory perception, “perception (as in telepathy) of events external to the self not gained through the senses and not deductible from previous existence.” Is deductible the right word to use here? We follow it up with extraterrestrial, “originating or existing outside the earth or its atmosphere.”
Take a look at the eye, “an organ of sight typically consisting in vertebrates of a globular structure that is located in the socket of a skull, is lined with a sensitive retina, and is normally paired.” Nice use of the word globular.
We conclude the letter E with eyewitness, “a person who actually sees something happen.” This is why Stephen King says never to use adverbs.
Next: F this dictionary!
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