Yes, but only for evil purposes. You would never "conjure" the Virgin Mary in an attempt to win her support in a war. The Ouija board is a parlor game, invented and first sold in 1894. It makes various claims to communicate with the dead. It's a board about the size of a computer monitor. It's sold with a planchette, a small pointer with felt feet that can be quickly and easily moved around the board, which features the alphabet, specific words, and several other symbols used in occultism. The way it works is that one or two players touch the planchette loosely, causing it to move about the board, stopping on various words or letters, which are claimed to be messages from the spirits. In general, this is simply the result of the players competing with each other, each attempting to spell a more interesting or amusing message. In other words, it is a toy. Nonetheless, people can be easily convinced of occult forces, and some players--especially children--feel that the planchette is moving by itself, giving them secret messages. The origin of the name of the product is unclear. It's commonly said that it is a concatenation of "oui," the French word for "yes", pronounced "wee," with "ja," the German word for "yes," pronounced "yah." However, there is no evidence of this origin from the era when the board was developed. Furthermore, the name of the board is never pronounced this way, "wee-yah." It is always pronounced "wee-ja" or (especially by children) "wee-jee." In other words, there is apparently no reputable information on the name. It may have been created whimsically by the inventor. It was regarded as a toy for the first 20 years of its existence. Then when World War I began, people were worried about their soldiers in foreign lands, and the game began to be used in spiritualism. Hasbro Corp. is the current owner of the brand name and the manufacturer of the boards.
You can "conjure up " a plan or scheme. It doesn't have to be evil . The sense can be associated with a "conjuring trick" and conjuring tricks are performed for children among others -so hardly "evil". You can also "conjure up" a picture in your mind. I can't refind the story but I just read that someone had died in India at a showing of Conjure 2 and the body has gone missing (as has the story?) EDIT: got it: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...james-wan-patrick-wilson-horror-a7089116.html
Yes ,perhaps in a dream or maybe consciously. I am not sure but perhaps it is also possible to have a premonition of something good: but it would normally be bad. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=premonition I have no idea about "grimoire" . Did the word crop up in the film Conjure 2 ?
Yes, it means a book of magic, and no, it is not an obsolete word. It isn't particularly common, though. How often would you normally be talking about books of magic? The place I usually see it used is in Fantasy books/films.
A premonition is a forewarning of something about to happen. It is usually in reference to something bad but not always. Comes from the Latin: "prae" meaning before and "monere" meaning to warn.
Yes. It's a manual for casting spells and performing other magical deeds. No. However, in most of the modern world magic is regarded as merely clever entertainment. So such a book would be regarded as a prop in a stage performance, not a book in which someone would actually search for a magic spell.
In military terms is the space between two (or more?) front lines which both sides have agreed,perhaps (de facto) neither side will enter. Then the term is applied metaphorically and loosely to other areas such as ,in the above example political discussions (which may be said to resemble warfare).
The phrase has been in use for almost 1,000 years, and goes back to the Anglo-Saxon language: a dialect of Old German spoken by the Germanic invaders after the Romans abandoned England. When the Norman French conquered "Angle Land," Anglo-Saxon was greatly influenced by Medieval French and the result was Early Modern English, around 1300 CE. The essence of a no-man's land is typically an abandoned battlefield. It is still full of unexploded ordinance (such as ammunition), so no one wants to walk over it. It is also full of the dead bodies of soldiers who were killed in the battles that were fought there--and even if there's no risk of unexploded ordinance, many people don't want to walk there, as a courtesy to their memory.
Mr Johnson has been installed as the bookies' favourite to succeed the PM. What is bookie's favourite ?
A bookie is like a banker for people who bet. When you play at cards as a group of friends and want to play for money it is often customary to assign the role of "banker" to one of the players. This person holds the money (or tokens) in the game and allocates it to the winner /takes it from the participants. A "bookie" also performs this role but does not take part in the game - they merely make or lose money:it is their profession. The name comes presumably from a little book they are likely to carry around with them. The "bookie's favorite"is ,generally the person most likely to succeed in any particular matter. It is a loose way of describing things but there can and are be bets placed on who will succeed Cameron.
"Bookie" is a shortening of "bookmaker." A bookmaker is a person whose profession is to assist people in gambling, especially in a country like the USA where gambling is illegal except in casinos or playing the lottery. The phrase "the bookies' favorite" refers to an event that people are wagering on, and identifies the conclusion that the majority of bookmakers believe will be the winner. For example, in a football game, the team that won its last ten matches is going to be chosen as "the bookies' favorite," rather than the opposing team that has only won two matches in the last three months. To say that Mr. Johnson is the bookies' favorite means that the majority of professional gamblers believe that Mr. Johnson will be appointed to succeed the current prime minister. But that person is NOT a "bookmaker" or a "bookie." A bookmaker does not necessarily participate in the betting games that his customers are playing--although depending on the laws of the country, he may be allowed to do this. Aside from collecting money from bettors, a bookmaker's primary activity is to calculate the odds on the events his customers are betting on, in order to maximize his income. The first formal betting systems were created around horse racing, one of civilization's oldest sports. In medieval times, the people who managed the betting kept actual books which helped them decide which horses were more likely to win their races. This gave rise to the word "bookmaker," which was shortened to "bookie."
How do I make sense of the phrase "hoist by his own petard"? I mean I know what it means but ,as it is an ancient phrase ,even found in Shakespeare (Hamlet): "For tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar" what does "hoist" mean ? Is it "blown up into the air"? since these petar machines were for blowing holes in castle walls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard I know it is a French word but "petomane " is very amusing as it is the word for a performer who can make musical sounds from his own fundament. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Pétomane Fans of Leonard Rossiter may be interested to know that he starred as "Le Pétomane" in a film by Galton and Simpson.
"To hoist" these days usually means to raise by means of ropes, tackles, pulleys etc. But I think in ye olde days it meant something like to lift and remove. So if you were sorting through some things you might hoist some defective items etc. So in reference to the petard it would mean something more like thrown up into the air and thus removed from the battle/fight etc. Something like that anyway. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
In the way that we assign a meaning to things we don't actually understand (fill in the gaps) , I had always taken a "petard" to be something along the lines of a boat hook Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Is there another word "hoike" with a related meaning?
