Thursday, November 30, 2017

shaman

A person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practise divination and healing.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Midas touch: Origin Mid 17th century: from the story of King Midas.

Midas was a legendary king of Phrygia (in modern-day Turkey). In return for a good deed, he was granted one wish by the god Dionysus, and asked for the power to turn everything he touched into gold. When he discovered to his horror that his touch had turned his food and drink—and even his daughter—to gold, he begged Dionysus to take back the gift, and Dionysus agreed to do so. When "Midas touch" is used today, the moral of this tale of greed is usually ignored.
a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning — called also Socratic irony

Socratic irony

A pose of ignorance assumed in order to entice others into making statements that can then be challenged.

banzai

Origin
Japanese, literally ‘ten thousand years (of life to you)’.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

changeling

A child believed to have been secretly substituted by fairies for the parents' real child in infancy.

Gordian knot

Origin
Mid 16th century: from the legend that Gordius, king of Gordium, tied an intricate knot and prophesied that whoever untied it would become the ruler of Asia. It was cut through with a sword by Alexander the Great.

Rabelaisian

Displaying earthy humour; bawdy.
‘the conversation was often highly Rabelaisian’

Origin
Mid 18th century: suggestive of the humour of François Rabelais.

Kafkaesque:

Characteristic or reminiscent of the oppressive or nightmarish qualities of Franz Kafka's fictional world.
‘a Kafkaesque bureaucratic office’