commend, recommendation, harlequin, lapidary, drollness

THEATER REVIEW | 'FABLES DE LA FONTAINE'
On the Surface, the Moral. Beneath That, the Blood.
By BEN BRANTLEY
Robert Wilson and the Comédie Française have uncovered the rush of pulsing blood beneath the lapidary drollness of La Fontaine’s moral tales.



In Japan, meanwhile, this decision will almost inevitably define Mr Noda’s premiership, even as he struggles with other huge issues, such as tackling the aftermath of the March tsunami and nuclear disaster. It is not clear he has the political strength to pull it off, but at least he should be commended for trying.


Harlequin Dress - recommendation by AGD - ThisNext

commend[com・mend]

レベル：社会人必須

• 発音記号[kəménd]
• 
  

[動](他)((形式))

1 〈人の〉（…を）ほめる((for ...))

commend a fireman for bravery
消防官の勇敢さを賞賛する

be highly commended
激賞される

have much to commend
大いに賞賛すべきである.

2 〈人・物を〉（…に）推薦［推挙］する(recommend)((to ...))

I commend Mr. Brown to you.
ブラウンさんを君に推薦します.

3 ((古))…を（…の世話・保護に）任せる((to ...)).

4 ((〜 -self))〈事・物が〉（人の）気に入る((to ...))

The college doesn't commend itself to me.
その大学はあまり感心しない.

［ラテン語commendāre （com-対して＋mendāre任せる＝ある人に対して任せる）. △COMMAND］


harlequin
har·le·quin (här'lĭ-kwĭn, -kĭn) 

n.

1. Harlequin A conventional buffoon of the commedia dell'arte, traditionally presented in a mask and parti-colored tights.
2. A clown; a buffoon.

adj.
Having a pattern of brightly colored diamond shapes.

[Obsolete French, from Old French Herlequin, Hellequin, a demon, perhaps from Middle English *Herleking, from Old English Herla cyning, King Herla, a mythical figure identified with Woden.]

droll

adj., droll·er, droll·est.
Amusingly odd or whimsically comical.
n. Archaic.
A buffoon.

[French drôle, buffoon, droll, from Old French drolle, bon vivant, possibly from Middle Dutch drol, goblin.]

MUSIC REVIEW
A Rewoven Black Flag, Raised for a New Audience
By JON PARELES
The year’s oddest musical tribute belongs to Dirty Projectors, the Brooklyn band that brought its lapidary, wayward constructions to the Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday night.

As she did in her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of stories “Interpreter of Maladies” (1999) and her dazzling 2003 novel “The Namesake,” Ms. Lahiri writes about these people in “Unaccustomed Earth” with an intimate knowledge of their conflicted hearts, using her lapidary eye for detail to conjure their daily lives with extraordinary precision: the faint taste of coconut in the Nice cookies that a man associates with his dead wife; the Wonder Bread sandwiches, tinted green with curry, that a Bengali mother makes for her embarrassed daughter to take to school. A Chekhovian sense of loss blows through these new stories: a reminder of Ms. Lahiri’s appreciation of the wages of time and mortality and her understanding too of the missed connections that plague her husbands and wives, parents and children, lovers and friends.

lapidary
n., pl. -ies.

1. One who cuts, polishes, or engraves gems.
2. A dealer in precious or semiprecious stones.

adj.

1. Of or relating to precious stones or the art of working with them.
2. 1. Engraved in stone.
   2. Marked by conciseness, precision, or refinement of expression: lapidary prose.
   3. Sharply or finely delineated: a face with lapidary features.

[Middle English lapidarie, from Old French lapidaire, from Latin lapidārius, from lapis, lapid-, stone.]

━━ n. 宝石細工人［術］.
━━ a. 石に彫られた ((碑文など)); 碑文（体）の; 宝石細工の.