One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meanings

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
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linguoboy
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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by linguoboy »

I see your drupe and raise you a pome.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Xephyr »

"It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be said, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
The Gospel of Thomas

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by ---- »

We had a couple math terms here and it made me think of the word nome.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by linguoboy »

Xephyr wrote:lakh and crore
Are those really "technical" or "rare"? They're as common as "thousand" or "million" in Indian English.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Drydic »

And outside of Indian English...
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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by linguoboy »

Nessari wrote:And outside of Indian English...
Just trying to establish the parameters. Because if any common term specific to a variety with 100 million speakers or fewer is fair game, then there are a lot more BE terms we could be posting here.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Xephyr »

The parameters of the game were never meant to be limited to rare words, but rather to oddly specific or technical meanings of monosyllabic words. I.e. sememes you wouldn't immediately suspect would get such concise lexemes to express them, the point being to illustrate how incredibly monosyllabic English can be.
"It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be said, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
The Gospel of Thomas

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Rui »

Sorry for gravedigging, but thanks to autocorrect I just learned the word trank, specifically definition #2: "the piece of leather from which a glove is cut", and I immediately thought of this thread

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by TaylorS »

Pons: A region of the brain stem in between the Medulla and the Midbrain.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Fruithat »

Salmoneus wrote: 'Scrivener' is an old word for a scribe - a word you don't encounter in daily life, but that does crop up in mediaeval settings now and then. You also sometimes see 'screever', though it's now mostly used for artists rather than writers.
Let's not forget Bartleby the Scrivener!
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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Thry »

TaylorS wrote:Pons: A region of the brain stem in between the Medulla and the Midbrain.
Why do those need capitalization xD?

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Kereb »

"roid him up a little more"

My director commenting to another animator that a character with big muscley veiny arms could look even more exaggeratedly steroid-swollen. It was a one-off, an ad hoc verbing of an abbreviated noun but I thought of this thread because of how much meaning was in that one syllable.
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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by din »

It's not that rare, in some circles at least


(Not that I really want to contribute to the "Here's a rare word!" - "Pah, scoff! I use it every day!" pattern that can be found throughout this thread, but to be honest, I have heard it 'relatively often', for an ad-hoc derivation like that)
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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Terra »

I learned this one today, after browsing an etymological dictionary: thill

thill : a shaft, especially one of a pair, used to attach a cart or carriage to the animal drawing it.

It's cognate with Latin 'témó', which has the same meaning.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by TaylorS »

Terra wrote:I learned this one today, after browsing an etymological dictionary: thill

thill : a shaft, especially one of a pair, used to attach a cart or carriage to the animal drawing it.

It's cognate with Latin 'témó', which has the same meaning.
I learned about that same word in the book I mentioned over in the PIE thread!

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Ser »

"Carbs", for "carbohydrates". Apparently a thing among nutrition-minded folks.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Nortaneous »

Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Neon Fox »

Shed and pick, in the context of weaving.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Nortaneous »

Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by linguoboy »

Came across "quirt" in one novel and "rowel" in another. (The latter is listed as bisyllabic in most dictionaries, but I can't perceive a consistent differentiation between this and "role" IMD.)

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Matrix »

For role and rowel I have [ɹɔɫ] and [ɹoʊ̯wɫ̩]. Not entirely sure about the vowels, but I definitely pronounce the w in the latter and have the l syllabic.
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Adúljôžal ônal kol ví éža únah kex yaxlr gmlĥ hôga jô ônal kru ansu frú.
Ansu frú ônal savel zaš gmlĥ a vek Adúljôžal vé jaga čaþ kex.
Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by din »

linguoboy wrote:Came across "quirt" in one novel and "rowel" in another. (The latter is listed as bisyllabic in most dictionaries, but I can't perceive a consistent differentiation between this and "role" IMD.)
I don't know how you pronounce "role", but my first instinct was to pronounce "rowel" /ˈɹaʊ(ə)l/, which turns out to be the pronunciation the dictionaries also ɡive.
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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by linguoboy »

din wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Came across "quirt" in one novel and "rowel" in another. (The latter is listed as bisyllabic in most dictionaries, but I can't perceive a consistent differentiation between this and "role" IMD.)
I don't know how you pronounce "role", but my first instinct was to pronounce "rowel" /ˈɹaʊ(ə)l/, which turns out to be the pronunciation the dictionaries also ɡive.
Ah, turns out I was misreading the phonetic spelling in the AHD which uses /ou/ to represent /au/.

Another candidate: add as a noun. Unless there's a meaning I'm not aware of, this has the very technical sense of "the act of adding someone to a group on social media" or "person so added".

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by Matrix »

In video games, usually MMORPGs, 'adds' are mobs spawned in the middle of a boss fight.
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Adúljôžal ônal kol ví éža únah kex yaxlr gmlĥ hôga jô ônal kru ansu frú.
Ansu frú ônal savel zaš gmlĥ a vek Adúljôžal vé jaga čaþ kex.
Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh.

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Re: One-syllable words with specific technical or rare meani

Post by CatDoom »

Matrix wrote:In video games, usually MMORPGs, 'adds' are mobs spawned in the middle of a boss fight.
"Mob" itself may fit the topic, in the sense of (to quote Wiktionary) "A non-player character [in a video game] that exists to be fought or killed to further the progression of the story or game."

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