Word of the Day challenge Options

[evlpez]

Word of the Day Challenge

I'll post a new word for each day, including its definition(s). All words are courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary unless otherwise noted.

Ferrets are asked to write a short ficlet (between 100-500 words) and include a WotD.

Submissions can be any genre, about any canon character(s) in any time period.

• There is no deadline.
• You may use any previously listed WotD once.
• You may use more than one WotD in a single submission.
• Please give each submission a title.
• You should specify the WotD used at the end of your post.
• All subs are to be posted in this topic.
• Comments for submissions must be posted in the WotD Discussion topic.
• Each submission will count as 2 Ferret Points (10 galleons) towards its writer's earnings in the Hogwarts Bathroom Fund Drive.

[evlpez]

tarry, a.

1. Consisting or composed of tar; of the nature of tar.

b. Resembling tar; having the consistency, colour, or flavour of tar.

2. Covered, smeared, soiled, or impregnated with tar; tarred; black as if smeared with tar.

b. fig. Thievish. (Cf. tarry-fingered in 4.)

3. fig. ? Foul, unclean; ? rude, uncultured.

4. Comb.: tarry-breeks (orig. Sc.), -jacket, -John, humorous nicknames for a sailor (cf. TAR n.1 3); tarry-fingered, -fisted adjs., having the fingers or hands smeared with tar; fig. thievish.

Hence 'tarriness, tarry condition or quality.

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campaign, n.
Also 7-8 campagne, 7 -agn, -aine, -aigne. [a. F. campagne country, open country, champaign, ‘the field’, campaign, which in the course of the 16th c. took the place of the earlier champagne in all its senses (except as the proper name of a French province). It was introduced into Eng. in the 17th c., and at first occasionally used in all the senses of the earlier CHAMPAIGN, but was at length differentiated, and restricted to the military sense, for which it is now the proper term. The forms campagna, -agnia, -ania were also in 17th c. use (see above).
Littré treats 16th c. Fr. campagne as a substitution of the northern or Picard dialect form for the Parisian champagne; but there can be no doubt that it was actually an adaptation of It. campagna (common in the military sense in 16th c., e.g. CARO Virgil's Æn. XII . 563 ‘Turno la campagna aprendo’, Turnus opening the campaign), and may have been taken into F. first in military phraseology, and gradually extended to other senses, the advantage of a form which could not be confounded with the name of the province Champagne perhaps conducing to the result. For ultimate etymology see CHAMPAIGN, CAMPANIA.]

1. A tract of open country; a plain; = CHAMPAIGN. Obs.

2. Open country as opposed to hills, woods, etc.; country as opposed to town; = CHAMPAIGN.

3. Mil. The continuance and operations of an army ‘in the field’ for a season or other definite portion of time, or while engaged in one continuous series of military operations constituting the whole, or a distinct part, of a war. (In Ger. Feldzug.)
The name arose in the earlier conditions of warfare, according to which an army remained in quarters (in towns, garrisons, fortresses, or camps) during the winter, and on the approach of summer issued forth into the open country (nella campagna, dans la campagne) or ‘took the field’, until the close of the season again suspended active operations. Hence the name properly signifying the ‘being in the field’, was also applied, now to the season or time during which the army kept the field, and now to the series of operations performed during this time. In the changed conditions of modern warfare, the season of the year is of much less importance, and a campaign has now no direct reference to time or season, but to an expedition or continuous series of operations bearing upon a distinct object, the accomplishment or abandonment of which marks its end, whether in the course of a week or two, or after one or more years. The history of the sense is seen in early Dictionaries; e.g.

4. transf.

1. A naval expedition; a voyage or cruise. Obs. (So F. campagne, It. campagna.)
2. An expedition or excursion into the country; a summer's trip or sojourn.
3. Ironworks. The period during which a furnace is in continuous operation.

5.

1. fig. Applied to any course of action analogous to a military campaign, either in having a distinct period of activity, or in being of the nature of a struggle, or of an organized attempt aiming at a definite result.
2. esp. in Politics, An organized course of action designed to arouse public opinion throughout the country for or against some political object, or to influence the voting at an election of members of the legislature. Also attrib. orig. U.S.
3. The Plan of Campaign in Ireland, entered upon in the winter of 1886-7, a method of conducting operations against landlords who refused to lower rents, according to which the tenants in a body were to pay what they considered the fair rent into the hands of a political leader, charged to retain it until the landlord should accept the sum offered, less any amount subsequently expended in maintaining the struggle.

6. Short for campaign-coat, -lace: see 7b. Obs.

7. attrib. and in Comb.:

1. Of the nature of open country; belonging to the open country.
2. Of, belonging to, or used on a military campaign: as campaign-coat, -lace, -oven, -shoes, -wig. (Some of these were perhaps merely catch names referring to the famous campaigns of Marlborough.)

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Mandingo, n. and a.

A. n.

1. A member of a distinctive ethnic and cultural group of West Africa speaking closely related dialects of the largest language (now usually called Manding) of the Mande subfamily.

2. A language or group of languages, belonging to the Niger-Congo family, spoken by any of this group of peoples; spec. (a) the Mande subfamily of the Niger-Congo family; (b) (esp. in Liberia and Sierra Leone) the Manding language within the Mande subfamily, which includes Bambara, Dyula, and the varieties known as Malinke, Maninka, or Mandinka; © (esp. with reference to Gambia) = MANDINKA n. 1.
In linguistic usage, the more precise terms Mande, Manding, or Mandinka respectively are now more usual than Mandingo.

B. adj. Of or relating to the Mandingoes or to their languages.

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opportunistic, a.

1. Involving, displaying, or characterized by opportunism.

2. Ecol. Of an organism or species: especially suited to unexploited or newly formed habitats or niches and occurring in populations whose size is not determined primarily by their density, being characterized by poor competitiveness and an ability to increase rapidly in numbers and to disperse readily.

3. Med. Of an organism: not normally pathogenic or parasitic but capable of becoming so in certain circumstances, as in an immunosuppressed host. Of an infection: caused by such an organism.

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mill-tail, n.

1. The water downstream from a mill which has passed through the mill-wheel; the channel in which water runs away after passing through a mill.

2. Chiefly U.S. regional. In similative and fig. use, denoting rapid movement, furious activity, or violent, unstoppable force. Freq. in like the mill-tails of hell and variants