Fwd: "hang-over" - Word of the Day from the OED

[Dave Monroe]

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Date: Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Subject: "hang-over" - Word of the Day from the OED
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OED Online Word of the Day
________________________________

hang-over, hangover

SECOND EDITION 1989
orig. U.S.

(hæv(r))  [HANG v. 17.]

    1. A thing or person remaining or left over; a remainder or
survival, an after-effect. (Later quots. influenced by sense 2.)

1894 Outing (U.S.) XXIV. 67/2 Then there are a few ‘hang-overs’ who
have tried before, and two or three green candidates. 1920 C. SANDBURG
Smoke & Steel 153 A hangover of summer song. 1922 H. CRANE Let. 23
June (1965) 77 Since I have been writing ads a certain amount of
hangover work to be done evenings. 1930 L. DENNY Amer. conquers Brit.
9 That easily inspired hatred of Germany remained as a hang-over in
America long after it had been thrown over by the British. 1939 C. DAY
LEWIS Child of Misfortune 136 At the beginning of his second
University year, he was still suffering a little from the hang-over of
public-school education. 1941 Ann. Reg. 1940 232 Owing to shortage of
labour..as much as any hang-over from the Civil War, the..harvests
were all unsatisfactory. 1958 Economist 20 Dec. 1054/2 There has been
a slight move away from the previous invariable association of every
increase in unemployment with a mental picture of lean and hungry men,
in hangover from the grim thirties. 1959 Times Rev. Industry Dec. 54/3
Only just recovered from the ghastly hangover of that [buying] spree.
1963 Times Lit. Suppl. 8 Feb. 87/2 The bitter taste of the
humanitarian hangover. 1973 Daily Tel. 19 Feb. 6/4 The oversized
dormitories..are hang-overs from the old lunatic asylums.

    2. The unpleasant after-effects of (esp. alcoholic) dissipation.

1904 ‘G. WURDZ’ Foolish Dict., Brain,..usually occupied by the
Intellect Bros.,Thoughts and Ideasas an Intelligence Office, but
sometimes sub-let to Jag, Hang-Over & Co. 1912 W. IRWIN Red Button 93
This was the first time in his life that Tommy North had ever admitted
a ‘hangover’. 1935 D. L. SAYERS Gaudy Night viii. 161 ‘How's Miss
Cattermole?’ ‘Bad hang-over. As you might expect.’ 1942 New Statesman
11 July 26/1 But the use of myths has a similar effect to the use of
alcohol: an inevitable hang-over follows the original elation. 1957
Listener 18 July 105/2 Its [sc. coffee's] ability to quicken the
spirits, and, above all, to remove the vestiges of those severe
hang-overs which afflicted our hard-drinking fore~fathers. 1959 N.
MAILER Advts. for Myself (1961) 220 It was the only good writing I
ever did directly from a drug, even if I paid for it with a hangover
beyond measure. 1962 K. ORVIS Damned & Destroyed ix. 59 Her eyes were
walled in panic, flaming with hangover pain.

    3. Electr. (See quots.)

1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 402/1 Hang-over, the delay in restoration
of speech-operated switches, as in the Vodas, to ensure the
non-clipping of weak final consonants of words. 1943 Gloss. Terms
Telecommun. (B.S.I.) 12 Hangover time, of an echo-suppressor, the
interval of time that elapses between the instant when the operating
signal ceases to be applied at the input terminals of the
echo-suppressor and the instant when the suppression loss is reduced
to 6 db. 1961 G. A. BRIGGS A to Z in Audio 95 A perfect loudspeaker
would cease to vibrate immediately any applied signal is cut off.
Failure to do so is mainly due to resonance, and the unwanted output
is sometimes referred to by the unpleasant word hangover. Its effect
is to colour the reproduction and spoil the transient response. The
worst offender is often the cabinet. 1967 W. E. PANNETT Dict. Radio &
Telev. 125 Hangover, lack of ‘attack’ and extended decay in sound
reproduction. It is most apparent with transients and is usually due
to a resonance or insufficient damping in the system.

    Hence hang-overish a., somewhat affected by a hang-over.

1936 ‘P. QUENTIN’ Puzzle for Fools viii. 62, I felt a bit
hang-overish, but that was nothing new.

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