No theme this week. The words will be miscellaneous ones.

homologate – to approve officially; in particular, to approve (a vehicle, etc.) for sale or for a class of racing
Used particularly of automobiles, motorbikes, etc., esp. in racing: an engine, tire, or track layout may be homogulated by the sport’s governing body.
[Latin homologare agree, from Greek homologein confess]

The usual single central headlight made it impossible to have the car homologated for road use.
– Elvio Deganello and Arturo Rizzoli, Abarth: All the cars

It turns out, America is hell of a place to sell cars. The clientele has peculiar tastes, including engines more powerful and thirstier than buyers want overseas; federal safety and emissions requirements are usually more stringent than required by other countries; and every variance that carmakers are obliged to make in adapting a world car to U.S. regs—a process called homologation—costs money.
– Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2010

Here’s a delicious, rare word you won’t find in any dictionary – not even in OED, though it’s sufficiently common to be included there. Perhaps OED’s original editors excluded it out of priggishness?

entremetteur (masc.); entremetteuse (fem.) – a go-between for illicit sexual liaisons

James I, even in his own day, was suspected of being addicted to the most abominable of all offences. Sir Thomas Overbury appears to have been no better than a pander to the vices of the King, and acted the part of an entremetteur, and assisted Rochester to carry on an adulterous intrigue with the Lady Frances Howard, the wife of the Earl of Essex.
– Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (ellipses omitted)

Before marriage, men would employ the services of an entremetteuse to teach them the ways of love. These old women procured young women for the men.
– Janell L. Carroll, Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity‎ (ellipses omitted)

I don't think that entremetteur/entremetteuse should be included in English dictionaries. The word is French. Although some words in French are included, they are loan-words. The word was obviously used by the authors of the works cited to add some French spice to a sordid occupation. They could of course easily have used the English equivalents, such as procurer, pimp, or go-between.

That the word hasn't been adopted into English is evidenced by the use of italics, and the fact that it retains the French masculine and feminine endings.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
That the word hasn't been adopted into English is evidenced by the use of italics, and the fact that it retains the French masculine and feminine endings.

On the other hand, the OED includes other loanwords that are italicized, like entre nous, and words that still retain gender like masseur/masseuse.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
That the word hasn't been adopted into English is evidenced by the use of italics ...

The italics are mine, added to highlight the daily word.

In the Mackay work the word in italicized in some editions, but not in others. (My source, the Kindle edition, uses normal font.) In the Carrol work it appears in bold – the author's convention where she provides a definition of a term – not italicized.

Today’s word is a good one for Scrabble.

zona – an encircling garment (a girdle or belt), as a part of dress

A friend who knows of my love of words sent me this term in a delicious quote. So even though the word is almost never used this way (It’s usually a term of biology), that’s how we’ll present it.

. . ."Caro, so help me, if you're keeping something important from me, I shall tell everyone you stuff your zona with stockings — "
. . ."Charlotte!" Half of the house looked over as Caroline's outraged shriek pierced the dinner conversation. "I . . . you . . . Charlotte" Caroline sputtered.
. . ."Yes, now that you have the question of pronouns and proper nouns settled, perhaps you would care to tell me what news you have?"
. . ."My bosom is neither here nor there," Caroline said with dignity as she opened her fan in a manner that hid the bodice of her dress.
. . ."My point exactly – it's nonexistent."
– Katie MacAlister, Nobel Destiny (ellipses omitted)

autodidact – a self-taught person

Our quote concerns a paradoxical man: “The amazing thing is that a man who treated people so heartlessly—wives, friends and family alike—could play music with such heart. This failed husband of of Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and others —there were eight in all – was “musical genius, personal wretch”. From the Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2010 (ellipses omitted):

Abraham Ben-Yitzhak Arshawsky got himself expelled from high school [in 1925] at age 15—but he was already making money with a used saxophone he had acquired with his earnings as a delicatessen delivery boy. One of the great American autodidacts, [he] had almost no formal musical training. But he knew, even at the outset, that he was better off Anglicizing his name in an age of widespread anti-Semitism.

We know him by that Anglicized name: jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw.

Today's word, common in the early days of aviation, has thankfully become almost obsolete.

volplane – to glide toward the earth in an airplane with the engine cut off

An emergency measure.

[headline:] Airmen Narrowly Escape
[text] … They … had reached an altitude of 2,500 feet when they developed motor trouble and volplaned to earth.
– New York Times, Feb. 20, 1921

If it's a flying fox, is it a vulpine volplane?

I've long wondered about this archaic flying term. Since volplaning is always descending, is it really flying in the true sense?