Page 3 - abandonismo to abayuncar

abandono

I'm learning stuff here. Look: abandono de deberes is "dereliction of duty". I'd never thought about the word "dereliction" before, and now I'll think about it all day. Mr. Collins also translates abandono as "indulgence", then gives two examples: "she led a life of excess and indulgence" and "they live in utter degradation". What's it to be, Phil? Indulgence or degradation?

abanico

I'm learning stuff in English too. Abanico usually means "fan", but it can also mean a derrick, a kind of crane. Derrick gets its name from the surname of a well-known Tyburn hangman, and originally referred to the gallows. The Collins didn't tell me that, the Random House Webster's did. I went through an unhealthy phase in the early 2000s of collecting dictionaries and encyclopaedias. I stopped when I found Wikipedia and realised everything was pretty much in that. But the compulsion to buy reference works I don't need hasn't gone away. I can feel it in my bones. I'll be buying a fresh dictionary before the week is out. Possibly an etymological one. That's the kind of crazy mood I'm in.

abarcar

This is one I come across in translations and generally translate as cover, include or take in. But the first meaning the Collins gives is "to get one's arms around", which simultaneously sets off an image, in my mind at least, of a man hugging a tree and a fat woman.

Spanish is full of these words which we need several words to express in English, and vice-versa. There's no word in Spanish for "flick". There's no word in English for "to fall into a ditch or pit". That would be abarrancarse in Spanish.

abarque

A clutch of eggs, in the Andes. I don't know how to say a clutch of eggs in Buenos Aires, but I've got the Andean word. I'm going to go down the road to the Bolivian grocers and ask for "un abarque de huevos", just to see if they understand me. They're probably from the non-Andean part of Bolivia. Just my luck.

abarrotes, tienda de

We have a new word for grocery store. Yesterday it was abacería, today it's tienda de abarrotes. I bet there's one on every page. More importantly, I remembered a word I learnt yesterday! Minor celebration.

abatatado

Another Southern Cone word I've never heard of, but then neither has the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spanish, so I'm in exalted company. It means "coy" or "bashful". I wonder if it's derived from "batata", sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are very shy, in my experience. Not like their brash cousins, the yams.