Tuesday 24 February 2009

Word for today

Pissoceros

I would not advise you to look it up in the dictionary; most likely you will only be disappointed.

12 comments:

Mindy said...

But a really good word to challenge someone to use in an official report.

Lord Sedgwick said...

Pissoceros

My guess?

"A short sighted creature who invariably misses the bowl."

That'd be almost any male in a lavatory (I'm to coy to use the term 'toilet').

Lord Sedgwick said...

... and I'm also "too coy" to own up to naff typing skilslz.

Zarquon said...

It's the Australian futbol team.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

So, I happen to have my Greco-Anglo-lexicon open before me (but of course) and I observe that "pissa" means pitch (the tar business), and "keros" means horn (hence rhinoceros, nose-horn). So pissoceros: tarhorn? Black bituminous cranial extrusion?

Am I even close?

TimT said...

A drunk rhinoceros.

Lord Sedgwick said...

But dare I say that one day, either Julia Gillard or George Brandis will delve deeply into their shorter Greco-Anglo-lexicon and use it in Parliament one day.

One day not too far away? (With apologomies to the Jack Thompson fillum not too far away from that.)

lucy tartan said...

A legion of roman soldiers advancing in tortoise formation, drunk?

TimT said...

The Psarakos markets are just down the road from my flat. Maybe it's just a mispelling of that?

Ampersand Duck said...

Sounds like it comes from the rhymnoceris family, only more far-flung in its story-telling.

Anonymous said...

Disappointed.



Farewell, farewell, you old pissoceros
I'll look up something less prepocerous.

From the lion's mouth said...

It's about honey!

From Pliny's "Naturall history":

"THE FIRST FOUNDATION of their worke, skilfull honie-maisters doe call Commosis: the second Pissoceros: the third Propolis, which lieth betweene those former coats and the waxe of the honie-combe, whereof there is so great use in Physicke. Commosis is the first coat or crust of a bitter tast. Pissoceros commeth next after it, as it were a thinner course of pitch or varnish, and a weaker kind of waxe, made of the more liquid and mild gum of vines and Poplars."

So it's a thin sort of beeswax.