The AnkiDroid Collection (Part 53) – Macabre, Cacophony & Epidermis

Ankidroid additions related to Science, History and Philosophy. More information about Anki can be found in this article.

Macabre

Macabre contains one of two pronunciations:

mə-käb′

mə-kä′brə

Macabre is having death as a subject : comprising or including a personalized representation of death. The origins of macabre can be traced back to the name of the Book of Maccabees, which is included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons of the Old Testament and in the Protestant Apocrypha. Sections of this biblical text address both the deaths of faithful people asked to renounce their religion and the manner in which the dead should be properly commemorated. In medieval France, representations of these passages were performed as what became known as the “dance of death” or “dance Maccabee,” which was spelled in several different ways, including danse macabre. In English, macabre was originally used in reference to this “dance of death” and then gradually came to refer to anything grim or gruesome.
See Etymology special (Ankidroid edition) for more information is the history of linguistic form (such as a word) and tracing its earliest recorded meaning and its use over time.

Cacophony

kə-kŏf′ə-nē

Cacophony refers to the harshness in sound of words or phrases. Bad sound. (antonym of Symphony). It can also describe an incongruous or chaotic mixture.

Cacophony comes from a joining of the Greek prefix kak- (from kakos,meaning “bad”) with phōnē, so it essentially means “bad sound.”

Epidermis

ep.əˈdɝː.mɪs

The Epidermis is the outermost of the three layers that comprise the skin; the inner layers being the dermis and hypodermis. The epidermis layer provides a barrier to infection from environmental pathogens and regulates the amount of water released from the body into the atmosphere.

Epidermis can also refer to the protective covering ie the hide, the shell, fur and the leather.