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Thanksgiving-related vocabulary word needed! (for adults, not children)

  • I am required to bring a "word of the day" to my Toastmasters club's next meeting. This word should be an interesting and useful word that will expand everyone's command of the English language and ideally would be fun to use. Twist: I want it to be Thanksgiving or holiday season related if possible. My google-fu is failing me because I keep getting results meant for children's crossword puzzles ("pilgrim", "turkey", etc.). I'm looking for something more along the lines of "puritanical" or something like that. Can be historical, related to feelings or gratitude or even satirical of the holiday.

  • Answer:

    I like the word maudlin. It's a short word, so is one that can be easily dropped in everyday conversation without making you sound like a pedagogic twat. And sure, it's holiday related: "Uncle Ralph had a bit too much pre-dinner wine and ended up delivering a somewhat maudlin toast about our family."

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Postprandial? We always have someone suggesting a postprandial walk, followed by at least one declaration that someone is going into a postprandial coma.

amarynth

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eleemosynary is my very favorite word in the whole world. Probably most familiar from the opening line of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Tom_Jones,_a_Foundling, "AN Author ought to consider himself, not as a Gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary Treat, but rather as one who keeps a publick Ordinary, at which all Persons are welcome for their Money." I have always thought it'd be fun to have a big Thanksgiving dinner with the title "An Eleemosynary Treat" on the invitations.

Bardolph

Postprandial? We always have someone suggesting a postprandial walk, followed by at least one declaration that someone is going into a postprandial coma. I'm a big fan of a perfunctory postprandial perambulation.

borkencode

Monopsony -- If a market has several suppliers but only one important customer, that customer is a monopsony and can use its unique position to force suppliers to sell at ruinous terms. Compare "monopoly" where there are many customers but only one supplier, who likewise has market leverage. (It's not related to Thanksgiving, but it's an important word.)

Chocolate Pickle

everybody wants to have a nice thanksgiving dinner, but nobody wants to do all the cooking and dishwashing afterward, they want someone else (maybe you) to do it. there's a word for that, one of my all-time faves, which the guinness book cites as the most concise word in the world. it comes from the indigenous people of tierra del fuego. mamihlapinatapai

bruce

You could use the term "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan#Puritans_and_Separatists," which is the proper name for the people we call the Pilgrims, the one they called themselves. "Pilgrims" is a much later, romanticized term for this group of people. They weren't just Puritans, they were Puritans who believed in separation from the Church of England rather than just reforming or purifying it - so they were a more theologically conservative branch of Puritan than your garden-variety Puritan.

Miko

One of my favorite words is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy_%28astronomy%29 - in astronomy, it refers to when 3 or more planets align. It's a great word to describe moments when everything seems to line up or come together in an amazing way - like, say, Chanukah and Thanksgiving overlapping for the first and last times in anyone's lifetime.

Mchelly

divined by radio

Sorry, hit Post too early. Use maudlin some other time, but postprandial is just more positively evocative of Thanksgiving than an all-purpose word for an emotional state that is never almost never used positively. (Canadian who has been through Thanksgiving already this year, former Toastmaster.)

maudlin

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