Paige's Words of the Week

For my three words, I found them in one of our class readings. I found them from the reading from "The New Yorker" called "Noah's Mark." I chose these words either because I liked the way they sounded or because I had no idea what it meant.

Clobber. (v.)
I chose this word because I liked the way it sounded. It means to patch up or to add enameled decoration to. This word was first used in 1851 and the origin of the word is unknown. It is apparently connected to the noun word "Clobber" and it has an appearance of an onomatopoeic word of frequentative form. An example of how to use this word is: The suits needed to be clobbered up.

Opus. (n.)
I also chose this word because I liked the way it sounded. It's definitions are:
1. A book or other written work, esp. one considered to be of great size or importance; a collection of writings by a particular author.
2.   Music. A musical composition or set of compositions, esp. as numbered in a catalogue of a composer's works.
3. A work or production in any of the arts; a production or performance more generally.
The etymology of this word is Latin. In classical Latin, opus was used from the 15th to 16th century in Italy to denote musical compositions. It was later adopted to Germany to be denoted as a whole collection. It is frequently used with musical compositions. This word was also first used in 1808.

Pusillanimous. (adj.)
I chose this word because I had never seen it before and I had no idea how to pronounce it.  It can be defined as:
1. Of a person: lacking in courage or strength of purpose; faint-hearted, craven, cowardly.
2. Of a quality, action, etc.: resulting from or manifesting a lack of courage or determination.
This word was first used in 1586 and came from the Middle French. It's history comes from a person who is a coward and/or faint-hearted.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary