Translation glossary: specific expressions

"Like a well-made suspense film, Mr. Scovel's jokes have twists you don't see coming and the thrilling tension of a crackerjack plot where you have no idea what will happen next." — Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, 12 May 2016

Learn a new word every day. Delivered to your inbox!

Did You Know?

The late 19th-century pairing of crack and jack to form crackerjack topped off a long history for those words. Cracker is an elongation of crack, an adjective meaning "expert" or "superior" that dates from the 18th century. Prior to that, crack was a noun meaning "something superior" and a verb meaning "to boast." (The verb use evolved from the expression "to crack a boast," which came from the sense of crack meaning "to make a loud sharp sound.") Jack has been used for "man" since the mid-1500s, as in "jack-of-all-trades." Crackerjack entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. You may also know Cracker Jack as a snack of candied popcorn and peanuts. That trademarked name dates from the 1890s.

defunct technology

nefunkcionējoša tehnoloģija

English to Latvian

extirpate

pilnībā iznīcināt

English to Latvian

extirpate

noslaucīt no zemes virsmas pilnībā

English to Latvian

Definition

1 a : to destroy completely : wipe out

b : to pull up by the root

2 : to cut out by surgery

Examples

"The spread of piracy has been treated more as a nuisance to be endured rather than as a deadly cancer that must be extirpated for the sake of both Somalia and the rule of law." — Tara Helfman and Dan O'Shea, Commentary, February 2011

"Over the past decades, the reptiles have reclaimed much of the native range from which they'd been extirpated." — Shannon Tompkins, The Houston Chronicle, 12 May 2016

Learn a new word every day. Delivered to your inbox!

Did You Know?

If we do a little digging, we discover that extirpate finds its roots in, well, roots (and stumps). Early English uses of the word in the 16th century carried the meaning of "to clear of stumps" or "to pull something up by the root." Extirpate grew out of a combination of the Latin prefix ex- and the Latin noun stirps, meaning "trunk" or "root." The word stirp itself remains rooted in our own language as a term meaning "a line descending from a common ancestor."

Test Your

feign

pretendēt, ka jūtas vai ir kaut kā ietekmēts

English to Latvian

fidle-fadle

Nieki! Lietots kā izsauciens

English to Latvian

figment of fertile imagination

auglīgas iztēles izdomājums

English to Latvian

France`s light rail boom

Francijas vieglā dzelzceļa bums

English to Latvian

from monorail and metro systems to light rail and e-mobility solutions

no viensliedes un metro sistēmām uz gaismas dzelzceļa un e-mobilitātes risinājumiem

English to Latvian

from TDM-based to packet-based services

no laikdales multipleksēšanas balstītiem uz paketi balstītiem pakalpojumiem

English to Latvian

fully fledged freight operators

pilntiesīgi karvu operatori/pārvaldītāji

English to Latvian

global appeal of city

globāls pilsētas izaicinājums

English to Latvian

government-produced mobile telephone

valdības ražots mobilais telefons

English to Latvian

heading for a high-speed rail future

virzīšanās uz ātrgaitas vilcienu nākotni

English to Latvian

in2rail

dzelzceļā

English to Latvian

In2Rail versus Shift2Rail

Dzelzceļā vs. pārejā uz dzelzceļu

English to Latvian

inchoate

neprecīzi veidots vai formulēts

English to Latvian

it is too early to write off steel-wheeled high speed trains

ir pārāk agri norakstīt tērauda riteņu ātrgaitas vilcienus

English to Latvian

jactitation

uzmešana

English to Latvian

Definition

: a tossing to and fro or jerking and twitching of the body

Examples

"The effect of the first dose was most fortunate. In about ten minutes after it was swallowed, the jactitation ceased." — Edward H. Clarke, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 16 June 1870

"It is clear that Mrs Y.'s tics are far more complex in form than mere Parkinsonian jerks, jactitations, or precipitations...." — Oliver Sacks, Awakenings, 1973

Learn a new word every day. Delivered to your inbox!

Did You Know?

In the 17th century, lawyers began tossing around the word jactitation, which can be traced back to the Latin verb jactare, meaning "to throw." Originally, jactitation was used as a word for a false claim or assertion being publicly thrown about to the detriment of another person. Run-of-the-mill slander and false claims of being married to someone were two common types of jactitation brought to court. Before long, jactitation had jumped over to the medical profession, where it continues to serve as a word for restless, jerky, or twitchy body movements. In 1761, British writer Laurence Sterne threw jactitation into his novel Tristram Shandy as a substitute for discussion, but that meaning never caught on.
Latin verb jactare, meaning "to throw."

jactitation

ķermeņa raustīšanās

English to Latvian

licit

nav aizliegts ar likumu

English to Latvian

loss-making operation

darbība, kas rada zaudējumus

English to Latvian

mission-critical telecommunications networks

misijai / uzdevumam būtiski telekomunikāciju tīkli

English to Latvian

monthballing

pārtraukt darbību

English to Latvian

much-needed leap in technologies

ļoti nepieciešamā pāreja uz tehnoloģiju izmantošanu

English to Latvian

non-discriminatory access for new entrants

nediskriminējoša piekļuve jaunpienācējiem

English to Latvian

over 88% of attendees

pāri par 88% apmeklētāju

English to Latvian

over longish distances at high speed

garās distancēs lielā ātrumā

English to Latvian

owerview of the current state-of-play for railway networks

pašreizējā dzelzceļu tīklu stāvokļa apskats

English to Latvian

patch-fix

aizlāpīt, uzlikt plāksteri, uzlikt ielāpu

English to Latvian

populist

kāds, kurš tic parastu cilvēku gudrībai, tikumiem un tiesībām; populists

English to Latvian

Populist means “a believer in the rights, wisdom, and virtues of the common people.”

Populist

President Obama tries his hand at lexicography during a recent press conference.

Speaking at a conference in Canada, President Obama responded to the characterization of some of Donald Trump’s rhetoric as “populist.” Without naming the Republican candidate, Obama prefaced his remarks by saying “maybe somebody can pull up in a dictionary quickly, the phrase populism.”

moratorium-delay-a-suspension-of-an-activity-time-when-a-particular-activity-is-not-allowed-a-legally-authorized-period-of-delay
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class David Didier/Released

President Obama discusses the meaning of the word "populist": “I’m not prepared to concede the notion that some of the rhetoric that’s been popping up is populist"

He then went on to mention his desire to help children, the poor, and workers have equal and fair access to opportunities, saying: “I suppose that makes me a populist,” before taking aim at Donald Trump:

Somebody else who has never shown any regard for workers, has never fought on behalf of social justice issues…in fact have worked against economic opportunity for workers and ordinary people, they don't suddenly become a populist because they say something controversial in order to win votes. That’s not the measure of populism.

Populist means “a believer in the rights, wisdom, and virtues of the common people.” Appropriately enough in this context, the term was coined as the name of a political party in the United States. Known as the People’s Party or the Populist Party, it existed from 1892 until 1896, when it merged with the Democratic Party. Populist comes from the Latin word for “the people,” populus.

Not only did President Obama mention “a dictionary,” his explanation of the definition of a populist helps explain why so many people looked this word up online.

So I would just advise everybody to be careful about suddenly attributing to whoever pops up at a time of economic anxiety the label that they’re populist.

The initial data for this spike of populist also showed spikes in populous and populace, etymologically related words that have similar pronunciations, indicating that many people heard or saw the president’s remarks before reading news accounts

portfolio of solutions

risinājumu portfolio / portfelis

English to Latvian

president will have big shoes to fill

prezidentam būs " jāiekāpj lielās kurpēs", t.i., jāuzsāk jauns ceļš

English to Latvian

public transportation`s spiralling drain

sabiedriskā transporta augšupejošā noteka

English to Latvian

qua, preposition

tādā veidā, kā; priedēklis

English to Latvian

"which way" or "as,"

Definition

: in the capacity or character of : as

Examples

"Coben's novels have made him rich, but that's not what's important to him. It's sales qua sales—his statistical record—that motivates Coben, rather than the money his sales bring in." — Eric Konigsberg, The Atlantic, July/August 2007

"Sure, there have been other big pop music phenomena over the years … but the Beatles qua phenomenon was due to a confluence of forces that defined a historical moment." — Candy Leonard, The Huffington Post, 18 Dec. 2014

Learn a new word every day. Delivered to your inbox!

Did You Know?

Which way? Who? No, we're not paraphrasing lines from the old Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on First?" We're referring to the etymology of qua, a term that comes to us from Latin. It can be translated as "which way" or "as," and it is a derivative of the Latin qui, meaning "who." Qua has been serving English in the capacity of a preposition since the 17th century. It's a learned but handy little word that led one 20th-century usage writer to comment: "Qua is sometimes thought affected or pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically."

railways as an enabler of economic development

dzelzceļi kā ekonomiskās attīstības nodrošinātāji

English to Latvian