rebarbative: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

Advertisement      Word of the Day for Monday, April 24, 2006   rebarbative \ree-BAR-buh-tiv\, adjective: Serving or tending to irritate or repel.   Over the past couple of hours a lot of rebarbative, ulcerated and embittered people had been working hard at bedding their resentments down in sensory-deprivation tanks full of alcohol. -- Will Self, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis I still think this true, yet can't help regret the unretrievable hours lavished on so much rebarbative critical prose, convinced that the nearly impenetrable must be profound. -- Michael Dirda, "In which our intrepid columnist visits the Modern Language Association convention and reflects on what he found there", Washington Post, January 28, 2001 Rebarbative comes from French rébarbatif, "stern, surly, grim, forbidding," from Middle French rebarber, "to be repellent," from re- (from the Latin) + barbe, "beard" (from Latin barba). Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for rebarbative   Yesterday's Word - Previous Words - Help   Please visit our Sponsors Gamefly FREE game trials! Careerbuilder Launch a new career Rosettastone Language Learning WorldBookStore Biggest sale ever on now FREE shipping too!   What's another word for thesaurus? Enrich your vocabulary at Thesaurus.com: http://www.thesaurus.com/ You are currently subscribed to Dictionary.com Word of the Day as: news-and-stuff@arconati.us Dictionary.com Word of the Day http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/ To subscribe to the list by email, send a blank message to: join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com Subscriptions can be turned on and off from the Web at: http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/list/ To unsubscribe via email, send a blank message to: leave-6665995-4826904R@lists.lexico.com © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. 65 Pine Ave, #319 Long Beach, CA 90802