Terms with unexpected meanings, part 3

This is ending up being a longer series of posts than I anticipated. Dictionaries are very interesting books that contain more partisanship than we in US society have been taught. Here are some more dictionary terms from a 1971 Webster's dictionary that are surprising to me here in 2023:

* "euphenics" = "a science that deals with the biological improvement of human beings after birth." Eugenics is nowadays discussed disapprovingly, but no one seems to discuss the term euphenics. I think we should be paying a lot more attention to explicitly optimizing the biological outcomes of everyone on the planet by providing the conditions that will promote the best phenotypes possible for each person's genotype.

* "michurinism" is defined as "Lysenkoism"in this dictionary, even though it is named after Ivan V. Michurin, a Russian horticulturalist who died in 1935. This is a big error. It is untrue that Lysenko and Michurin had the same ideas. Lysenko's ideas are now rejected as mostly nonsense; Michurin, on the other hand, put forth the idea that external circumstances can cause a change in the genotype, an idea which we now research in fields like epigenetics.

* "pump": one of the definitions given for "pump" is "electromagnetic radiation for pumping atoms or molecules." That seems like it is saying that electromagnetic radiation can be used to move atoms and molecules around. Atoms, not surprising. Molecules....now that is surprising to me, for molecules are much larger, our bodies are full of molecules, and we live surrounded by sources of electromagnetic radiation.

* "rolamite" = "a nearly frictionless elementary mechanism consisting of two or more rollers inserted in the loops of a flexible metal or plastic band with the band acting to turn the rollers whose movement can be directed to perform various functions." I've never heard of such a mechanism. It looks to me as though it would be useful in explaining earth crust movement and earthquakes. 

* "holidic" = "having the actual constituents chemically defined < ~ diets>." Wouldn't it be great if we could obtain holidic descriptions of what is in our food and water? These days, the ingredients lists are very uninformative. Stating that "artificial flavor" and "spices" are in the ingredients tells me nothing about what I'm being sold.

* "hype": one of the given definitions of the noun "hype" is "deception, put-on." I knew "hype" was used for exaggerated advertisements, but it is news to me that "hype" can also be outright "deception."

* "IUD" = "intrauterine device" = "a device (as a spiral of plastic or a ring of stainless steel) inserted and left in the uterus to prevent effective conception." I include this one because I didn't know that IUDs used to be made of stainless steel.

* "melatonin" = "a substance produced in the pineal body that plays a role in sexual development and maturation." Sexual development and maturation? Parents have been blithely giving this to their children to help them sleep. That seems hazardous if melatonin affects their sexual development and maturation.

* "proxemics" = "a branch of study dealing with the personal and cultural spatial needs of man and his interaction with his environing space." I am curious who engages in this kind of study and what exactly they think are the actual "spatial needs of man."