PQRST Again? - Answers1. A pleonasm ( from Greek pleonasmós, redundancy, surplus) is a verbal excess, the use of more words than needed. When I said that her grammar was more better than mine, she said that I had used a pleonasm—and that’s a true fact.2. A quire (from Anglo-French quier, from Latin quaterni, four times) is a set of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and stock. A quire is one-twentieth of a ream, it seems. 3. Ravenous (from Latin rapīna, plunder, through French and Middle English) means hungry, greedy, voracious, famished. After finishing the long hike, they ate ravenously. 4. Spavin (probably from Old French espavain, swelling) is a disease of horses characterized by a swollen ankle. Seabiscuit was scratched because he had come down with spavin. 5. A tercet is a group of three lines of verse, often rhyming with each other or with another group. It’s from Italian terzetto, third (via French, originally from Latin). |
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