# Learned a new word today! dibber - it's a tool. You have a new word for us? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 10, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077 "2012-08-10T14:00:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/1 "2012-08-10T14:00:50Z")
I’ve been an avid reader since age 6 and always scored really well in vocabulary tests. It’s fun learning new words. I’m surprised that I hadn’t ran across a dibber before. It’s an old gardening tool used for centuries. I need one to sprig some St Augustine grass. **Hey!** Another new word for me. brassicas - thats 2 words today. > **[Brassica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica)** > > See text > Brassica (/ˈbræsɪkə/) is a genus of plants in the cabbage and mustard family (Brassicaceae). The members of the genus are informally known as cruciferous vegetables, cabbages, mustard plants, or simply brassicas. Crops from this genus are sometimes called cole crops—derived from the Latin caulis, denoting the stem or stalk of a plant. > The genus Brassica is known for its important agricultural and horticultural crops and also includes a number of weeds, both of wild taxa and escapees... A dibber example. [http://www.gardentoolsforallseasons.com/garden%20tools/potato%20dibber.php](http://www.gardentoolsforallseasons.com/garden%20tools/potato%20dibber.php) > [@](#): > > A dibber is a simple method of making a hole to plant something - this could be brassicas or potatos (or other bulbs for that matter). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/2 "2012-08-10T14:04:08Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’ve been an avid reader since age 6 and always scored really well in vocabulary tests. It’s fun learning new words. > > I’m surprised that I hadn’t ran across a dibber before. It’s an old gardening tool used for centuries. I need one to sprig some St Augustine grass. > > An example. > [http://www.gardentoolsforallseasons.com/garden%20tools/potato%20dibber.php](http://www.gardentoolsforallseasons.com/garden%20tools/potato%20dibber.php) I encountered _dibber_ in Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, that collection of salacious stories, where a penis is euphemistically referred to as “the dibber used to plant men”. My Interesting Word of the Day is _Ullage_, which is the empty space inside a barrel or other vessel. The emptier it is, the larger the ullage. > **[Ullage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ullage)** > > Ullage or headspace is the unfilled space in a container, particularly with a liquid. > The word ullage comes from the Latin word oculus, used by the Romans to refer to a barrel cork hole. This word was, in turn, taken in medieval French as oeil, from which a verb ouiller was created, meaning to fill a barrel to full capacity. Around 1300, the word ouillage was created by the Normans to refer to the amount of liquid needed to fill a barrel to capacity. > In winemaking, ullage came to refer to any a... ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/3 "2012-08-11T04:56:21Z")
I play Words with Friends. I used to play a lot of people, but after a wireless vacation I dropped all of them, and concentraded on WordFeud, where my real-life acquaintances play. Except this one player kept asking to play more on WWF. So I do. Right now, s/he is the only person I play. I keep playing because…well, we’re evenly-matched score-wise, but every. single. game. there appear from him words I’ve never heard of in my life. And I _thought_ I’d heard a lot of words. So let me share find the latest, let’s see… “izar”. Definition… _izar - a voluminous cotton outer garment (usually white) traditionally worn by Muslim women of northern Africa and the Middle East; covers the entire body_ So I basically learn something new every day just from that one person. Pretty cool. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/4 "2012-08-11T07:14:24Z")
**Saponification** : The chemical reaction that occurs when a vegetable oil or animal fat is mixed with a strong alkali. **Trace** : A stage in soapmaking called the “point of no return.” In layman’s terms, this is when the separate oils, fats, and lye officially \*become \*soap. **Nail-marbling** : A method of painting fingernails that involves dropping nail polish onto the surface of a cup of water to make neato designs, taping up the skin around the nails, then dipping nails into the polish on the water. It yields some \*remarkably \*professional-looking results, given that it’s a solo process! ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/5 "2012-08-11T13:41:23Z")
Do you subscribe to [A Word A Day](http://wordsmith.org/awad/)? I really enjoy their free daily e-mails. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/6 "2012-08-11T13:50:10Z")
I forgot to add a word. This week’s theme was reduplicatives, and that was the word I learned! It means words that repeat the same word, such as chop-chop or yada yada. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/7 "2012-08-11T14:14:35Z")
_Frass_: insect poop. _Picoreef_: a small marine aquarium. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/8 "2012-08-11T16:22:40Z")
_Petrichor_ : the smell of rain on dry earth ---
**Author:** ![Brynda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learned-a-new-word-today-dibber-its-a-tool-you-have-a-new-word-for-us/631077/9 "2012-08-11T17:08:17Z")
Tittle: the dot on top of the letters i and j.