One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (12 page)

O IN PRINT AND PROVERB

1. (phrase)
Round as Giotto’s O:
said of work that is flawless but done with little effort. Giotto was an Italian painter who could draw a perfect
O
freehand.

2. (phrase)
O per se:
the letter O by itself makes a word.

3. (in literature)
As marks of smallpox:
“O that your face were not so full of O’s.”
—William Shakespeare,
Love’s Labor’s Lost,
V.ii.45

4. (in literature)
As stars:
“All yon fiery Oes.”
—William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
III.ii.188

5. (in literature)
“May we cram within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?”
—William Shakespeare,
Henry V,
Prologue,
13–15

6. (in literature)
“The little O, the earth.”
—William Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra,
V.ii.81

7. (in literature)
As an affliction:
“Why should you fall into so deep an O?”
—William Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet,
III.iii.90

8. (in literature)
“O, supreme trumpet, full of strange harsh sounds, / Silences which are crossed by
Worlds and by Angels—/ O, Omega, violet ray of
Her Eyes!”
—Arthur Rimbaud, “Vowels”

9. (in literature)
“O me no O’s.”
—Ben Jonson,
The
Case Is Altered,
V.i.

10. (in literature)
“Like a full-acorned boar, a German one, cried O! and mounted.”
—William Shakespeare,
Cymbeline,
II.v.17

11. (in literature)
OPQRS, Etc.
is a play concerning the liberation of Ottoville, where the only official color is orange, where the alphabet begins with the letter O, and all decisions are made by Otto the Official.

12. (in literature)
“O is the sun.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding

13.
n.
A song,
as in the “O’s of Advent” (the seven Advent Anthems sung on the days preceding Christmas Eve, each containing a separate invocation to Christ beginning with O).

14.
n.
A written representation of the letter.

15.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.

EXPRESSIONS

16.
interj.
Oh!

17.
interj.
Indeed!

18.
interj.
Used before a name in direct address, especially in solemn or poetic language.
Turn backward, O Time.
—Elizabeth Akers Allen, “Rock Me to Sleep”

19.
interj.
An expression of pain.
o it hurts my chest hurts my shoulder o o o i want my momma.
—Stephen King,
Carrie

20.
interj.
An exclamation of surprise.
“O my dearie,” the wife said from her bed with a surprise at once delighted and grieved, “how big he was!”
—Albert Camus,
The Fall

21.
interj.
An expression of annoyance.
O bother!
—William Horwood,
Toad Triumphant

22.
interj.
An expression of longing.
“O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!”
—Andy FitzGibbon,
The Kiss of Intimacy: the Soul’s Longing After God

23.
interj.
An exclamation of gladness.

24.
interj.
An expression introducing a wish.
O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!
—John Keats, quoted in
What Is History? And Other
Essays
by Michael Joseph Oakeshott

25.
interj.
An exclamation of wonder.
But o! But o!/How very blue/The sea is!
—Clive Barker,
Abarat

26.
interj.
An exclamation of fear.

27.
interj.
An interjection at the end of a ballad or song,
as in “Bingo was his name, O.”

28.
interj.
An expression of earnestness.
[Marlene] Dietrich began to sing, her voice full of languid melancholy, worldliness, the sadness of knowledge, and the longing for love. “O,” exclaimed Weber,
“she is the incarnation of sex. She makes me melt.”
—Louis De Bernieres,
Corelli’s Mandolin: A Novel

29.
interj.
An expression of reassurance.
O, come on, another [drink of liquor] won’t do you any harm.
—James Joyce,
Dubliners

ZERO AND UP

30.
n.
The numeral zero.
He picks up the receiver, drops in a quarter, and dials the “0” for Operator.
—David Lynch,
Mulhol-land Drive

31.
n.
A cipher (mathematical symbol denoting absence of quantity).
Thou art an O without a figure.
—William Shakespeare,
King Lear,
I.iv.212

32.
n.
A medieval Roman numeral for 11.

33.
n.
The fifteenth in a series.

MISCELLANEOUS

34.
v.
Owe.
“I must say, I didn’t know what to make of it when I saw your note.” He meant the one I’d left him when he fell asleep on me in the conference room. It lay crinkled on the coffee table between us, a single sheet of yellow legal paper on which I’d scribbled three large letters: I O U. “Well, I did owe you. I owed you an apology and a kitten. Now you got both.”
—Lisa Scottoline,
Legal Tender

35.
n.
A complete, whole person.
You see, the problem with this completed person, this O, that both people think they have reached, is that it has taken two people to make this one whole person, one supplying the female energy and one supplying the male.
—James Redfield,
The Celestine
Prophecy

36.
n.
The fifteenth letter of the alphabet.
“His name,” said the palmist, thoughtful looking, “is not spelled out by the lines, but they indicate ’tis a long one, and the letter ‘o’ should be in it. There’s no more to tell.”
—O. Henry,
41 Stories by O. Henry

37.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the vowel O means “innocence, childlike innocence, circle of light, hollow bone, hollow reed, medicine wheel.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American
Approach to Understanding Your Name

38.
n.
(logic)
The notation of a particular negative statement,
such as “some humans are not men.” In categorical logic, the square of opposition describes the relationship between the universal affirmative
A,
the universal negative
E,
the particular affirmative
I,
and the particular negative
O.

39.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated O
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
You’re sounding hale and fit, O.
—David Foster Wallace,
Infinite Jest

40.
n.
The stigma of an open relationship.
A giant O would hang above our house, a scarlet letter emblazoned upon the sky for the general protection of the citizenry.
—Daniel Jones,
The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain
Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and
Freedom

41.
n.
Something having the shape of an O.
In this old house we’ve misfitting screens. Tiny
insects are dying of my lamps…. They write Os in the air, perfect Os, as I was taught.
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
The three fish bobbed up, pale-white silvered ghost carp, staring at us, or seeming to, the O’s of their mouths continually opening and closing, as if they were talking to us in some silent, secret language of their own.
—Neil Gaiman,
Smoke and Mirrors

42.
adj.
Oval in shape.
His mouth opened in a wide O as he clutched his groin with intent, slowly sank to his knees, and doubled over until his forehead rested on the lawn.
—George C. Chesbro,
The Language of Cannibals

43.
n.
The fifteenth section in a piece of music.
In the midst of the rehearsal [of the Rachmaninoff concerto, conductor Desiré] Defauw stopped the orchestra and said: “Gentlemen, let us play again one bar before letter O.” When the bar had been played Defauw smiled with pleasure and said: “Gentlemen, Mr. Horowitz says
I conduct that bar better than any conductor in the world.”
—Oscar Levant,
The Memoirs of an Amnesiac

44.
prep.
In.

45.
n.
A rating of “morally offensive”
according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting Classification.

SCIENTIFIC MATTERS

46.
n.
A blood type.
Genes for types A and B are dominant, and will always be expressed. Type O is recessive. A child who
inherits one A and one O gene will be type A. Similarly, a child who inherits one B and one O gene will be type B. If both an A and a B gene are passed on, a child will be type AB. Only a child who inherits one O gene from each parent will be type O.
—Mayo Clinic

47.
n.
A person with type O blood.
Since Os have been blessed with such strong stomach acid and respective enzymes, they are able to metabolize almost everything, even those foods not recommended for them.
—Steven M. Weissberg, MD,
InnerSelf Magazine

48.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element oxygen in the periodic table.
“Think you could swim in heavy water?” “H two O two? Very buoyantly, I imagine.”
—Iain Banks,
The
Business

49.
n.
The passive force in the cosmic property of a substance.
When a substance is the conductor of the second or the passive force, it is called “oxygen,” and, like the oxygen of chemistry, it is designated by the letter O.
—P. D. Uspenskii,
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching