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Oct 18, 2018
A-list cast turn story of elderly mother suffering from Alzheimer's into a touching, poignant story of the ties that bind
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Oct 18, 2018
Danish nerve-jangler pits a cop working a 911-dispatch beat in a race against time — while never leaving the room
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Oct 17, 2018
Carrie Mulligan gives a career-best performance in actor-turned-director Paul Dano's scathing, sharp familial melodrama
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Oct 17, 2018
The comedian gets sharp-tongued and serious as Lee Israel, a biographer who became a first-rate literary-correspondence faker
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Oct 16, 2018
Actor's directorial debut rewinds back to Clinton-era L.A., where a young kid gets an education in sex, drugs and skaterat culture
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Oct 16, 2018
Jamie Lee Curtis and director David Gordon Green gives us the one true sequel to the gamechanging 1978 original
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Oct 12, 2018
Here's how it's worked, the traditional go-to method for diving down the barrel of the smoking […]
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Oct 12, 2018
Remake of Israeli film hands the actor the plum role of a woman who discovers a child prodigy — and becomes obsessed with his talent
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Oct 11, 2018
Director-actor Rupert Everett tackles Oscar Wilde in his later years, and proves this was the role he was born to play
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Oct 11, 2018
Writer-director-actor Jim Cummings' tale of a policeman on the verge of a nervous breakdown introduces a major talent — and is the indie film you need to see this year
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Oct 11, 2018
An A-list cast spices up story of mysterious travelers, old-school Vegas hotel and some serious WTF turns
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Oct 11, 2018
Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet star as father and son in this powerful drug-addiction drama based on true stories
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Oct 10, 2018
Director's latest docudrama re-enacts the 2011 massacre in Norway with chilling accuracy — but it stumbles when revisiting the details of the aftermath
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Oct 10, 2018
Writer-director-star Ike Barinholtz's dark comedy about citizen loyalty oaths and toxic partisan discourse starts as a satire and turns into a sinkhole
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Oct 10, 2018
'La La Land' duo Damien Chazelle and Ryan Gosling don't give us a flag-waving hero but a human being — and that makes all the difference
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Oct 05, 2018
Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn and writer-director Tamara Jenkins turn this dramedy about a middle-aged couple trying to conceive into a bittersweet symphony
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Oct 04, 2018
A police shooting forces a teen to reckon with racism in this exceptional adaptation of Angie Thomas' young-adult bestseller
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Oct 03, 2018
Not even Tom Hardy can save this attempt to combine a dark super-antihero story and 'Deadpool'-style shenanigans
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Oct 01, 2018
Actor-director Bradley Cooper and his pop-star costar turn a millennial take on this Hollywood warhorse into a modern classic
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Sep 27, 2018
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin chronicle climber's dramatic rope-free summit of 3,000-foot El Capitan with heart-stopping detail
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Sep 27, 2018
John David Washington is on a career roll this year
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Sep 27, 2018
'Green Room' filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier's art-horror adaptation of Arctic Noir novel is bloody, brutal, bleak and Freudian as hell
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Sep 26, 2018
How do you pair the two top-notch screen comedians and make something so painfully, pitifully unfunny?
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Sep 26, 2018
In what may be the 82-year-old icon's swan song, the star goes out swinging as a gentleman bank robber in one helluva movie
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Sep 21, 2018
Female-revenge movie mistakes snark for satire and sex-and-violence for serious state-of-the-nation commentary — and ends up soaking in its own toxicity
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Sep 21, 2018
Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins and Joan Plowright let it rip in Roger Michell's documentary 'Tea With the Dames'
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Sep 20, 2018
Black, Cate Blanchett and director Eli Roth turn a YA horror classic into a spooky good time
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Sep 20, 2018
A radiant, riveting Keira Knightley meets every challenge the title role of French novelist Colette throws at her — and there's a nonstop onslaught of them
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Sep 20, 2018
A radiant, riveting Keira Knightley meets every challenge the title role of French novelist Colette throws at her — and there's a nonstop onslaught of them.
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Sep 19, 2018
Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly are frontier hit-men who meet their match int his beautifully odd horse opera
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Sep 19, 2018
Dan Fogelman's multi-stacked melodrama goes up in a blaze of crass tear-jerking, unrelenting tragedy porn and unearned self-congratulation
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Sep 19, 2018
Portrait of the First Lady of 'SNL' gives you a treasure trove of best-of moments, personal artifacts — and little else
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Sep 18, 2018
The documentarian comes out swinging at the Trump administration — and reminds us that we need to take the dire situation our country is in very seriously
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Sep 14, 2018
Don't let the unruly plot ruin the fun: Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick make for a crackling onscreen duo
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Sep 13, 2018
Shane Black's reboot brings much needed blood and banter to the sci-fi/action series — but it's still a franchise-first entry
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Sep 12, 2018
Playing a family court judge, the two-time Oscar winner turns in another stirring performance in this otherwise wooden adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel
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Sep 12, 2018
Tale of Rick Wershe Jr., who went from underage drug kingpin to FBI plant to prisoner, tells his story with little big-pic takeaways
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Sep 12, 2018
Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning bravely face the end of the world, but they can't overcome a barrage of clichés
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Sep 06, 2018
Jennifer Garner has a very particular set of skills. But this copycat action flick doesn't let her use them.
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Sep 05, 2018
Actor stars in acid-tinged thriller/horror movie about Manson-ite cults, demons and chainsaws — and matches its lunacy head-on
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Sep 05, 2018
Latest entry of the horror franchise aims for some ol' time religious scares and comes up empty
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Sep 04, 2018
Actor-director Ethan Hawke turns the story of hard-livin' troubadour Blaze Foley into a tribute to artistic integrity — and the best music biopic of the year
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Aug 31, 2018
'Room' director Lenny Abrahamson crafts an elegiac mystery that's much more than a typical ghost story
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Aug 30, 2018
Reeves and Ryder play two broken, jaded people looking for love in writer-director Victor Levin's agonizing twist on a romcom
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Aug 29, 2018
Story of how Mossad agents tracked down one of the most notorious war criminals ever gives Isaac and Sir Ben Kingsley meaty roles — and little else
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Aug 24, 2018
There's little joy to be found in this senselessly crass and seriously unfunny first-time effort from the Jim Henson Company's adult-themed division
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Aug 24, 2018
How filmmaker Andrew Bujalski and a peerless female cast turn story of sisterhood in Hooters-like workplace into one of the best films of 2018
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Aug 23, 2018
Even the genius of Sam Rockwell can't save this hackneyed crime caper centered on a stolen gemstone
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Aug 22, 2018
Updated take on the 1973 classic offers solid performances and plenty of action, but fails to inspire like the original
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Aug 22, 2018
Director Aneesh Chaganty's feature debut takes a deep dive into the dark web — and keeps moviegoers on the edge of their seats
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Aug 17, 2018
Chris O'Dowd, Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke star in story of a professor who idolizes a singer-songwriter — and his girlfriend who once dated him
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Aug 16, 2018
Story of black-ops unit escorting whistleblower through dangerous streets should be first-class action flick — instead it's an incoherent, chaotic rant
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Aug 15, 2018
Filmmaker Bing Liu chronicles his (and his best friends') life on a skateboard — and beautifully charts how we look at modern masculinity
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Aug 15, 2018
Story of young man and his furry Canis lupis friend separated from their respective packs is just the coming-of-Ice-Age movie we didn't know we needed
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Aug 14, 2018
Adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's novel of long-suffering spouse who hits her breaking point is blessed with a tour-de-force performance
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Aug 13, 2018
Breezy story of a Chinese-American meeting her boyfriend's extravagantly wealthy family is perfect way to end the summer moviegoing season
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Aug 09, 2018
Story of British ex-pat literally fighting for survival in Bangkok cellblocks is brutal, beautiful
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Aug 09, 2018
How do you make a blockbuster movie starring a superhuman action star and a giant prehistoric monster that's so deadly dull? Let us count the ways
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Aug 06, 2018
The filmmaker turns true story of an African-American cop who infiltrated the white supremacy group in 1970s into an incendiary indictment of our current moment
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Aug 03, 2018
The now-grown boy of A.A. Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh' stories reunites with his childhood friends in this alternately wonderful and disturbing Disney movie
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Aug 02, 2018
Instead of the Velvet Underground era, we get the iconic chanteuse's autumn years — and that makes all the difference
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Jul 31, 2018
Sundance jury-prize winner about youth sent to "pray the gay away" camps is heartfelt, tender and too close to an 'Afterschool Special' for comfort
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Jul 30, 2018
'SNL' veteran and costar Mila Kunis are left stranded in this flat espionage farce that should have stayed undercover
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Jul 27, 2018
Portrait of Scotty Bowers, a legendary "pimp to the stars" and fixture of Hollywood's gay underground, is less a doc than endless marquee-name dish
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Jul 24, 2018
'Call Me By Your Name' star's earlier coming-of-age work does the young actor no favors
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Jul 20, 2018
Sequel to the 2014 adaptation of TV show finds our man correcting even more imbalances - and this time it's personal
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Jul 19, 2018
Doc on the late designer Alexander McQueen is ravishing, haunting and a must-see
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Jul 19, 2018
Not even the mighty Cher can keep this jukebox-musical from from feeling like an S.O.S.
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Jul 18, 2018
'Hamilton' star Daveed Diggs and poet Rafael Casal give their hometown a valentine in story of ex-con, his best friend and a rapidly changing city
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Jul 16, 2018
Latest in spy-vs.-spy franchise finds its star once again saving the world - and the summer movie season
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Jul 13, 2018
Rob Reiner's chronicle of two reporters fighting an administration's war on reality should be the Fourth Estate movie we need - so why isn't it?
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Jul 12, 2018
Joaquin Phoenix and director Gus Van Sant turn a biopic of quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan into something tender, unique
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Jul 11, 2018
Bo Burnham's story about a 14-year-old misfit is one of the funniest, saddest and most heartfelt teen movies ever
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Jul 11, 2018
Dwayne Johnson gets serious in disaster film-meets-'Die Hard' blockbuster - and slightly misses the mark
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Jul 05, 2018
Kevin Macdonald's doc on Whitney Houston drops a shocking revelation - but his look at how she fell apart is anything but sensationalistic
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Jul 03, 2018
Boots Riley's brilliant, take-no-prisoners comedy skewers social norms, racial strife and the media - then things get really weird
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Jul 03, 2018
Horror franchise takes viewers back to Purge-day ground zero - and takes its B-movie premise into incendiary territory
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Jun 29, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 20, 2018 is:
balmy ? \BAH-mee\ ? adjective
1 a : having the qualities of balm : soothing
b : mild, temperate
2 : crazy, foolish
Examples:
"Men often don't moisturize their skin during the hotter months, but should. It's a misconception that oily skin doesn't get dehydrated. Use a lightweight moisturizer that isn't heavy or sticky in balmy weather." — Joane Amay, Ebony, June 2018
"He arose with the first peep of day, and sallied forth to enjoy the balmy breeze of morning...." — Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall, 1816
Did you know?
It's no secret that balmy is derived from balm, an aromatic ointment or fragrance that heals or soothes. So when did it come to mean "foolish," you might wonder? Balmy goes back to the 15th century and was often used in contexts referring to weather, such as "a balmy breeze" or, as Mark Twain wrote in Tom Sawyer, "The balmy summer air, the restful quiet...." Around the middle of the 19th century, it developed a new sense suggesting a weak or unbalanced mind. It is uncertain if the soft quality or the soothing effect of balm influenced this use. But later in the century, balmy be
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Jun 29, 2018
Jessica Chastain tries her best to save this factually inaccurate portrait of a frontier activist/Sitting Bull cohort Caroline Weldon
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Jun 29, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 20, 2018 is:
balmy ? \BAH-mee\ ? adjective
1 a : having the qualities of balm : soothing
b : mild, temperate
2 : crazy, foolish
Examples:
"Men often don't moisturize their skin during the hotter months, but should. It's a misconception that oily skin doesn't get dehydrated. Use a lightweight moisturizer that isn't heavy or sticky in balmy weather." — Joane Amay, Ebony, June 2018
"He arose with the first peep of day, and sallied forth to enjoy the balmy breeze of morning...." — Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall, 1816
Did you know?
It's no secret that balmy is derived from balm, an aromatic ointment or fragrance that heals or soothes. So when did it come to mean "foolish," you might wonder? Balmy goes back to the 15th century and was often used in contexts referring to weather, such as "a balmy breeze" or, as Mark Twain wrote in Tom Sawyer, "The balmy summer air, the restful quiet...." Around the middle of the 19th century, it developed a new sense suggesting a weak or unbalanced mind. It is uncertain if the soft quality or the soothing effect of balm influenced this use. But later in the century, balmy be
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Jun 29, 2018
Debra Granik's drama about a damaged war vet and his teen daughter living off the grid is hypnotic, haunting and one of the year's best
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Jun 28, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 19, 2018 is:
quail ? \KWAIL\ ? verb
1 : to give way : falter
2 : to recoil in dread or terror : cower
Examples:
"It wasn't so long ago that book publishers and bookstore owners were quailing about the coming of e-books, like movie theatre owners at the dawn of the television age." — Michael Hiltzik, The Gulf Times, 10 May 2017
"I've a Pooh in me, blundering about, trying to think large thoughts, making pronouncements I hope won't be challenged. And I'm sometimes a Piglet, quailing in front of imaginary dangers, or figuratively jumping up and down to squeak, 'I'm here! What about me?'" — Jim Atwell, The Cooperstown (New York) Crier, 15 June 2017
Did you know?
Flinch, recoil, and wince are all synonyms of quail, but each word has a slightly different use. When you flinch, you fail to endure pain or to face something dangerous or frightening with resolution ("she faced her accusers without flinching"). Recoil implies a start or movement away from something through shock, fear, or disgust ("he recoiled at the suggestion of stealing"). Wince usually suggests a slight involuntary physical reaction to something ("she winced as the bright light suddenly hit her eyes"). Quai
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Jun 28, 2018
Portrait of three brothers separated at birth and reunited 19 years later starts as a human-interest story - then turns into a nightmare
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Jun 28, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 19, 2018 is:
quail ? \KWAIL\ ? verb
1 : to give way : falter
2 : to recoil in dread or terror : cower
Examples:
"It wasn't so long ago that book publishers and bookstore owners were quailing about the coming of e-books, like movie theatre owners at the dawn of the television age." — Michael Hiltzik, The Gulf Times, 10 May 2017
"I've a Pooh in me, blundering about, trying to think large thoughts, making pronouncements I hope won't be challenged. And I'm sometimes a Piglet, quailing in front of imaginary dangers, or figuratively jumping up and down to squeak, 'I'm here! What about me?'" — Jim Atwell, The Cooperstown (New York) Crier, 15 June 2017
Did you know?
Flinch, recoil, and wince are all synonyms of quail, but each word has a slightly different use. When you flinch, you fail to endure pain or to face something dangerous or frightening with resolution ("she faced her accusers without flinching"). Recoil implies a start or movement away from something through shock, fear, or disgust ("he recoiled at the suggestion of stealing"). Wince usually suggests a slight involuntary physical reaction to something ("she winced as the bright light suddenly hit her eyes"). Quai
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Jun 28, 2018
Follow-up to 2016 Feds-versus-cartels thriller is bloody, bombastic - and crosses a line with its immorality
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Jun 27, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 18, 2018 is:
jabberwocky ? \JAB-er-wah-kee\ ? noun
: meaningless speech or writing
Examples:
Amanda learned to ignore her critics, dismissing their attacks as the jabberwocky of minds with nothing more important to think of about.
"When LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh stepped into the crowded room, fashionably late, jabberwocky ceased and the only sound you heard was the whir and click of cameras." — Greg Cote, The Miami Herald, 28 Sept. 2010
Did you know?
In a poem titled "Jabberwocky" in the book Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872), Lewis Carroll warned his readers about a frightful beast:
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
This nonsensical poem caught the public's fancy, and by 1908 jabberwocky was being used as a generic term for meaningless speech or writing. The word bandersnatch has also seen some use as a general noun, with the meaning "a wildly grotesque or bizarre individual." It's a much rarer word than jabberwocky, though, and is entered only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.
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Jun 27, 2018
Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly bring thrills, spills and screwball-comedy sparks to a breezy Marvel movie
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Jun 22, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 13, 2018 is:
mantic ? \MAN-tik\ ? adjective
: of or relating to the faculty of divination : prophetic
Examples:
The magician mesmerized the crowd with her sleight-of-hand tricks as well as her mantic predictions.
"Like everyone else, I was in awe of her mantic abilities, and I think she looked upon my storytelling endeavors with indulgence, having known both my father and my grandfather in their prime." — Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, The Storyteller of Marrakesh, 2011
Did you know?
The adjective mantic comes from the Greek word mantikos, which itself derives from mantis, meaning "prophet." The mantis insect got its name from this same source, supposedly because its posture—with the forelimbs extended as though in prayer—reminded folks of a prophet. Not surprisingly, the combining form -mancy, which means "divination in a (specified) manner" (as in necromancy and pyromancy), is a relative of mantic. A less expected, and more distant, relative is mania, meaning "excitement manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity, disorganized behavior, and elevated mood" or "excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm." Mania descends from Greek mainesthai ("to be mad"), a word akin to mant
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Jun 22, 2018
Actor helps push this familiar story of dysfunctional father-daughter relationship and stoner-comedy bonding past its limits
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Jun 20, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 11, 2018 is:
abrogate ? \AB-ruh-gayt\ ? verb
1 : to abolish by authoritative action : annul
2 : to treat as nonexistent
Examples:
"U.S. deterrence in the Taiwan Strait used to resemble U.S. deterrence elsewhere: Washington had a formal alliance with the Republic of China and stationed troops in Taiwan. But the United States abrogated the alliance treaty when it broke official ties with the Republic of China in 1979." — Scott Kastner, The Washington Post, 30 Apr. 2018
"While we must not engage in partisan political acts such as endorsing candidates and parties, to remain silent on the pressing issues of our time is to abrogate our moral responsibility." — Rabbi Dan Fink, The Idaho Statesman, 21 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
If you can't simply wish something out of existence, the next best thing might be to "propose it away." That's more or less what abrogate lets you do—etymologically speaking, at least. Abrogate comes from the Latin root rogare, which means "to propose a law," and ab-, meaning "from" or "away." We won't propose that you try to get away from the fact that rogare is also an ancestor in the family tree of prerogative and interrogate. Abrogate first appeared in English as a verb in the 16th century; it was preceded by an adjective sense meaning "annulled" or "cancelled," whic
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Jun 20, 2018
Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki compares state of our nation to rock icon's demise - and asks where we all went wrong
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Jun 20, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 11, 2018 is:
abrogate ? \AB-ruh-gayt\ ? verb
1 : to abolish by authoritative action : annul
2 : to treat as nonexistent
Examples:
"U.S. deterrence in the Taiwan Strait used to resemble U.S. deterrence elsewhere: Washington had a formal alliance with the Republic of China and stationed troops in Taiwan. But the United States abrogated the alliance treaty when it broke official ties with the Republic of China in 1979." — Scott Kastner, The Washington Post, 30 Apr. 2018
"While we must not engage in partisan political acts such as endorsing candidates and parties, to remain silent on the pressing issues of our time is to abrogate our moral responsibility." — Rabbi Dan Fink, The Idaho Statesman, 21 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
If you can't simply wish something out of existence, the next best thing might be to "propose it away." That's more or less what abrogate lets you do—etymologically speaking, at least. Abrogate comes from the Latin root rogare, which means "to propose a law," and ab-, meaning "from" or "away." We won't propose that you try to get away from the fact that rogare is also an ancestor in the family tree of prerogative and interrogate. Abrogate first appeared in English as a verb in the 16th century; it was preceded by an adjective sense meaning "annulled" or "cancelled," whic
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Jun 20, 2018
Actor scores in this weird, WTF story of true love, tiny horses and frontier madness
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Jun 20, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 11, 2018 is:
abrogate ? \AB-ruh-gayt\ ? verb
1 : to abolish by authoritative action : annul
2 : to treat as nonexistent
Examples:
"U.S. deterrence in the Taiwan Strait used to resemble U.S. deterrence elsewhere: Washington had a formal alliance with the Republic of China and stationed troops in Taiwan. But the United States abrogated the alliance treaty when it broke official ties with the Republic of China in 1979." — Scott Kastner, The Washington Post, 30 Apr. 2018
"While we must not engage in partisan political acts such as endorsing candidates and parties, to remain silent on the pressing issues of our time is to abrogate our moral responsibility." — Rabbi Dan Fink, The Idaho Statesman, 21 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
If you can't simply wish something out of existence, the next best thing might be to "propose it away." That's more or less what abrogate lets you do—etymologically speaking, at least. Abrogate comes from the Latin root rogare, which means "to propose a law," and ab-, meaning "from" or "away." We won't propose that you try to get away from the fact that rogare is also an ancestor in the family tree of prerogative and interrogate. Abrogate first appeared in English as a verb in the 16th century; it was preceded by an adjective sense meaning "annulled" or "cancelled," whic
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Jun 19, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 10, 2018 is:
roseate ? \ROH-zee-ut\ ? adjective
1 : resembling a rose especially in color
2 : overly optimistic : viewed favorably
Examples:
"Sometimes mistaken for a flamingo, the roseate spoonbill has lots of pink shades that can fool you." — Lyle Johnson, The Gonzales Weekly Citizen (Ascension, Louisiana), 26 Apr. 2018
"… the Catalan channels, richly funded by the local parliament and putting nationalist devotees in charge, has created a roseate picture of independence that simply doesn't fit the facts." — Peter Preston, The Observer (London), 10 Dec. 2017
Did you know?
"Everything's coming up roses." "He views the world through rose-tinted glasses." "She has a rosy outlook on life." In English, we tend to associate roses and rose color with optimism, and roseate is no exception. Roseate comes from the Latin adjective roseus, and ultimately from the noun rosa, meaning "rose." Figurative use of roseate (with the meaning "happy" or "smiling") began in the 18th century, but the literal sense of the term has been in the language since the 15th century. It's especially well-suited to literary descriptions of sunrises and sunsets: "through yon peaks of cloud-like snow / The roseate sunlight quivers," wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley in Prometheus Unbound. And in an early short story, Edith Wharton wrote, "The sunset was perfect and a roseate light, transfiguring the distant spire, lingered late in the west."
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Jun 18, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 9, 2018 is:
shenanigan ? \shuh-NAN-ih-gun\ ? noun
1 : a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose
2 a : tricky or questionable practices or conduct — usually used in plural
b : high-spirited or mischievous activity — usually used in plural
Examples:
The CEO resigned amid accusations of financial shenanigans and dubious deals.
"And the protesters outside were just the start of the shenanigans. Inside the building, one person attended the hearing dressed in a Russian troll costume." — Kevin Roose, The New York Times, 16 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
The history of shenanigan is as tricky and mischievous as its meaning. Etymologists have some theories about its origins, but no one has been able to prove them. All we can say for certain is that the earliest known uses of the word in print appeared in the mid-1800s. Although the "underhanded trick" sense of the word is oldest, the most common senses in use now are "tricky or questionable practices" (as in "political shenanigans") and "high-spirited behavior" (as in "youthful shenanigans").
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Jun 15, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 6, 2018 is:
unbeknownst ? \un-bih-NOHNST\ ? adjective
1 : happening or existing without the knowledge of someone specified — usually used with to
2 : not known or not well-known : unknown
Examples:
"… Travis was the one who paid the bills—and he often used credit cards to cover them, unbeknownst to Vonnie." — Penny Wrenn, Forbes.com, 9 Oct. 2013
"… Senate Bill 15, approved unanimously by that House committee Thursday, hopes to help homeowners who find themselves the victim of 'squatting'—people who illegally move into a home, often unbeknownst to the homeowner." — Marianne Goodland, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado), 12 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
Unbeknownst is an irregular variant of the older unbeknown, which derives from beknown, an obsolete synonym of known. But for a word with a straightforward history, unbeknownst and the now less common unbeknown have caused quite a stir among usage commentators. In spite of widespread use (including appearances in the writings of Charles Dickens, A. E. Housman, and E. B. White), the grammarian H. W. Fowler in 1926 categorized the two words as "out of use except in dialect or uneducated speech." The following year, G. P. Krapp called them "humorous, colloquial, and dialectal." Our evidence, however, shows that both words are standard even in formal prose.
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Jun 14, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 5, 2018 is:
fustigate ? \FUSS-tuh-gayt\ ? verb
1 : to beat with or as if with a short heavy club : cudgel
2 : to criticize severely
Examples:
Matthew was thoroughly fustigated for failing to reserve a table large enough to accommodate all of the visitors from the corporate main office.
"Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt … fustigated them all, effectively characterizing the charges against Duffy as an abuse of power. " — Neil Macdonald, CBC.ca, 23 Apr. 2016
Did you know?
Though it won't leave a bump on your head, severe criticism can be a blow to your self-esteem. It's no wonder that fustigate, when it first appeared in the 17th century, originally meant "to cudgel or beat with a short heavy stick," a sense that reflects the word's derivation from the Latin noun fustis, which means "club" or "staff." The "criticize" sense is more common these days, but the violent use of fustigate was a hit with earlier writers like George Huddesford, who in 1801 told of an angry Jove who "cudgell'd all the constellations, ... / Swore he'd eject the man i' the moon ... / And fustigate him round his orbit."
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Jun 12, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 3, 2018 is:
opportune ? \ah-per-TOON\ ? adjective
1 : suitable or convenient for a particular occurrence
2 : occurring at an appropriate time
Examples:
Kristin seized upon the first opportune moment to approach her boss about a raise.
"We believe that the recent momentum and widespread recognition the concept has received makes it an opportune time to introduce the brand to Sacramento." — David Leuterio, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 5 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
To choose any port in a storm is sometimes the most opportune way of proceeding in a difficult situation—and appropriately so, etymologically speaking. Opportune descends from the Latin opportunus, which means "favoring one's needs," "serviceable," and "convenient." Originally, opportunus was probably used of winds with the literal meaning of "blowing in the direction of a harbor." The word is a combination of the prefix ob-, meaning "to," and portus, "port" or "harbor." Latin portus is also at the root of English port. Opportune and port both made their way to English via Anglo-French, with port arriving before the 12th century, and opportune arriving in the 15th century.
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Jun 12, 2018
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 3, 2018 is:
opportune ? \ah-per-TOON\ ? adjective
1 : suitable or convenient for a particular occurrence
2 : occurring at an appropriate time
Examples:
Kristin seized upon the first opportune moment to approach her boss about a raise.
"We believe that the recent momentum and widespread recognition the concept has received makes it an opportune time to introduce the brand to Sacramento." — David Leuterio, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 5 Apr. 2018
Did you know?
To choose any port in a storm is sometimes the most opportune way of proceeding in a difficult situation—and appropriately so, etymologically speaking. Opportune descends from the Latin opportunus, which means "favoring one's needs," "serviceable," and "convenient." Originally, opportunus was probably used of winds with the literal meaning of "blowing in the direction of a harbor." The word is a combination of the prefix ob-, meaning "to," and portus, "port" or "harbor." Latin portus is also at the root of English port. Opportune and port both made their way to English via Anglo-French, with port arriving before the 12th century, and opportune arriving in the 15th century.
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