Sunday Word: Oleaginous
oleaginous [oh-lee-aj-uh-nuhs]
adjective:
1 resembling or having the properties of oil, oily; containing or producing oil
2 marked by an offensively ingratiating manner or quality
Examples:
She runs a mentoring scholarship programme for women, administered by a tiresome, oleaginous would-be conductor, played by Mark Strong, and there are rumours that this is a source of young women with whom Tár has affairs. (Peter Bradshaw, Tár review - Cate Blanchett is colossal as a conductor in crisis, The Guardian, September 2022)
In recent years, parts of the delta have taken on the atmosphere of a war zone: hidden among mangroves and low bush, villagers and local militias have established countless makeshift distilleries to refine crude stolen from pipelines, while dumping tons of oleaginous waste back into the ground. (Raffi Khatchadourian, The Long View, The New Yorker, December 2016)
While there is a strong case for Michael Forsyth, who prowled the country like an oleaginous sith, or Malcolm Rifkind, who ruled with a sort of sinister patrician aura, and both were despised as representatives of Thatcherism, they were at the very least, noticeable. (Mike Small, Who is the Worst Secretary of State for Scotland Ever?, BellaCaledonia, January 2023)
"Dirty-looking beggars," said I over my shoulder: "dark as dark; blue chins, oleaginous curls, and ear-rings; ragged as they make them, but nothing picturesque in their rags." (E W Hornung, Raffles, Further Adventures Of The Amateur Cracksman)
As the oleaginous matter exudes, it falls in drops through the apertures into a wide-mouthed calabash placed underneath. After a sufficient quantity has thus been collected, the oil undergoes a purifying process, and is then poured into the small spherical shells of the nuts of the moo-tree, which are hollowed out to receive it. (Herman Melville, Typee)
Origin:
'oily, unctuous, having the qualities of oil,' early 15c, oleaginose (modern from by 1630s), from Old French oléagineux (14c.) and directly from Medieval Latin oleaginus, literally 'of the olive,' from olea 'olive,' alteration of oliva (see olive) by influence of oleum 'oil.' (Online Eytymology Dictionary)
The oily oleaginous slipped into English via Middle French oleagineux, coming from Latin oleagineus, meaning 'of an olive tree'. Oleagineus itself is from Latin olea, meaning 'olive tree', and ultimately from Greek elaia, meaning 'olive'. Oleaginous was at first used in a literal sense, as it still can be. An oleaginous substance is simply oily, and an oleaginous plant produces oil. The word took on its extended 'ingratiating' sense in the 19th century. (Merriam-Webster)