One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (9 page)
Read One-Letter Words, a Dictionary Online
Authors: Craig Conley
Tags: #Social Science, #Popular Culture, #Reference, #General
J IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (in literature)
“They decided to substitute for the lost jack a piece of card-sized paper on which they were going to draw a face both ways up, a club, a capital J, and even the jack’s name.”
—Georges Perec,
Life: A User’s Manual
2. (in literature)
“J is the plowshare and the horn of plenty.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding
3.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
4.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.
If my mind orders my right forefinger to type the letter J, it obeys.
—Houston Smith,
Why Religion
Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of
Disbelief
SHAPES AND DESIGNATIONS
5.
n.
Something having the shape of a J.
[Puzzle] pieces shaped like J, K, L, M, W, Z, X, Y, and T.
—Georges Perec,
Life: A User’s Manual
6.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated J
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
After J, there would be K and L and M, right down the alphabet. It’s no use being sentimentally cynical about this, or cynically sentimental. Because J isn’t really what I want. J has only the value of being now. J will pass, the need will remain. The need to get back into the dark, into the bed, into the warm naked embrace, where J is no more J than K, L, or M.
—Christopher Isherwood,
Prater Violet
7.
n.
J turn:
“a test of a car’s reliability, made by making a sudden sharp turn around an obstacle like another car or an animal, resulting in a path that looks something like a J.”—Dr. John Burkardt
As the first two attackers stormed out of the house after them, Liz gunned the engine and screeched the Jeep in a sharp J-turn, fishtailing until her tires gripped the cobblestones and the vehicle straightened out.
—Gail Lynds,
The Coil: A Novel
8.
n.
Someone called J.
[W]ho is sitting out on a curbing on Haight Street but J—of Pump House days gone by.
—Tom Wolfe,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
9.
n.
J bar:
a reinforcing rod whose cross-section is J-shaped.
10.
n.
J stroke:
in rowing, an oar or paddle stroke traversing the figure of a J.
I could see the outline of a kneeling man, drawing the paddle through the water in silent J-strokes.
—James Lee Burke,
Purple Cane Road
11.
n.
J bolt:
a bolt in the shape of the letter J.
12.
n.
J box:
“a J-shaped box through which fabric is passed for a process such as bleaching.”—Dr. John Burkardt
PICK A NUMBER
13.
n.
A medieval Roman numeral for one.
(See
I.
)
14.
n.
The tenth in a series, or the ninth
(when I is omitted).
Toqueville did not include the letter J in numbering
his appendices.
—Editor’s footnote in
Democracy in America
by Alexis de Tocqueville
15.
n.
(economics)
J curve:
“a curve, suggestive of the shape of a J, that illustrates how after a currency falls in value, the trade deficit grows first before shrinking. It can also look like a reversed J, similar to a hyperbola, and is referred to in biology as representing a typical distribution of species in an area, with a few numerous species, and many species with just a few representatives.”—Dr. John Burkardt
THE HEAT IS ON
16.
n.
(radiometry)
Radiant intensity,
or the flux from a point on a light source that is radiated into a unit solid angle.
17.
n.
(thermodynamics)
Mechanical equivalent of heat,
which is the energy of motion tied up in the ceaseless motion of the atoms in all substances.
MISCELLANEOUS
18.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant J means “sight, seeing, vision.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing
Light: A Native American Approach to Understanding Your Name
19.
n.
The tenth letter of the alphabet.
He checked the mechanism. He stooped and typed C.
The letter J lit up. He typed L and got a U. A, I, R and
E yielded, successively, X, P, Q, and Q again.
—Robert Harris, referring to the infamous Nazi Enigma code in his novel
Enigma
20.
n.
The tenth section in a piece of music.
21.
n.
J bag:
a golf bag used for carrying clubs.
22.
n.
J stik:
a joystick used in video game machines which allows for fast motions.
FOREIGN MEANINGS
23.
n.
(French)
Zero,
as in
le jour J,
“zero day.”
FACTS AND FIGURES
24.
In Medieval Latin,
the letter
J
developed as a form of
I,
and both were used interchangeably. Under the influence of French,
J
became a separate sign with its own phonetic value.
K IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (in literature)
The protagonist in Franz Kafka’s works
The Trial
and
The Castle.
2. (in literature)
Prince K is Razumov’s mysterious benefactor (and unacknowledged father) in Joseph
Conrad’s
Under Western Eyes.
3. (in literature)
Author David James Duncan offers a list of his own definitions for K in his novel
The
Brothers K:
2. to fail, to flunk, to fuck up, to fizzle, or 3. to fall short, fall apart, fall flat, fall by the wayside, or on deaf ears, or hand times, or into disrepute or disrepair, or 4. to come unglued, come to grief, come to blows, come to nothing, or 5. go to the dogs, go through the roof, go home in a casket, go to hell in a hand basket, or 6. to blow your cover, blow your chances, blow your cool, blow your stack, shoot your wad, bitch the deal, buy the farm, bite the dust, only 7. to recollect an oddball notion you first heard as a crimeless and un-K’ed child but found so nonsensically paradoxical that you had to ignore it or defy it or betray it for decades before you could begin to believe that it might possibly be true, which is that 8. to lose your money, your virginity, your teeth, health or hair, 9. to lose your home, your innocence, your balance, your friends, 10. to lose your happiness, your hopes, your leisure, your looks, and yea, even your memories, your vision, your mind, your way, 11. in short (and as Jesus K. Rist once so uncompromisingly put it) to lose your very self, 12. for the sake of another, is 13. sweet irony, the only way you’re ever going to save it.
—David James Duncan,
The Brothers K
4. (in literature)
A misplaced letter of foreboding in
Cathleen Schine’s
Love Letter:
Johnny spun to face a bookcase of art criticism and wondered desperately if K came before or after
N. The alphabet, a pillar, a solace and a certainty since kindergarten, had suddenly deserted him. He stood, bewildered and staring, as if he’d suffered a crisis of faith. Does the alphabet exist? If the alphabet exists, why is there so much suffering in the world? The alphabet is dead.
5. (in film)
The name of an atoll that shipwrecks the comedians Laurel and Hardy in the 1951 film
Atoll K.
6. (in literature)
“K” is the title of a poem by Erin
Belieu,
anthologized in the 2000 book
One Above and One Below: New Poems.
7. (in literature)
“K is the angle of reflection equal to the angle of incidence, a key to geometry.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding
8.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
Look at the kinks in those k’s.
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
The Chinese cyborg took the chips in the center of the table, sorted through them and found one marked with a K.
—Pat Cadigan,
Dervish Is Digital
9.
n.
A device for reproducing the letter.
10.
n.
The color black,
as in the acronym CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).
The letter K is used to designate black because the
B is already in use for the color blue.
—Taz Tally,
SilverFast: The Official Guide
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
11.
n.
In computer technology,
the number 1,024, as in a computer with 32K of memory.
12.
n.
Carat,
a measure of precious metals such as gold.
Gold in its pure state would be 24 carat. Here, a carat is a measure of the fineness or purity, and must not be confused with the carat weight of gemstones, which is one-fifth of a gram. So while 24K gold is 100 per cent, 18K gold would be 18 parts gold and 6 parts of another metal or alloy.
—Express India
13.
n.
A unit vector parallel to the z-axis.
14.
n.
Boltzmann’s constant,
which relates changes in the energy for individual molecules in an ideal gas to changes in temperature.
15.
n.
Dissociation constant,
or the equilibrium constant for the dissociation of an acid into a hydrogen ion and an anion.
16.
n.
Ionization constant,
or the equilibrium constant for the hydrolysis reaction associated with a base.
17.
n.
A vitamin (from alfalfa).
Vitamin K is a blood clotting agent; it works in the liver to form the substances that promote normal blood clotting. Because vitamin K is also manufactured in the body by intestinal bacteria, as well as being available in many foods, deficiency is uncommon in healthy adults. [Deficiency] may develop as a result of taking antibiotics, which destroy the normal intestinal bacteria. People with malabsorption disorders, some liver diseases, and chronic diarrhea are susceptible to vitamin K deficiency. Because breast milk contains little vitamin K and newborns do not have the intestinal bacteria to produce their own, vitamin K supplements may be given at birth. Good sources of vitamin K include dark green leafy vegetables, eggs, cheese, pork, and liver.
—American Medical Association
18.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element potassium in the periodic table.
19.
n.
(biology)
Lysine,
an amino acid.
20.
n.
(geology)
The Cretaceous period.
Geologists use the letter K to symbolize the Cretaceous, from the equivalent German word “Kreide” (chalk).
—Walter Alvarez,
T. Rex and the Crater of Doom
21.
n.
(astronomy)
A class of stars in between yellow and red.
BALLS AND BOULDERS
22.
n.
In baseball, a strikeout.
23.
n.
A mountain,
as in K 2 (the second highest mountain on earth, located in the Karakoram range in Pakistan).
SHAPES AND DESIGNS
24.
n.
Something having the shape of a K.
[The three crossing roads] looked like a capital letter
K, lightly peppered with habitation where the three lines of the letter met.
—Lee Child,
Without Fail
Dad’s modest party had been overrun by…the deformed, whose legs looked like the letter K.
—Ben Okri,
The Famished Road
Colette was so excited that before she could stop herself, she twisted her body until it resembled the letter K and the letter S at the same time.
—Lemony Snicket,
The Carnivorous Carnival (
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 9
)
25.
n.
K truss:
“a building truss with a vertical member and two obliques, which forms a K.”
—Dr. John Burkardt
26.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated K
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
27.
n.
A 1986 Chrysler limousine, also called the K-Car.
We watched stupidly as they crossed between two parked cars and slid into the backseat of a black
K-car that had rolled up from behind us in the street, then immediately took off.
—Jonathan Lethem,
Motherless Brooklyn
NUMBERS
28.
n.
The eleventh in a series.
29.
n.
A Roman numeral for 250.
30.
n.
(calculus)
Index of summation.
[T]he letter K is called the index of summation.
[However,] It is not essential to use k as the index of summation.
—Howard A. Anton,
Calculus, Early
Transcendentals Combined
WARDS AND WEAPONS
31.
n.
K Block:
a ward in a building set aside for very high security or for the temporarily insane.
K Block is guarded 24 hours a day, and response measures are in place in case of a terrorist incursion. Specifics on security are classified, though it’s almost certain that military personnel from other nearby installations would be part of an anti-terrorist response. Suffice [it] to say, said [Don
Smythe, director of chemical operations at the U.S.
Army’s Umatilla Chemical Depot in Hermiston, Oregon], that intruders “might be able to get in, but they definitely wouldn’t be able to get out.”
—Alex Tizon,
The Seattle Times
32.
n.
K-bar:
a fairly large, heavy-duty survival knife with a serrated top edge used by the U.S. Marine Corps. According to tradition, when a Marine ends his tour of duty, he gives his K-bar to his best friend.
I reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a dangerous-looking K-Bar Bowie knife, which I proceeded to wave menacingly in the air. It was almost 14 inches long, painted dull black and weighing about nine pounds. Any bozo could easily use it to crack open a coconut with one blunt and inarticulate blow. “Government issue,” I said. “Cuts through a human limb like a Ginsu through a ripe tomato. Here, strap this on in case things get crazy.”
—Kyle Bradley Cassidy, “The True Story of the Gypsy’s Wedding”
33.
n.
A military code used on D-Day.
Two ten-man groups were to mark that area with lights, each one flashing up into the night sky the code letter K.
—Cornelius Ryan,
The Longest Day:
The Classic Epic of D-Day
34.
n.
K gun:
a compact antisubmarine weapon which propels depth charges from a battleship. It replaced the Y gun on American ships in 1942.
MISCELLANEOUS
35.
n.
The eleventh letter of the alphabet.
It is a killer—knowledge is—the big K.
—William H. Gass,
The Tunnel
The letter K has been a favorite with me—it seemed a strong, incisive sort of letter.
—George Eastman, on how he coined the name Kodak, quoted in
The
New Positioning: The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy,
by Jack Trout
36.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by
K.
Pemulis’s snort sounds like the letter K.
—David Foster Wallace,
Infinite Jest
The sound vibration of the consonant K means
“planting, planting field, sowing.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American
Approach to Understanding Your Name
37.
n.
The eleventh section in a piece of music.
38.
n.
A symbol in a Treasury note.
The letter k indicates that non-U.S. citizens are exempt from withholding.
—Michael Constas,
The International Investment Sourcebook
39.
n.
K-rations:
food provided to soldiers during combat.
K rations were far more common [than C rations], if for no other reasons than they weighed less and were easier to carry…. Lathrop Mitchell, a medic in the
92nd Infantry Division in Italy, described K rations in his diary: “These K rations come in a waxed box like a small cigar box. The food consists of a can of cheese or Spam, crackers, meat loaf in a can, instant coffee, candy, cigarettes, gum and toilet paper.”
—John C. McManus,
The Deadly Brotherhood