One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (7 page)
Read One-Letter Words, a Dictionary Online
Authors: Craig Conley
Tags: #Social Science, #Popular Culture, #Reference, #General
39.
n.
E horizon:
the eluviation layer of the soil (beneath the topsoil) consisting of silt and sand but few minerals.
FOREIGN MEANINGS
40.
prep.
(Latin)
Out of; as in
E pluribus unum,
“one out of many.”
FACTS AND FIGURES
41.
E
is the most commonly occurring of all letters.
A
is third,
O
fourth,
I
fifth, and
U
comes in a distant twelfth.
F IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (in film)
The title of a film from the Czech Republic,
written and directed by Janja Glogovac.
2. (in literature)
“F is the gibbet.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding
3.
The letter
F
is so associated with the vulgar
“f-word” that the very sight of it, even out of any context, can suggest the vulgarity.
The [Ouija] board quivered again and the girls hushed. It moved, stopped, moved again. It made the letter F. “Fuh…” the girl named Sandy said. “Fuck you, too,” someone else said, and they were off and giggling again.
—Stephen King,
The Stand
4.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
The white corner painted on the floor was being revealed as part of a word. It was the top of the capital letter F.
—Barbara D’Amato,
Help Me Please
5.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.
LAYERS AND LEVELS
6.
n.
A layer of the ionosphere,
as in the “F layer.”
The F-layer appears a few hours after sunset, when the F1-and F2-layers merge. The F-layer is located between 250–500km altitude. Even well into the night, this layer may reflect radio waves up to 20
MHz, and occasionally even up to 25 MHz.
—WWDX Propagation College
7.
n.
The sixth in a series.
8.
n.
A nonpassing grade in school indicating “failing.”
Not enough comments on it, insufficient explanation of her F.
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
9.
n.
One graded with an F.
an
F
student
KEYS AND SCALES
10.
n.
The fourth note in a C-major musical scale.
11.
n.
A written or printed representation of a musical note F.
12.
n.
A string,
key, or pipe tuned to the note F.
13.
n.
The sixth section in a piece of music.
14.
n.
F hole:
“the long graceful curly openings on the faces of violins and certain other stringed instruments, shaped like a baroque
f.
”—Dr. John Burkardt
15.
n.
A notation meaning “clef” in the earliest surviving written music of medieval European chants
(about the year 1000).
The letter F at the beginning of the line was called a
Clef, because it was a key, or clue, to the knowledge of the level of sound.
—Imogen Holst,
ABC of Music:
A Short Practical Guide to the Basics
MISCELLANEOUS
16.
n.
The sixth letter of the alphabet.
Take the F from life and you have lie.
—James Thurber, “The Wonderful O”
[A]s I was looking through a microscope at a tropical moth, to my surprise I noticed a tiny, perfect
letter F hidden on the wing. I was astounded and wondered if I could find other letters…. Little did
I imagine that it would take more than twenty-five years and visits to more than thirty countries to discover all the letters of the alphabet.
—Kjell B. Sandved,
The Butterfly Alphabet
He flipped to the back of the book, intending to look under the letter F for titles containing the word fuòco
—fire—
but the F’s were not together. Langdon swore under his breath.
What the hell do these people have against alphabetizing?—Dan Brown,
Angels and Demons
17.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant F means “faith.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native
American Approach to Understanding Your Name
The letter f is more like a breath blown out between the lips.
—Jarrell D. Sieff,
A Practical Guide to Living in Japan: Everything You Need to Know to Successfully Settle In
18.
n.
Feather.
You could have knocked me down with a f.
—P. G. Wodehouse,
Right Ho, Jeeves
19.
n.
Something having the shape of an F.
The Okinawans used a type of halter on those horses that I had never seen before. It consisted of two pieces of wood held in place by ropes. The wooded pieces on either side of the horse’s head were shaped like the letter F.
—Eugene B. Sledge,
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
20.
n.
Something designated F.
Books you were going to write with letters for titles.
Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but
W is wonderful. O yes, W.
—James Joyce,
Ulysses
21.
n.
Someone called F.
Uncle F left me a small landscape painting I’d once admired.
—Iain Banks,
The Business
22.
n.
A medieval Roman numeral for 40.
23.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated F
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
24.
n.
Something arbitrarily called F that takes on significance depending upon context.
We have arbitrarily chosen the letter “F” for a certain purpose, so that “Fx” shall have a certain meaning (depending on x). As a result of this choice
“F,” previously non-significant, becomes significant; it has meaning. But it is clearly an impossible simplification to suppose that there is a single object F, which it means.
—F. P. Ramsey, “The Foundations of Mathematics,”
F. P. Ramsey: Philosophical Papers
SCIENTIFIC MATTERS
25.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element fluorine in the periodic table.
26.
n.
(physics)
The Faraday constant
F
equals the amount of charge that must pass through a solution to electrolytically deposit a mole of a singly charged, or monovalent, element contained in the solution.
27.
n.
(physics)
A state of atomic energy.
28.
n.
(biology)
Phenylalanine,
an amino acid.
29.
n.
(astronomy)
A class of stars in between white and yellow.
30.
n.
(mechanics)
F head:
“Having one valve in the head, and another on the side of the engine cylinder.”—Dr. John Burkardt
FACTS AND FIGURES
31.
Until 1822, the letter F (for “fray-maker”) was branded on the cheeks of people who fought in church.
G IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (in literature)
“He harkens after prophecies and dreams, and from the cross-row plucks the letter G. And says a wizard told him, that by G his issue disinherited should be.”
—William Shakespeare,
Richard III,
I.i.54–56
2. (in literature)
G
is a 1980 novel by John Berger.
3. (in literature)
“[N]ow the bloody old lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man.”
—James Joyce,
Ulysses.
Here,
G
stands for
government.
4. (in literature)
As a marker of sobriety:
“Even before she was out of the car, the trooper asked Linda to recite the alphabet, starting with the letter G. It occurred to her that starting with G instead of A was supposed to rattle someone who was already disoriented from having too much to drink.”
—Marlene Steinberg,
The Stranger in the Mirror
5. (in literature)
“G is the French horn.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding
6.
n.
(slang)
One thousand dollars.
[Walt] still owes me two G’s and he’s out at the Doll House the other night, stuffing twenties into the girls’ G-strings.
—Peter Blauner,
The Intruder
7.
n.
(slang)
A word used to address a friend.
Yah, what g?—The Rap Dictionary
8. (contraction)
Good,
as in “g’day.”
9.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
If I were to plead trouble with any letter it would probably be the g, a mere “twiddle” of the pen at
best, but a delightful twiddle nevertheless.
—Frederic Goudy, type designer
He died on the ninth of October, the day that the single letter G appeared on the wall of his room facing his bed, and on the twenty-fifth day of his illness.
—Robert Graves,
I, Claudius
10.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.
MUSIC
11.
n.
The fifth note in a C-major musical scale.
The middle G was sticking, but still he recognized the theme.
—Brooks Hansen,
Perlman’s Ordeal It was a piano note, G, perfectly formed in perfect pitch, a universe created by the oscillation of a string in the air.
—Pat Cadigan,
Mindplayers
12.
n.
A written or printed representation of a musical note G.
13.
n.
A string, key, or pipe tuned to the note G.
14.
n.
The seventh section in a piece of music.
G-RATED G-STRINGS
15.
n.
A loincloth,
as in a G-string.
The earliest known reference to G-string is in J. H. Beadles’ Western Wilds, written circa 1878: “Around each boy’s waist is the tight ‘geestring,’ from which a single strip of cloth runs between the limbs from front to back.” From this we see that G-string originally referred only to the thong around the waist, which is precisely what a “girdle” was in its earliest form. Thus G-string may be an abbreviation of “girdlestring,” the only difficulty being that no such word has ever come to light, that I am aware of, anyway. Alternatively, we may note that “string” was a common 19th-century synonym for “whip,” which was of the same rawhide construction as the aforementioned prairie G-string, and that “gee” is an expletive frequently employed to accelerate one’s horse. A “geestring” may thus have been a pioneer horsewhip later discovered to be useful in holding up one’s pants, or the equivalent thereof. Finally, and rather unimaginatively, we may observe that a G-string (the string part, that is) bears a superficial likeness to the fiddle string of similar designation.
—Cecil Adams,
The Straight Dope
16.
adj.
A rating for motion pictures acceptable for all age groups.
(See
R, X.
)
MISCELLANEOUS
17.
n.
The seventh letter of the alphabet.
Governali…believes in History with the great H (indeed, in greatness itself with a great G).
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
If you can’t get the letter G out of your head because it keeps intruding itself forcefully while you’re awaiting “genuine” impressions, say so.
—Laura Day,
Practical Intuition: How to Harness the Power of Your Instinct and Make It Work for You
18.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant G means “goodness, God.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to Understanding Your Name
[Instead of calling my mother “Ma,”] I called her Mag because for me, without my knowing why, the letter g abolished the syllable Ma, and as it were spat on it, better than any other letter would have done.
—Samuel Beckett,
Molloy
19.
n.
(slang)
Glance.
I could see at a g. that the unfortunate affair had got in amongst her in no uncertain manner.
—P. G. Wodehouse,
Right Ho, Jeeves
20.
n.
A Roman numeral for 400.
21.
n.
The seventh in a series.
22.
n.
A general factor in intelligence.
[The authors of
The Bell Curve
failed to justify their claim] that the number known as
g,
the celebrated
“general factor” of intelligence, first identified by the British psychologist Charles Spearman, in 1904, captures a real property in the head.
—Steven Fraser,
The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America
23.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated G
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
24.
n.
A designated location.
The two men filed to their seats, Perlman’s—row G, a step up from last year’s and slightly farther to the left, the better to see the hands of the pianist.
—Brooks Hansen,
Perlman’s Ordeal
25.
n.
The sign of a gossiper.
Isn’t it against the law to gossip, even about witches? Don’t you have to wear the letter G around your neck? I see two such letters in the courtroom.
—Sid Fleischman,
The 13th Floor
26.
n.
Something having the shape of a G.
Staring at the worms, they tried to classify the shapes. They saw snakes, pigtails, branchy, forked things that looked like the letter Y, and they noticed squiggles like a small g, and bends like the letter U.
—Richard Preston,
The Hot Zone
SCIENTIFIC MATTERS
27.
n.
A vitamin (riboflavin).
Also known as vitamin B2.
28.
n.
(electronics)
Conductance, or the ability of a material to pass electrons.
Conductance is symbolized by the capital letter G.
—Stan Gibilisco,
Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics
29.
n.
(physics)
The Newtonian gravitational constant
G
was first measured in the eighteenth century by Henry Cavendish and is a critical component of the law of gravitation.
G
should be contrasted with the gravitational acceleration constant
g,
which Galileo demonstrated to be the acceleration rate of any object (regardless of mass) due to gravity near the Earth’s surface.
30.
n.
(biology)
Guanine,
one of the four nitrogenous bases found in DNA nucleotides.
31.
n.
(physics)
A unit of force applied to a body when accelerated, equal to the force exerted on the body by gravity near the Earth’s surface.
Nine Gs is about the maximum [amount of acceleration that can be withstood by] human beings. At 9 Gs, most will black out after a few tenths of seconds. Since most modern jet fighters can pull at least 9 Gs in a tight turn, this is a serious problem for the Air
Force. The early manned-space flight program used to launch astronauts at 9 Gs, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The space shuttle is launched at a “comfortable” 3 Gs.
—U.S. Department of Energy
32.
n.
A moment’s will; an act of will.
We get the value of G by multiplying the will data rate by the consciousness time tick.
—Evan Harris,
The Physics of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life
33.
n.
(astronomy)
A class of yellow stars.
The letter G is used for our own sun and other yellow stars.
—Dennis Richard Danielson,
The Book of the Cosmos
34.
n.
(mechanics)
G crimp:
the British analog to a C clamp.