29
votes
Accepted
Can “spooky” and “sketchy” be considered synonyms?
Sketchy* means [in this respect] dishonest or disreputable, rather than its usual 'not highly detailed'.
Spooky doesn't really cover it in either usage, 'scary' or 'easily scared', but 'fishy' [...
6
votes
Can “spooky” and “sketchy” be considered synonyms?
These words as used are from two different subcultural usages.
sketchy comes from the concept of a plan not being explained to the speaker completely. The speaker implicitly assumes that because they ...
5
votes
Can “spooky” and “sketchy” be considered synonyms?
You've both got a point.
Both something spooky, and something sketchy can provoke uneasiness. But they're not synonyms, and it's a different sort of uneasiness. The former is the spine-tingling ...
4
votes
Can “spooky” and “sketchy” be considered synonyms?
Tetsujin's answer is correct, but it occurs to me that perhaps your daughter was thinking of the term 'spooked' when she said 'spooky'. It's completely understandable that these terms could be ...
4
votes
Was there a word for cleavage, decolleté, or decolletage in the 17th century?
Etymonline suggests the term decoloured (Cut low at the neck, décolleté.)
Décolleté
Middle English had an equivalent and partially nativized adjective, decoloured (mid-15c.).
3
votes
Was there a word for cleavage, decolleté, or decolletage in the 17th century?
Poetic: Globes
pre-1705:
BREASTS
With what rich Globes did her soft Bosom swell?
Plump as ripe Clusters rose each glowing Breast,
Courting the Hand, and suing to be press'd.
The yielding Marble of ...
2
votes
What is a word for bringing together fragmented pieces of a whole?
Defragment.
to reorganize separated fragments of related data on (a computer disk) into a contiguous arrangement -M-W
Usually used for data "on a computer disk" as in the above definition, ...
2
votes
What is a word for bringing together fragmented pieces of a whole?
Compilation works for both process and result:
compilation [noun]
the action or process of producing something, especially a list or book, by assembling information collected from other sources.
...
2
votes
What is a word for bringing together fragmented pieces of a whole?
Coalesce is a concise and somewhat poetic word for this. It is used frequently to describe smaller bits joining up with each other to produce a larger whole, often spontaneously, though that's not ...
2
votes
What is a word for bringing together fragmented pieces of a whole?
Therer exists a family of words that applies generally enough to this idea.
(SOED) conflate v.t.
2 Put together; compose; bring about
(3 Combine, blend (two things, esp. two variant texts, etc.) ...
1
vote
What is a word for bringing together fragmented pieces of a whole?
There are actually a vast number of words, phases, and metaphors for this, with different connotations. It would probably foolish to try to list them all.
All quoted definitions from Merriam-Webster. ...
1
vote
Accepted
What is a word meaning something you do only as a required action to meet a formal requirement?
Yosef Baskin gave you a great answer, albeit in a comment. From Merriam-Webster:
pro forma (adj., sense 1): made or carried out in a perfunctory manner or as a formality.
Although the definition ...
1
vote
What is a word meaning something you do only as a required action to meet a formal requirement?
Something you do only as a required action to meet a formal requirement is a...
formality (noun - OED definition 8)
A ceremony; a formal act or observance; a legal, authorized, or customary ...
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