simulacrum, vittle/victuals, mantelpiece, ransom, ransomware

A. E. Housman (1859–1936).  A Shropshire Lad.  1896.

LXII. Terence, this is stupid stuff

‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer.

Hard Times - Chapter V by Charles Dickens

- Charles Dickens  Hard Times; Chapter V .... She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet, ...

Then had we plenty of victuals.

An ominous development in cybercrime, as a Los Angeles hospital is paralyzed by a ransomware attack.

Ransomware attack takes down LA hospital for hours

One of the greatest threats to private cybersecurity today is ransomware -- a cyberattack that blocks access to a computer until the hacker is paid a…

PBS.ORG

It never ceases to amaze me how embedded Charles Dickens is in our culture during the holiday season, when Christmas holds the national imagination ransom. Where I live in San Francisco, a production of “A Christmas Carol” is battling with “The Nutcracker” for holiday audiences, and a Great Dickens Christmas Fair had been in full swing since Thanksgiving, offering "A Victorian Christmas Card Come to Life!" (ie, a simulacrum of Victorian London with hundreds of actors and performers peddling vittles and wares from countless storefronts). A local swank gift shop now has an entire section called “Dickens’s Village” made up of miniature snow-bedecked street vignettes for your mantelpiece.

'The Mantelpiece (La Cheminée)' by Eduoard Vuillard is a combination of interior scene and still-life, showing Vuillard's room at Château-Rouge in Amfreville, Normandy. The richly-decorated walls compete with the still-life on the mantelpiece. Yet despite this interplay between the two-and the three-dimensional, the foreshortened mantelpiece, jutting almost out of the picture, marks the artist's move to a more naturalistic approach.
What's interesting about this painting is that on the reverse there is a rapid sketch of a woman with two dogs and two children on a beach. See this work in Room 41: http://bit.ly/2D5yzwW

victual 

Pronunciation: /ˈvɪt(ə)l/ 

dated

NOUN

(victuals)

Food or provisions:turkey and other savoury victuals were served

More example sentences

VERB (victuals, victualling, victualled ; US victuals, victualing, victualed)

[WITH OBJECT]

1Provide with food or other stores:the ship wasn’t even properly victualled

More example sentences

1.1[NO OBJECT] archaic Obtain or lay in food or other stores:a voyage of such length, that no ship could victual for

More example sentences

1.2[NO OBJECT] archaic Eat:victual with me next Saturday

Origin

Middle English: from Old French vitaille, from late Latin victualia, neuter plural of Latinvictualis, from victus 'food'; related to vivere 'to live'. The pronunciation still represents the early spelling vittel; later spelling has been influenced by the Latin form.

victual

• [vítl]

（▼発音注意）[名]

1 ((〜s))((古))食糧.

2 ((古・方言))（人の）食べ物, 食品. ▼特にすぐ食べられるように調理されたもの.

━━[動]（〜ed, 〜・ing；((英))〜led, 〜・ling）(他)〈軍隊などに〉食糧を供給する；〈船に〉食糧を積み込む.

━━(自)食糧を積み込む［入手する］.

［中英語←古フランス語vitaile←ラテン語victuālis （victus vīvere（生きる）の過去分詞＋-AL）. -c-の文字は後ラテン語にならって復活したが発音はもとのまま. △VITAL］



vittle

(vĭt'l) n.
Food fit for human consumption.
victuals Food supplies; provisions.

v., -ualed, or -ualled, -ual·ing, or -ual·ling, -uals, or -uals. v.tr.

To provide with food.

v.intr.
To lay in food supplies.
To eat.


[Alteration (influenced by Late Latin vīctuālia, provisions) of Middle English vitaille, from Old French, from Late Latin vīctuālia, provisions, from neuter pl. of Latin vīctuālis, of nourishment, from vīctus, nourishment, from past participle of vīvere, to live.]


USAGE NOTE The modern pronunciation of victual, (vĭt'l), represents an Anglicized pronunciation of the Old French form vitaille, which was borrowed into English in the early 14th century. The modern English spelling reflects the fact that in both French and English the word was sometimes spelled with a c, and later also with a u, under the influence of its Late Latin ancestor victuālia, meaning "provisions." The word is now occasionally spelled vittle rather than victual, but in either case the pronunciation is (vĭt'l).

1. A beam or arch that supports the masonry above a fireplace; also called a mantel-tree.
2. All the construction or facing around a fireplace.
3. A mantelshelf.

mantel, 2

Chimneypiece and overmantel, about 1750 V&A Museum no. 738:1 to 3-1897

simulacrum

[名]（複 〜s, -cra 〔-kr〕）((形式))

1 像, 似姿.

2 幻影, 面影.

(sĭm'yə-lā'krəm, -lăk'rəm)



n., pl., -la·cra (-lā'krə, -lăk'rə).
An image or representation.
An unreal or vague semblance.


[Latin simulācrum (from simulāre, to simulate; see simulate) + -crum, n. suff.]