Thanksgiving-related vocabulary word needed! (for adults, not children)

November 25, 2013 8:51 AM

I am required to bring a "word of the day" to my Toastmasters club's next meeting. This word should be an interesting and useful word that will expand everyone's command of the English language and ideally would be fun to use. Twist: I want it to be Thanksgiving or holiday season related if possible. My google-fu is failing me because I keep getting results meant for children's crossword puzzles ("pilgrim", "turkey", etc.). I'm looking for something more along the lines of "puritanical" or something like that. Can be historical, related to feelings or gratitude or even satirical of the holiday.
posted by halseyaa to Writing & Language (16 answers total)

Eleemosynary is my very favorite word in the whole world. Probably most familiar from the opening line of Tom Jones, "AN Author ought to consider himself, not as a Gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary Treat, but rather as one who keeps a publick Ordinary, at which all Persons are welcome for their Money."

I have always thought it'd be fun to have a big Thanksgiving dinner with the title "An Eleemosynary Treat" on the invitations.
posted by Bardolph at 8:58 AM on November 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Postprandial? We always have someone suggesting a postprandial walk, followed by at least one declaration that someone is going into a postprandial coma.
posted by amarynth at 8:59 AM on November 25, 2013 [8 favorites]

Best answer: I like the word maudlin. It's a short word, so is one that can be easily dropped in everyday conversation without making you sound like a pedagogic twat.

And sure, it's holiday related: "Uncle Ralph had a bit too much pre-dinner wine and ended up delivering a somewhat maudlin toast about our family."
posted by phunniemee at 9:04 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

Cornucopia
Gastronomic
Satiety

As in, "This cornucopia of food will surely bring me to gastronomic satiety"
posted by Flood at 9:08 AM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Postprandial? We always have someone suggesting a postprandial walk, followed by at least one declaration that someone is going into a postprandial coma.

I'm a big fan of a perfunctory postprandial perambulation.
posted by borkencode at 9:08 AM on November 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

everybody wants to have a nice thanksgiving dinner, but nobody wants to do all the cooking and dishwashing afterward, they want someone else (maybe you) to do it. there's a word for that, one of my all-time faves, which the guinness book cites as the most concise word in the world. it comes from the indigenous people of tierra del fuego.

mamihlapinatapai
posted by bruce at 9:14 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

You could use the term "Separatists," which is the proper name for the people we call the Pilgrims, the one they called themselves. "Pilgrims" is a much later, romanticized term for this group of people. They weren't just Puritans, they were Puritans who believed in separation from the Church of England rather than just reforming or purifying it - so they were a more theologically conservative branch of Puritan than your garden-variety Puritan.
posted by Miko at 9:25 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

One of my favorite words is syzygy - in astronomy, it refers to when 3 or more planets align. It's a great word to describe moments when everything seems to line up or come together in an amazing way - like, say, Chanukah and Thanksgiving overlapping for the first and last times in anyone's lifetime.
posted by Mchelly at 9:27 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

wassail

repast

nimiety

edacious

saturnalia

plenum

repletion

cormorant

deipnosophist

soporific (tryptophan)
posted by divined by radio at 9:28 AM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

Monopsony -- If a market has several suppliers but only one important customer, that customer is a monopsony and can use its unique position to force suppliers to sell at ruinous terms.

Compare "monopoly" where there are many customers but only one supplier, who likewise has market leverage.

(It's not related to Thanksgiving, but it's an important word.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:38 AM on November 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

Fellow Toastmaster, here. I was going to come busting in, elbowing everyone out of the way with my suggestion, when I saw phunniemee's maudlin. Oh. my. lord. Yes. That's what T'day usually becomes, more's the pity. Please use it.

My suggestion was going to be skewer. It's a noun, and two kinds of verb. Plus, there may well be one or more on the dinner table. But use maudlin.
posted by BostonTerrier at 10:11 AM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: So many fantastic answers. I'm still debating between making maudlin or postprandial the official Word of the Day, but I am going to include the others in my handout so everyone can try out their newly expanded vocabulary at their holiday events. Thanks everyone!
posted by halseyaa at 10:45 AM on November 25, 2013

Go with postprandial. Seriously.
posted by maudlin at 1:51 PM on November 25, 2013

Sorry, hit Post too early. Use maudlin some other time, but postprandial is just more positively evocative of Thanksgiving than an all-purpose word for an emotional state that is never almost never used positively. (Canadian who has been through Thanksgiving already this year, former Toastmaster.)
posted by maudlin at 1:53 PM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

"alectryomancy" is a word for the ancient Etruscan practice of divination by rooster which - through some modifications down through the years - reputedly led to our practice of wishbone-wishing. Also the name for the wishbone is the "furculum".
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:16 PM on November 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

Tryptophan!
posted by bunderful at 5:03 PM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]