1. Dismal; bleak.
2. Boring; dull: dreary tasks.
3. Dark and depressing: black, bleak, blue, cheerless, dark, desolate, dismal, gloomy, glum, joyless, somber, tenebrific.
4. Arousing no interest or curiosity: boring, drear, dry, dull, humdrum, irksome, monotonous, stuffy, tedious, tiresome, uninteresting, weariful, wearisome, weary.

Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Today is a little dark and dreary. Mostly it’s just gray and misty outside, but of course it is Monday and what could be darker? This is the kind of day that makes me want to go home, brew a nice cup of coffee or tea, and curl up on the couch with slippers, blankets, movies and some knitting. Sitting at my computer at work with my space heater on at my feet is a poor substitute. Which is not to say that I don’t love this weather – I adore it and am excited that winter is coming to the land of room temperature year round. I just wish I were anywhere but here.

It’s Friday and I’m making words up. From my chat history:

“There’s another grant that I have to ‘un-fuck up.’”

Clearly it is time to go home.

So we’ll sleep in till 8am, have some breakfast and de-boat. Hmmm, I guess that’s disembark…except its deplane. Too confusing.

deplane

1. To disembark from an airplane.

disembark

1. To go ashore from a ship.
2. To leave an aircraft or other vehicle.
3. To remove or unload (cargo or passengers) from a ship, aircraft, or other vehicle.

deboat

1. YOU’RE AN IDIOT.

ETA:

Wes’ contribution: “Deboat is down at Dedock just down at deend of deroad.”

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – It was a ginormous year for the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster. Along with embracing the adjective that combines “gigantic” and “enormous,” the dictionary publishers also got into Bollywood, sudoku and speed dating.

noun.

One who investigates.

So I was thinking that I’d just post a word. Not just any word, but a word that sort of descibes how I feel. Usually I’m pretty good with definitions, but my first choice of a word was the wrong one.

co·pa·cet·ic

fine; completely satisfactory; OK.

I had always used the word in the context of “things aren’t going well, but they’re not going badly – they’re just going,” but apparently that’s not the case.

So even though it has less panache, I’m going to go with this one:

pass·a·ble

Satisfactory but not outstanding; adequate.

P.S. Just in case:

a grand or flamboyant manner; verve; style; flair.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this week’s theme at A Word A Day by Anu Garg was “Words that Seem Risque.”

Today’s word:

vomitorium (vom-i-TOR-ee-uhm) noun, plural vomitoria

A passageway to the rows of seats in a theater.

[From Latin vomitorium, from vomere (to discharge).]

Vomitoria in ancient amphitheaters helped the audience to reach their seats quickly and then, at the end of the performance, leave at an equal speed (hence the name). Thousands of seats could be filled in minutes. The suggestion that a vomitorium was the place for the ancient Romans to vomit during a feast has no basis.

pro·cras·ti·nate (verb)

1. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
2. to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.
3. to postpone or delay needlessly.

pro·cras·ti·nat·ion (noun)

1. the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or defering an action to a later time
2. slowness as a consequence of not getting around to it

Synonyms: averseness, dalliance, dawdling, dabbling, delay, delaying, frittering, frivolling, idling, loafing, loitering, playing, demurral, hold-up, impediment, interval, lag, postponement, putting off, reprieve, retardation, retardment, stall, stay, stop, stoppage, surcease, suspension, tarrying, wait

Here’s how I deal with my old friend procrastination:

1. Get out a clean sheet of paper.
2. Make a list of all the things that need to be done.
3. Return to the Internet.
4. Do the list tomorrow.

Noun
* to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one’s name; to change one’s opinion; to change the course of history.
* to transform or convert
* to substitute another or others for; exchange for something else, usually of the same kind
* to give and take reciprocally; interchange
* to transfer from one (conveyance) to another
* a variation or deviation: a change in the daily routine.
* the supplanting of one thing by another.

Verb
* to become different
* to become altered or modified
* to become transformed or converted
* to pass gradually into
* to make a change or an exchange

Synonyms: about-face*, addition, adjustment, advance, break, compression, contraction, conversion, correction, development, difference, distortion, diversification, diversity, enlargement, innovation, metamorphosis, modification, modulation, mutation, novelty, permutation, reconstruction, refinement, remodeling, reversal, revision, revolution, shift, surrogate, switch, tempering, transformation, transition, transmutation, turn, turnover, variance, variation, variety, vicissitude, accommodate, adapt, adjust, alter, alternate, commute, convert, diminish, diverge, diversify, evolve, fluctuate, make innovations, make over, merge, metamorphose, moderate, modify, modulate, mutate, naturalize, recondition, redo, reduce, reform, regenerate, remake, remodel, renovate, reorganize, replace, resolve, restyle, revolutionize, shape, shift, substitute, tamper with, temper, transfigure, transform, translate, transmute, transpose, turn, vacillate, vary, veer, warp

In other words:

My co-worker has moved to a different area of the building. My boss is about to be replaced (he was interim). The world has shifted on its axis and I don’t like it. Not one effing bit.