nectopod n. Greek nēktó(s) swimming. In zoology, a limb that is used for swimming and is common in many different species of marine animals that live in and around the world's oceans. Swimming limb (as of a mollusk) adapted for swimming.
nelumbo n. {Name in Ceylon.] A Nymphaeaceae inhabiting the fresh waters of the temperate parts of the world, and producing large polypetalous flowers; a genus that includes large water lilies having flowers with 4 to 5 sepals, numerous petals, and the discrete carpels embedded in a fleshy receptacle and that is usually considered to constitute a subfamily of Nymphaeaceae but is sometimes isolated in a separate family. The best-known species is the Nelumbo speciosa, the Hindu and Chinese lotus, a magnificent water-plant of the rivers and ditches of all the warmer parts of Asia, and also found in the Nile. Its nuts are supposed to have been the sacred bean of Pythagoras.
nematozooid n. [Greek nema, thread; zoon, animal; eidos, form.] A tentacle of defense characterized as a zooid, extending from a siphonophore; a genus of yeasts (family Saccharomycetaceae) having ascospores with needle-shaped, fusiform, or threadlike nonvibratile extensions; Cnidaria: Hydrozoa; A defense polyp; machozooid. See also: dactylozooid.
nictitate v.i. Wink or blink. Nictitant, adj. winking. Nictitating membrane, membrane of certain animals and birds that can be drawn across eyeball; Nictitating spasm, spasm of eyelid.
nostopathy n. A morbid fear of returning to familiar places.
nostomania n. abnormally strong desire to return to a familiar place; longing for one’s home.
nullibist n. Person denying soul’s existence in space; a person who affirms that a spirit or incorporeal being exists nowhere in the physical world. Earliest use found in Henry More (1614–1687), philosopher, poet, and theologian.
oakum n. Fibre of old untwisted ropes; loose fiber obtained by untwisting old rope, used especially in caulking wooden ships. A preparation of tarred fibre used to seal gaps. Its main traditional applications were in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships; in plumbing, for sealing joints in cast iron pipe; and in log cabins for chinking.
obstruent adj. In medicine, blocking up body passage. n. In Phonetics/Linguistics, sounds characterized by obstruction of the airstream; a plosive, fricative, or affricate.
oilbeetle n. A species of coleopterous insects of the genus Meloe and the family Cantharidae, named from the oil-like matter which they exude from the joints of their legs. Skin contact with this liquid causes blisters in humans and other vertebrates. The perfect insects have swollen bodies with shortish elytra which lap more or less over each other, and have not a straight suture as in most coleopterous insects.
oscitance n. Yawning; sleepiness; dullness. An involuntary intake of breath through a wide open mouth; usually triggered by fatigue or boredom. Also oscitant, adj. oscitation, n. Synonym, oscitancy.
palingenesis n. Resuscitation; rebirth; metempsychosis; exact reproduction of ancestral characteristics. Also palingenesia; a concept of rebirth or re-creation, used in various contexts in philosophy, theology, politics, and biology. Its meaning stems from Greek palin, meaning 'again', and genesis, meaning 'birth'. The supposed repetition of an organism during its embryonic development of the stages in the evolution of its species, as asserted by the discredited biogenetic law.
paragoge n. Greek: παραγωγή The addition of a sound to the end of a word. Often caused by nativization, it is a type of epenthesis, most commonly vocalic epenthesis. Paragoge is particularly common in Brazilian Portuguese, not only in loanwords but also in word derivation.
parorexia n. A pathological compulsion; the desire to eat objects not considered nutritious or other strange foods.
passerina ciris n. A bird with cardinal red throat, rump, eye ring, and underparts; prized for centuries as cagebirds, males are still captured by the thousands in Cuba and Mexico; the Painted Bunting, tireless singers who stay concealed in scrubby tangles or trees.
pentstemon n. Botanical specimen whose name was given by Linnaeus; pentstemon is Greek, translating to ‘five stamens’. Also, pride of the mountains, foxglove pentstemon, azure pentstemon, rose elf, beard-tongue, scarlet trumpet; by 1922 one hundred and fifty varieties were known. ‘Willow corpses, alternating with tangles of larkspur, fireweed, and monk’s-hood, are followed by open, velvety meadows, starred by blue and white daisies, or diversified by the pure spikes of the milk-white rein orchis, or the lovely blossoms of the pink monkey-faces; while further down, the stream perchance suddenly narrows and deepens, flowing by some jutting rock-wall resplendent with crimson pentstemons…’ [ Oliver, Mary, 1900]
penurious a. 1. Excessively saving or sparing in the use of money; parsimonious to a fault; sordid; as, a penurious man. 2. Scanty; affording little; as, a penurious spring. 3. Without money; suffering great want. 4. Dainty; nice. Syn. —Beggarly, miserly, parsimonious.
pentatremites n. A genus of Blastoidea. The species were fixed to the sea bottom by a pedicel fored of solid polygonal plates, arranged in five ambulacral, and five interambulacral areas. Found in the Carboniferous rocks.
phylactery n. A small leather box containing scriptural extracts worn by the Jewish people at prayer on head and arm; relic container; amulet; reminder; record; in medieval arts, words in a ballon-like circle drawn issuing from mouth.
pipsissewa n. A native Adirondack wildflower which produces a cluster of pink or white flowers in July, followed by colorful deep pink fruit capsules in August and September. In the language of the Cree, pipisisikweu meant “it breaks it into small pieces.” That is to say, the juice of the plant breaks down kidney stones or gallstones. Prince’s pine is another name. This plant belongs to the wintergreen family and has typical wintergreen flowers—waxy, nodding blossoms that are doubly beautiful under a magnifying glass.
pogoniasis n. An overgrowth of beard; growth of beard in woman.
pogonophobia, n. morbid fear of beards.
preexilian, preexilic adj. Before exile, especially Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people.
ratite adj. Having flat breastbone; n. such flightless bird, as ostrich, emu, etc.
retepora n. A genus of zoophytes of the class Polyzoa, the cells of which are immersed in a flattened foliaceous expansion pierced like network. The typical species, Retepora cellulosa, found in the Indian and Mediterraneans seas, is known by the name of Neptune’s ruffles. Fossil species occur in all formations.
rook n. 1. A gregarious Eurasian crow with black plumage and a bare face, nesting in colonies in treetops. In "The Death of a Moth," Virginia Woolf observed the rooks as "soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it." 2. A chess piece, typically with its top in the shape of a battlement, that can move in any direction along a rank or file on which it stands.
rutidosis n. 1. Wrinkling 2. A genus of Australian annual and perennial herbs —the Button Wrinklewort is a flowering plant of the genus Rutidosis in the daisy family (Asteraceae).
