BS: New word for today: puissant

Subject: New word for today: puissant
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 01:21 AM

Always fun to learn a new word! I came across this one recently, numerous times, in some spiritual material I've been reading. It was new to me. What does it mean?

puissant - mighty, powerful, extremely potent.

Can be pronounced 2 ways - pyu-iss-'nt or pwis-s'nt.

It comes originally from French, but is used also in English. How about that, eh? Any comments, Spaw?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 01:24 AM

'Spaw will tell you to take the "u" out -- makes it a much more useful word. Right, 'Spaw?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 01:58 AM

One might put the u between the a and the n. :)

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Hrothgar
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 07:04 AM

According to the Macquarie dctionary, "puissant" means mighty or powerful, which is a bit different from the colloquial usage of "pissant."

The Macquarie refers to the use of "pissant" for a drunk, but my understanding of it has always been that it referred to people who would be if they could be.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 07:12 AM

Little Hawk,

You provided the definition, then asked what it meant?

Oh I get it! It sounds a bit like piss! ROTFLMAO (not)

'Cunt' sounds a little like 'can't' too.

Wish I was as funny as you....

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Airto
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 07:25 AM

If 'mighty' can be used to qualify an adjective then why not 'puissant' as well?

Before the arrival of edge-of-town cattle marts, market towns used to be full of puissant pissant peasants on fair days.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: RichM
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 08:01 AM

Whatsa matter, Guest? Too much caffeine this a.m.? ;)

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 08:12 AM

A) Before opening this thread, I knew it was a "Hawk" thread.

B) The Doc immediately played the response

C) I'm thinking of just stopping posting altogether....I'm obviously too well tuned in and not needed anyway.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 08:51 AM

The Puissant Spaw stop posting??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO I need laughs that you provide (the picture kept me going for a week), for a sane and healthy outlook on life from my padded cell here....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:12 AM

Puissant is rather literally "being able to" - comes from the French Pouvoir, which as a noun means Power, and as a verb means To be able to, to "can". Puissant is an archaic present progressive, thus Being able to. So it's a combination of capability and power. Not only CAN I, but I will with oomph, or something.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: paddymac
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:25 AM

Jaysus, and here I thought this was gonna be about Dear Old Conrad.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:29 AM

Congratulations to Little Hawk for finally finding an old word we learned some 45 yeas ago at school in one of our English lessons in Germany.
First prize to the contribution of Airto for his 3 pees. V

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:31 AM

Jeeze, LH, do ya gotta perturbate the threads with your vocab lessons? Just because you subscribe to Word for the Day doesn't mean the rest of us have to go back to seventh grade with you!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:36 AM

Congratulations to Little Hawk for finally finding an old word we learned some 45 yeas ago at school in one of our English lessons in Germany.
It's always the question of using four letter words or other monosyllables of Saxon stock, or the erudite polysyllables of Norman stock. Wasn't it Scott who wrote about it in Ivanhoe of good alderman Ox turned to royal Beef? Memory may fail me here, must read this wonderful book again.
Methinks, Her Majesty's Own language, and certainly its rebel version overseaas, too, is one of the most apt languages for puns and rhymes.
First prize to the contribution of Airto for his 3 pees. VERY funny, indeed (no joke).

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:50 AM

Amos, how the hell did you get in between Wilfried's double post? That takes talent! Wilfried, do you know what "liebenscheiss" means also? Ask Amos for a full exposition on that.

GUEST - You misunderstand my presentation. I asked the question rhetorically of myself (as part of said presentation), then answered it. I was not asking other Mudcatters to give me a definition of the word, I was simply sharing the word with other Mudcatters, because it's a word I had not seen prior to reading the aforementioned spiritual materials, despite the fact that some people here claim to have seen it as far back as 7th grade (which I suppose is possible...), and I thought it was an interesting word in its own right. Period.

As this appears to irritate you, expect me to post more interesting words shortly. :-)

Poor Spaw never gets a chance to wisecrack anymore because everyone beats him to it. Such is the price of great fame.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:00 PM

Wilfried,

It is my experience that most Germans have studied English more thoroughly than Americans--even so, we don't use this word much because it looks like it could mean something scatological--

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:35 PM

Wilfried,
Us true speakers of the tongue (in cheek) don't use it much if ever either. puissant enough without it. But as a fully paid-up lexicographically oriented proto-etymologist I enjoyed the exposure to a word I wouldn't have chosen myself.
Thankyou Little Hawk for swooping on that word and carrying it away to the erie Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: MMario
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:37 PM

Saw it long before 7th grade LH! But then again, I'm a cumpulsive reader.

I do beleive it is in my prayer book as well - but too lazy to check that out.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:47 PM

So Mario, does a "cumpulsive" reader read nothing but stroke books?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:54 PM

It means that he was always looking for "puissant"--

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: MMario
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:58 PM

just means I can't spell!

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 01:02 PM

puissant [pjusnt] adj. Archaic or poetic. powerful. [from Old French, ultimately from Latin potens mighty, from posse to have power]

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 06:18 PM

We've got this one covered. Time for a new word.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Desdemona
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 06:43 PM

"Sanguine", and its etymological provenance, s'il vous plait!

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 06:57 PM

G'day all & sundry,

Of course we can go in the other direction ... In Australia, we carry on the British idea of designating the lesser judges of a superior court as puisne ... the opposite in Norman French = lacking power.

Of course, this gets Anglicised and phoneticised as "puny" and thus describes any wimp, not just junior judges.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:38 PM

Hmmm...Desdemona, I don't see how "sanguine" can be turned into a naughty word! Nevertheless, it means "forceful", "with spirit", "strong", commonly used in the context of a favorable opinion or support of something. (That's not a dictionary definition, but I think it's pretty close.)

More interesting to me is its derivation, and its relation to several other words: choleric, melancholy, and phlegmatic. "Sanguine" literally means "bloody". These words go back to the theory which held that a person's temperament resulted from the balance of four "humors" or bodily fluids, namely, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. An excess of any of these humors was felt to create a certain kind of personality:

Blood -- sanguine -- excitable, spirited
Phlegm (mucus) -- phlegmatic -- lazy, slow-moving
Black bile -- melancholic -- sad, depressed
Yellow bile -- choleric (I don't know why it's not "xanthocholeric", probably too hard to say) -- angry

Nowadays, of course, we know that the theory of the four humors is completely false. Most scientists now subscribe to the "coco-chromogenic" theory, which holds that personality traits result from eating certain colors of M&Ms in early childhood.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 12:50 AM

G'day Mark,

Somewhat related to the "True History of the Kelly Gang" thread's adjectival, the adjective sanguinary is sometimes a euphemism for bloody ... but what the bloody hell?

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 02:19 AM

(I think that would be Smarties for the Eastsiders and Downunders. Who, as Bob suggests, would be more likely to be sanguine. Or sanguinary. Or sanguinacious.)

Mark

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 08:42 AM

G'day Mark,

Actually, a (chromatically) "sanguinary" connection subsists in your theory ... was it not the red ones that were supposed to have the particularly hyper-activity promoting artificial colour?

BTW: M&Ms are alive and well (represented) down here in the Antipodes ... even if Smarties still hold the high ground.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 08:47 AM

Well, Little Hawk should move down there, then. The Smarties are much easier to alphabetize.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 08:49 AM

And Mark Cohen nails it!

Sorry, I didn't know it had to be a word that could be interpreted as "naughty"....how about "quaint"? ;~)

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Airto
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 12:05 PM

The equine (showjumping) equivalent of the high jump competition is the puissance test.

When a police officer asks you to step out of your car and walk the line it is to evaluate your pissedness.

But the true acid test is when they take a urine sample. The wrong result here and you're in trouble. It could lead to a driving ban, even prison, and a loss of career.

If after checking your pissedness they take the piss you may be for the puissance.

From failure of pissedness to failure of business.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 01:23 PM

It DOESN'T have to be a word that can be interpreted as naughty! I started this thread, remember that, and I am saying that it doesn't, okay? Mark is off the mark.

Sanguine is a very neat word! Nice choice, Desdemona. I suspect that 3/4 of the people walking down the streets of Orillia have never once used the word "sanguine" in conversation, and don't even know what it means. I further feel assured that not one in 10,000 of them has ever used the word "puissant" in conversation...or ever will...despite the fact that it is apparently being taught to young Germans studying English! I wonder what other arcane and even archaic English words German students are being schooled in....

I can just picture an enthusiastic young German traveller, visiting Canada for the first time, just itching to get a chance to use the word "puissant" in a conversation with a Canadian...only to receive a blank stare or a puzzled look when he does. Ha!

We are living in an eternally amusing world...puissant in its dimensions...sanguine in its possibilities.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Gomez
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 01:37 PM

Sanguine.. from the French/Irish derivation. No dark beer.

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 09:55 PM

G'day LH,

I would not be game to mention the target word in today's (local, Sydney Morning Herald) word puzzle: ineffable ... I mean, words fail me!

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: New word for today: puissant
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 10:33 PM

Well, that's very appropriate, because those same spiritual books I'm reading are absolutely riddled with teh word "ineffable"!

- LH