Yankee OED

My friends got married. I approved. Congrats to them. The wedding was in the bride's hometown of Hereford, which is in the panhandle of Texas. It's known as the beef capital of the world. It's a dry dry land that survives on a buried aquifer and gov't subsidies. The people of Hereford were very friendly, but they had a half sarcastic, half joshing, half pure hidden hatred of Yanks. Before this trip, I'd hardly thought of my designation as a yankee. Dictionary.com claims that the term carries less emotion [nowadays] except when referring to the baseball team. I must politely disagree. To west Texans, it is a term that is full of secret knowledge, and most of that knowledge doesn't seem complimentary.

Then there was the question of who geographically is a Yank. Outside of the US, we all are; see: Yankee, Go Home. At the wedding, a couple of characters from Milwaukee were surprised to find it ascribed to them, assuming that a yankee was exclusively a New England to South Jersey thing. I've always assumed I fully fall into the Yankee category, as Ohio was a mostly full participant in the Civil War. I didn't feel any less yankified when I was in Minneapolis, though. It's still a midwestern town, protestant, and slaveless in history. How far west does Yankee go? The determination of your yankee bonafides seems to lie entirely on a geographic point of view. From where we sit, that's how things are seen.

Yankee
1. a. a nickname for a native or inhabitant of New England, or, more widely, of the northern States generally; during the War of Secession* applied by the Confederates to the soldiers of the Federal army.
b. an American**
3. Whiskey sweetened with molasses. colloq.
5. b. adj. That is a Yankee; pertaining to or characteristic of Yankees (often with connotation of cleverness, cunning, or cold calculation); loosely, belonging to the United States.

*War of Secession? Is this the Southern name for it? Why would the Brits use this term? (ahem, we won)
**American? Paraguayans and Chileans and the like might not agree.

The etymology is entirely unclear. Possible sources - mangling of the Cherokee word for coward or slave, eankee; perhaps from the diminutive for John, Janke; maybe an indian mispronunciation of the French word anglais (english).

Precocious OED

Precocious
1 Of a plant: Flowering or fruiting early; spec. bearing blossom before the leaves; also said of the blossoms or fruit.
2 fig. Of persons: Prematurely developed in some faculty or proclivity.

From the Latin praecox (premature?). Which when it made it to the French became praecoquere and means to pre-cook, to boil beforehand.

Walking home from the bar on Saturday, we were discussing the 12 year old stripper. The word precocious was used. I found that I didn't know exactly what was meant by that. I am quite surprised to find the definition to be so rigid, that it hasn't become sloppy english to mean anything else.
It took me a bit to find the antonym, serotious.

Serotine
a. Late in occurance or development; chiefly of plants late flowering.
sb. A late flowering plant or species.

It's also the name of a bat. One that is seen late in the evening. It's interesting that the one word is a commonly used and widely understood one, while even the definition of it's opposite points exclusively towards a purely zoological origin and usage. Every comprehends a precocious child. No one understands the serotious man. Which I like to think I am.

Apostate OED

Apostate
A sb.
1 One who abjures or forsakes his religious faith, or abandons is moral allegiances; a pervert.
2 One who deserts his party or forsakes his allegiance or troth; a turncoat, a renegade.
B adj.
1 Unfaithful to religious principles or creed, or to moral allegiance; renegade, infidel; rebellious.
2 gen. Deserting principles or party; perverted.

From the Greek word meaning to stand-off or withdrawal. Through Latin and French to English unadulterated (apostasy is the real base).

For Christmas I did receive one older and beaten copy of The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in two parts. It is awesome. I hope I'm not breaking any copyrights to bring you my cullings of the important bits.
I found the word reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Which is awesome, almost of the level of Sci-Fi goodyness as Ender's Game. (And of the sequels tacked on, almost as rancid.)