Adiabatic

Meaning: not involving the transfer of heat, or im-pass-able to heat. An adiabatic process is one in which no heat is exchanged. It's related to the First Law of Thermodynamics and consequently various other sciencey things, including weather. 

Logofascination: 2. I'm still on a science-word kick. If I have made any sense of what I've read*, the weather part kicks in where you have changes in temperature caused by changes in atmospheric pressure, as opposed to changes in temperature because heat has been added or removed (e.g. by a desert wind or an Antarctic wind, both of which you will get in an average Melbourne day).  Etymologically, it's from the Greek for "not to be passed through".

In the wild: Reading up on names of winds; wind-words are one of my special logofascinatorial sub-categories. The adiabatic process is influential in both a Foehn wind and a Katabatic wind.

Usefulness: 5, unless you can wangle it convincingly into a conversation with a scientist, or meteorologist. I am tempted to stretch it to my bedroom: an adiabatic chamber, impassable to heat.



*amateur translation here; let me know if it's not quite right. 

Attosecond

Meaning: One quintillionth* of one second; a nanosecond is a mere billionth of a second.

Logofascination: 2. I find the specificity of science words fascinating (though see below re: quintillion); yoctosecond and zeptosecond sound rather like someone made them up. I suspect whoever got to pick the prefixes for those ones went looking for the interesting sounds. In this case, atto- is from the Danish for 18.

In the wild: In a gorgeous Nautilus piece on the speed of photography - apparently we're getting close to attosecond exposures.

Usefulness: 2. When a nanosecond is just too long: "I will be with you in an attosecond."



*to a certain value of quintillion. It's like billions - it depends who you ask.

Philodine

Meaning: A bdelloid rotifer of the genus Philodina or family Philodinidae. (Straight from the OED: I don't know enough to try and write it myself).

Usefulness: 1 (Besides rotifers being ridiculously interesting - in a really geeky way - philodine could well mean a love of whirling, or a whirl of love, either of which is useful.)

Logofascination: 1 (If you can resist saying 'bdelloid rotifer' aloud, you should probably stop reading this blog.  The OED etymology for philodine merely points out that it's from philo- and dinus, the Greek for whirling or vertigo. Rotifers are very, very tiny and very, very interesting - for starters they are technically animals despite being so tiny, and for seconds the Bdelloidea* have managed to survive for 80 millions years despite reproducing asexually. Since this isn't a science blog, I will stop there and point out that however much I like the idea that a biologist named them lovers of whirling, it's also possibly it is, etymologically, something more like the 'whirling family', or 'family of whirlers'.**)

In the wild: The philodine themselves are everywhere, but this being the internet, there are a number of fan pages.

Polypragmon

Meaning: busy-body

Usefulness: 1

Logofascination: 1 (The Greek is fairly straightforward - perhaps that's what I find appealing.  Poly-, meaning many, and prag-, from the same root as pragmatic, meaning deed or act or thing. Many things; apparently being busy has never been a compliment, as pragmatic also once meant meddlesome. I'll need a different answer for people asking about my work.)

In the wild: Not really, but someone has written a book about exactly what the ancients thought of it.

Nival

Meaning: snowy. Bonus synonym: niveous.

Usefulness: 3 (basically a straight synonym for snowy, with extra science points; could be handy in Scrabble)

Logofascination: 2 (possibly because I've never seen snow)

Orthopantomography

Meaning: it's that dental x-ray (tomography, a particular kind of radiography involving planes, hence tomo - slice, section) where they can see all (a panorama) of your teeth an almost-straight (ortho) line. Was originally called ‘orthoradial pantomography’ which was 'shortened' to orthopantomography.

Usefulness: 3 (unless you work in dentistry or radiography, but it is an impressive sounding word)

Logofascination: 2 (there is something about all those Greek elements lined up together)

Zymurgy

Definition: the science of fermentation, which, as we all know, reaches its highest form in brewing.

Usefulness: 2

Logofascination: 3 (Zymurgy doesn't sound like it'd be that well known, but it is the sort of word that is written up over bars.)