Word Visualisation

Yesterday I began a new Airtable database titled Vocabulary aimed at keeping track of new words that I come across. My first entry was minatory but firstly I had to set up my fields which I did but then I got to wondering whether this database approach was the way to go about tracking new words. What alternatives are available? I decided to investigate.

One option is VISUWORDS and Figure 1 shows what this site produced for minatory:

Figure 1: https://visuwords.com/minatory

There's more information here about what it does. Another site that offers word associations is the aptly titled wordassociation.org that has supposedly become the world’s largest database of word associations. Figure 2 shows its output for minatory:

Figure 2: http://wordassociation.org/words/minatory

Cleary, as judged by this site, minatory is not a commonly used word. 

Moving along, the above site is associated with etymology and is full of fascinating information but unfortunately nothing is listed for minatory. However, the Online Etymology Dictionary does list the word:

minatory (adj.)

"expressing a threat," 1530s, from French minatoire, from Late Latin minatorius "threatening," from minat-, stem of Latin minari "to threaten; jut, project," from minæ "threats; projecting points," from PIE root *men- (2) "to project." Related: Minatorially.

According to this source, "Wordnik.com is the world's biggest online English dictionary and includes multiple sources for each word -- sort of a one-stop shop for definitions. It includes synonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, same context, forms, rhymes, reverse dictionary, and thousands of user-created lists." 

Here is the link to what is has to say about minatory. The examples provided are very helpful in gaining a good sense of its meaning e.g.

And if you approach the area from the country end - along the trackbed of the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Light Railway - you are still met by a forest of minatory signs.

Even a Google Search for minatory-related images throws up interesting results as Figure 3  and Figure 4 show:

Figure 3: source

Figure 4: source

Of course, I'm a big fan of using rhyme as a means of remembering and reinforcing words. Rhyme Zone is a useful site in this regard. Remember that Visuwords links minatory to omen, portent, presage so the rhyming link to divinatory reminds us of this link.

9 letters:

crinatory

10 letters:

divinatory

11 letters:

combinatory, comminatory, declinatory, inclinatory

12 letters:

cachinnatory

Another way of reinforcing learning is to link the word to one in another language. For example, in Indonesian minatory best translate as mengancam e.g. a threatening look = tampilan yang mengancam. Google Translate offers mengerikan as a translation, a word which means horrible so that's not so good. See Figure 5. It's better to translate threatening.

Figure 5

In conclusion, I've modified my Airtable database in the light of my above investigation. It now looks as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: link