I'm bored. Let's play a picture and word game.

[Rain Man]

First, go here:

http://listofrandomwords.com/index.cfm?blist


Generate a list of 50 random words with greater than 3 letters. Then find an interesting word, do a google image search, and put up the most interesting picture you find.

If you don't mind, also give us a definition for that word.

Here's mine:

braque.

Apparently it relates solely to a fellow named Georges Braque, who was a painter. He started out as an impressionist but then moved to a Fauvist style that used very bright colors.

Here's the most interesting picture on my image search, which is presumably one of his paintings.

[mlyonsd]

collywobbles

Meaning

A state of intestinal disorder, usually accompanied by a rumbling stomach; for example, 'butterflies in the stomach'.

Origin

The origin isn't known for certain.

Colly is an English dialect word meaning coal dust. Blackbirds were hence known as colly birds. The song Twelve days of Christmas is usually sung as 'my true love sent to me, four calling birds'... but the actual line is 'four colly birds'. Colly-wobbles could have derived from indisposition caused by breathing coal dust.

It is more likely that this is a nonsense word formed from colic and wobble. The earliest citation of it is from Pierce Egan's edition of Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1823:

"Collywobbles, the gripes."

The nonsense origin is supported by two other early references, clearly used with comic intent.

- Punch October 1841: "To keep him from getting the collywobbles in his pandenoodles."

- Cuthbert Bede The Adventures of Mister Verdant Green, 1853: "A touch of the mulligrubs in your collywobbles?"



Chief fan definition: Anytime the Chiefs make the playoffs.

[Rain Man]

I plan to use the word collywobbles in a conversation next week.

[Fire Me Boy!]

superimprobableness

adjective
1. not probable; unlikely to be true or to happen: "Rain is improbable tonight."

[mlyonsd]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I plan to use the word collywobbles in a conversation next week.

I hope to remember to use it just before the Chiefs make their 1st round pick.

[Bugeater]

a·me·lio·ra·tion
əˌmēlēəˈrāSH(ə)n/
nounformal

noun: amelioration; plural noun: ameliorations

1. the act of making something better; improvement.
   "progress brings with it the amelioration of the human condition"
   
   
   
   

[Coochie liquor]

Turdulence
The discomfort that occurs due to an inability to pass flatus on a flight.
Just got in from Japan and man, due I have some turdulence.

Couldn't find a good pic for my word, so went with this. And also crossing threads. Yeah, I'm on top of my game tonight, if I do say so myself!!

[Coochie liquor]

Originally Posted by Baconeater

a·me·lio·ra·tion
əˌmēlēəˈrāSH(ə)n/
nounformal

noun: amelioration; plural noun: ameliorations

1. the act of making something better; improvement.
   "progress brings with it the amelioration of the human condition"
   
   
   
   

Just like a Baconeater thread..... Amirite??

[TimBone]

CUNEIFORM

Cuneiform script[nb 1]*is one of the earliest known*systems of writing,[1]*distinguished by its*wedge-shaped marks on*clay tablets, made by means of a blunt*reed*for a*stylus.*

[TinyEvel]

I chose...

Jizya (It has the word JIZ in it, so had to)

DEFINITION: Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim subjects, who meet certain criteria. The tax is and was to be levied on able-bodied adult males of military age (but with specific exemptions).

From the point of view of the Muslim rulers, jizya was a material proof of the non-Muslims' acceptance of subjection to the state and its laws. In return, non-Muslim subjects are permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to the Muslim state's protection from outside aggression, and to be exempted from military service and from the zakat tax levied upon Muslim citizens.



So, basically, it's shakedown money.

The image search actually turned up some pretty gruesome and terrifying and political (move thread to DC?) images. I chose one that was somewhat tame.

(In all honesty, JIZYA sounds like the name of a hand towel you'd buy at IKEA.)

[Rain Man]

I'm learning a lot in this thread.

I wonder how cuneiform typewriters worked. Did they have a key for every letter, or did they only have four keys and you had to type 12 keystrokes to get an X?

[Rain Man]

And I can imagine the conversations in the Middle East.

"Are you a Christian?"

"Yes. Are you going to kill me?"

"Killya? No. We're just going to jizya."

[TinyEvel]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

And I can imagine the conversations in the Middle East.

"Are you a Christian?"

"Yes. Are you going to kill me?"

"Killya? No. We're just going to jizya."

JIZYA? I don't even know ya. (rim shot)

[Baby Lee]

Hackmatack

1. Tamarack - an American larch, Larix laricina, of the pine family, having a reddish-brown bark and crowded clusters of blue-green needles and yielding a useful timber.

2. Balsam Poplar - a North American tree, Populus balsamifera, having sticky, resinous buds and shiny ovate leaves.

Origin - 1765-75, Americanism; earlier hackmetack woods, hakmantak dense forest or interwoven shrubbery of tamarack or other conifers; probably < Western Abenaki

[Rain Man]

semiromantic brings up more images of cats than one would expect.

The definition is kind of obvious, even though it doesn't show up in dictionaries. I'm not sure it's technically a word, but presume that it means something along the lines of "partially romantic".

This is probably the most interesting image aside from the cats: