Saturday, October 28, 2006

Stertorous

Stertorous refers to snorelike noises. Interestingly, several people made reference to noises in sleep or different ways of talking in their invented definitions. The voting was close there for a while, but eventually Sonnjea B's version of stertorous as the lurching, jerking gait of monsters and toddlers surged ahead as the winner.

15 comments:

Sara said...

Sterterous is the tone of voice you use when your children are continuing to do something (for the 20th time) that you have told them to stop doing. This is usually something that is not bad enough to require dramatic discipline measures but is just on the edge - highly irritating behaviour. This sterterous tone of voice is a mixture of stern and torturous. Stern because you feel you feel you should be sounding like you mean it, torturous because you feel so worn down by the constant irritation that you actually just sound thoroughly beaten.

I expect you can tell from this comment that I am very used to sounding sterterous!

The Blue Eagle said...

sterterous is quality of the low rumbling noise from the belly of a sleeping bear in the zoo, when kid's throw pebbles at it to wake it, all they suceed is to make it turn over and continue sleeping!!!GRRRRRR........

Clare said...

It describes a speech in tones intended to incite the masses to action: 'The sea cook's sterorous speech aroused the crew so that they seized the captain and first officers and threw them all in the brig.'

Shari said...

A stertorous was one of the dinosaurs that once roamed the earth. It was the last one of it's kind to survive. It was well-known for it's roar. It was the mother of all predators. It could live in water and land. It had gills and webbed feet, but it still could breathe air through it's nose (it had a special valve in the nostrils that closed up when it is underwater) and very sharp claws. This was one mean creature. It weighted over 7,000 lbs. The moment a sound of the stertorous is heard, all the other dinosaurs fled in fear.

Scientists believe that the oil that was found deep under the sea was that of a stertorous. The quality and texture of the oil is very rich and pure. They suspect that it may be the answer to help lower the price of fossil fuel; however, it is very rare so it may have an opposite effect.

Alijah Fitt said...

Stertorous: An endangered species of Dinosaur living in the Ukraine.It's internal body temperature is so high that the flesh maintains a delightful grilled texture and flavor before being cooked on the barbecue. Delicious.

Sonnjea said...

Stertorous describes the lurching, jerking gait most often exhibited by mummies, frankenstein-monsters and toddlers. My goddaughter has just started taking her first stertorous steps.

Clare said...

I've spelled my stertorous wrong. Blush.

Word Imp said...

I had a sudden thought in the night. Do we even need to have a "winner" from the word meanings each day? Is that what the participants want? I was choosing my favourite. Then when it got too hard I added a poll and people vote from my three favourites. Just wanting some feedback on whether that's working for you. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Stertorous refers to people's speech when they pretend to be an authority on something they know little or nothing about. Most common in teenagers and politicians, e.g "Helen Clark's speech on financial ethics in Govt was well rehearsed, but it was clear to the public that she was being stertorous".

Anonymous said...

yes, choose a winner cause it's part of the fun. but drop the vote and you choose the definition thats most creative or most convincing

Anonymous said...

Stertorous descibes noisy breathing.

Anonymous said...

A stertorous is a stegasaurus with a fatal illness.

The Blue Eagle said...

i think the vote's gotta stay, as long as the response of voters is good. people feel more involved that way.
but thats only point of view.
By the way i 've spelled Stertorous wrong as well Clare!!!

Sara said...

Personally, I don't think it's that important to have a winner. I just think it's a great site and everybody's definitions are fun to read!

By the way, I also spelt stertorous incorrectly. My kind husband pointed it out to me. but then I didn't feel so bad because I noticed another couple of people had done so too.

Thanks for a great blog.

Sara

Next Stop Oregon said...

Of or pertaining to superlative actions that would have otherwise not been possible save for use of performance enhancing steroids. This word was invented by American baseball statisticians to place records within context during the "Barry Bonds" era.

e.g., 70 HRs *
* Stertorous record