Monday, November 27, 2006
Graupel
Graupel is actually snow pellets. We won't be seeing any graupel here this Christmas as it's almost summer in New Zealand - although I believe graupel was forecast for the South Island this week. I was pleased to see some more word imps join the fray again today. Greta and Molly Malone shared first place in the voting. Great to have you both back!
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A graupel was very common in the days before the automobile was invented. A graupel is the name of the rug the passengers used to put over their knees when travelling by horse and carriage, or in a horse-drawn wagon. The graupel had the two-fold purpose of keeping the passengers warm and also keeping the dust and dirt off them.
A graupel was an old tool used for mining by dwarves. They used it to dig out diamonds. It was also used to dig a well in areas where the it was very hard to dig with a spade.
The first syllable is pronounced like cow. The accent is in the "pel." Grow-PELL.
Graupel is a dessert sauce first popularized in France in the 1800s. It is made with fresh, sweet grapes that are sauteed in butter, then reduced with a Sautern wine. Roughly translated to English, graupel means "high kick." Eating graupel is reputed to cause dinners such ecstacy that many have thrown a leg in to the air and danced the canne-canne. (It is not advised to eat graupel while wearing a dress.)
A graupel is the sharp hook at the end of a rope that pirates would use throw over the railing of a ship that they were pillaging. The graupel would sink into the wood of the unfortunate ship's railing, and aid the pirates in boarding the ship, either by holding it in place, or in some cases functioning as a means of boarding the ship, as the rope stretched between the ships would enable the pirates to climb on board.
To graupel is to strain to get at something just beyond reach.
No matter how hard I graupeled, I couldn't reach the last available box of Godiva chocolates at the back of the top shelf.
Graupel is when you step in a puddle that mysteriously turned out to be deeper than you'd anticipated, and have to walk around with that horrible cold-and-wet feeling in your socks and shoes all day. Graupel can be avoided by a) not stepping in puddles (remember what happened to Dr. Foster of Gloucester), b) wearing wellingtons everywhere, or c) learning to fly.
graupel. N. - the ill at ease feeling one (such as the writer of this false definition) gets the morning after staying up all night to work on an assignment when he/she should have really been chipping away at it for days. it is typified by lethargy, shivers, hunger, general grumpiness, tingling and guilt. lots of guilt.
"Molly had serious graupel the morning after she worked on her thesis. It was so bad she wept while her extremities trembled."
A Graupel is actually the correct name for a widget.
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