wondrous words

from the past week's reading. These new words I came across while reading The Marsh Lions:

Internecine- ".... which prevents the lions from wasting their energies in senseless internecine warfare."
Definition: fatal to both side, mutually destructible

Volplane- "At once his keen eager eyes picked out the inert shape on the ground, and he began his own stupdendous fall to earth, the wind hissing through his primary feathers as he vol-planed out of the blue."
Definition: to glide towards the earth (in a plane) with the engine cut off

Gralloch- "For long periods he would disappear altogether, patrolling the outer reaches of his territory, until the gralloched corpse of a young impala dangling from one of his larder trees announced his return."
Definition: to remove the entrails of (especially a deer)

Kopje- "The kopjes are very old."
Definition: a small hill rising up from the African plain

Ineluctable- "Her nostrils drew in a tangle of ripe odours: geese and reedbucks, buffalo dung, rotting flesh, lion, grass, wildebeest and the black ineluctable reek of the Marsh itself.
Definition: unavoidable, inescapable

Corsair- "Mysterious, elusive, enigmatic, they were the restless corsairs of the wide grass oceans."
Definition: a pirate, or a swift pirate ship

Vernal- "The sound of the grass was in the wind, and its rank vernal smell was everywhere."
Definition: occurring in the spring, or fresh and youthful

Alate- "All over the plains, their mounds and mud chimneys erupted, releasing hordes of winged alates into the waiting mouths...."
Definition: having wings, or wing-like extensions

Riparian- "There she grew up, a fierce recluse, keeping to the dense riparian forests..."
Definition: on the banks of a river

Pronk- "Some of the territorial bucks began to pronk, bouncing away in stiff-legged alarm."
Definition: to jump straight up

for more wondrous words, visit this meme's host Bermudaonion

I did want to write a book post, as I just finished No Room in the Ark. I have new words from that one, too, but not looked up yet. Either my head is too achy to think straight, or the cold medicine is making me sleepy- I'm not up to writing well, now. All the BBAW posts are putting me in a whirl. Maybe next year...

9/19/09 Edit to add: here are the ones from No Room in the Ark:

Grenadilla- "...we entered hot groves of semi-tropical fruits, oranges and grenadillas, pineapples and bananas."
Definition: fruit of the passionflower vine

Cafard- "But it was not enough to beguile loneliness, to keep the cafard at bay."
Definition: this is a French word, and I think it means depression or apathy

Propinquity- "This propinquity was altogether too much for one of our drivers who had not before this ventured far outside Nairobi."
Definition: close in time, place or relationship (in this case, close to a lion)

Intransigence- "And the issue was still further confused by the fact that the Masai, perhaps because of their very toughness and intransigence, are rather admired by white men in Africa..."
Definition: stubbornly refusing to compromise

wondrous words

from Oryx and Crake:

Vermiform- "He'd used the vermiform appendix as the base on which to construct the necessary organ..."
Definition: shaped like a worm, long and thin

Inchoate- "... events had marked him, he'd had his own scars, his dark emotions. Ignorant, perhaps. Unformed, inchoate."
Definition: in an early stage, not yet fully developed

Troglodyte- "He was feeling more and more like a troglodyte."
Definition: a primitive person who lives in a cave

Plangent- "Maybe they'd pick it up now, in time for a heartfelt, plangent, and action-filled finale."
Definition: expressing sadness, or: loud and resounding

Homogenized- "Just in time, fear has homogenized his bowels."
Definition: to make uniform in consistency, especially through a fluid (ew)

Snaffle- "He fills up an empty beer bottle with boiled water, then snaffles a standard-issue micro-fibre laundry bag from the bedroom..."
Definition: to seize quickly and easily

and from The Cats of Lamu:

Raconteur- "A great raconteur, Kay was full of fun and always ready for a put-on or a joke, which the locals loved- when they understood the sometimes alien punch line."
Definition: a person skilled at telling stories

Find more new words at this meme's host: Bermudaonion.

wondrous words

A day late, with this meme. Well, here are the rest of the new words I found, in Search for the Golden Moon Bear:

Ordnance- "Unexploded ordnance still infects the countryside."
Definition: weapons and other military supplies

Epiphyte- "The trees along the Mekong have epiphytes- ferns, orchids, and sometimes even cactic perch harmlessly on the branches..."
Definition: a plant that grows on another plant for support but does not take nutrients from it

Echelon- "No wonder he was still awaiting approval from the upper echelons of the Forest Department to proceed with his reintroduction plans..."
Definition: a level of power or responsibility

and from Daughters of the Sunstone:

Rapproachement- "She had made a final rapprochment with herself while she slept."
Definition: the re-establishment of friendly relations

Renege- "Finally, Reyna guessed, she had grown so oppressed by the daily terror of waking and realizing that her challenge still lay ahead that she had simply gone, impulsively, without preparation or ceremony, before she could renege."
Definition: to renounce, disown; to fail to carry out a promise or commitment

Abrogate- "Aberra had gone, abrogating every tradition of a palace daughter's leave-taking."
Definition: to abolish, do away with, cancel; especially by invested authority

Diffidently- "The hall monitor approached and spoke diffidently, his wizened face concerned."
Definition: timidly, reserved

Impinge- "Every sensory clue impinged upon her, demanding its brief moment of attention."
Definition: to trespass, encroach upon

for more wondrous words, visit Bermudaonion's Weblog

wondrous words

These words I came across when reading The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle:

Obstreperous- "He was such an enormous man there was no knowing what he might do if he got really obstreperous."
Definition: noisy, aggressively defiant and difficult to control

Embrocation- "... the Doctor took a large bottle of embrocation and began rubbing the sprain."
Definition: an ointment or lotion

Enteric- "They would go back to their old unsanitary ways: bad water, uncooked fish, no drainage, enteric fever, and the rest."
Definition: of the intestines

These words are from The Snowflake:

Nanoscale- "Yet self-assembly is hard to fathom because it usually involves either nanoscale objects, like the molecules in a crystal, or tremendously complex objects, like living things."
Definition: on a scale of nanometers, which is one billionth of a meter

Morphogenesis- "A flower is a biological example of morphogenesis, the spontaneous creation of form- nature using chemistry and self-assembly to generate complexity."
Definition: formation of the structure of an organism, or a part thereof

And from the books I'm currently reading, Search for the Golden Moon Bear:

Igneous- "In a great igneous spine, they run for more than six hundred miles from the northeastern corner of Cambodia up along the border of Vietnam and Laos."
Definition: formed by molten rock cooling

Lyse- "The chemicals would lyse, or burst the cells, and cause them to release their DNA."
Definition: to cause the disintegration of cells, by a chemical substance, antibody or enzyme

Montane- "If Africa is a good analogy, montane rain forest spread down, but the lowland forest became savanna in what is now the Congo Basin."
Definition: of a mountain area

and Daughters of the Sunstone:

Compunction- "I was busy," he said lamely, wondering how he had turned her away twice with no compunction.
Definition: uneasiness caused by guilt; feeling of regret

Inimical- "He should have known before he encountered the arrogant Bullens, should have known before he challenged the Arnimi force curtain, that the Arnimi would be inimical to him."
Definition: harmful, injurious; hostile or unfriendly

Insipid- "Tastes and scents grew insipid, colors dull, textures bland."
Definition: lacking in flavor, tasteless

Venality- "Or did the women who governed them see that their venality was directed entirely outward?"
Definition: susceptible to bribery, corruption; using a position of trust for dishonest gain

Compendium- "She was the oldest mare of her herd and she carried the knowledge of their kind in the very tissues of her body, carried it like a compendium of redmane wisdom."
Definition: a summary of a larger work

Ostentatious- "It was a crude weapon, but she worked on it ostentatiously, hefting it, testing its balance."
Definition: showy, pretentious. That doesn't quite seem to fit here. Does anyone know another definition?

Extemporize- "It means our fathers were the same man once," Danior said, extemporizing. "Though they are no longer, of course."
Definition: to do something without preparation or practice

That's a lot of new words! To see more, visit the host of this meme, Bermudaonion.

wondrous words

I'm doing my wondrous words a day late. They all came from West with the Night, a book full of unfamiliar words, many (not listed here) which I could not find meanings for and only guessed at.

Muram- "I peer ahead along the narrow muram runway."
Definition: a type of heavy, red clay soil used to pave roads

Posho- "... the cedar forest that bounded our posho mill and paddocks."
Definition: a staple food in Africa made from ground maize and water

Syce- "... she could be handled even by the syces."
Definition: a groom or stableman (word origins in India)

Manyatta- "I could only wonder if he had been hurt and taken into a manyatta by some of the Masai Murani..."
Definition: a Masai community made up of several huts enclosed by a fence

Magneto- "Woody and I were preparing to take off for Nairobi and a doctor- and a new magneto, if one could be had."
Definition: a device that produces alternating current for distribution to the spark plugs, used in the ignition systems of some internal-combustion engines

Kiboko- "... Bwana Elkington, who is saying a great many words I do not know and is carrying a long kiboko which he holds in his hand and is meant for beating the large lion."
Definition: a heavy leather whip

Profligate- "He was profligate with money- his own and what he could borrow; but he spent nothing on himself and was scrupulously honest."
Definition: recklessly wasteful

Reimpie- "It began with the stirring of Buller alseep, as always, at the foot of my reimpie bed in the mud and daub hut we shared together..."
Definition: having a seat (or in this case a platform) of woven rawhide thongs

Donga- "The lion that stood in the donga was not intimidated by Arab Maina's stare."
Definition: a dry gully

Lucerne- "She nibbles at a single leaf of lucerne, too small to be tasted, then shambles on sluggish feet across the box."
Definition: alfalfa (in Britian and Australia)

Enure- "It is an ancient lamp.... It is crumpled and slatternly, enured to failure, as if no man with hope in his fingers had ever trimmed its wick."
Definition: inure; to habituate oneself to something unpleasant

Nonage- "... he will walk behind me now, when once, in the simplicity of our nonage, we walked together."
Definition: a period of immaturity

Strabismus- "Please report to the examiners within three months and, if you have not contracted strabismus, or a melancholy point of view in regard to this Board, we will be happy to renew your permit."
Definition: a condition where the eyes are not aligned with each other

Sansevieria- "Land on sansevieria and your plane is skewered like a duck pinned for taxidermy- land in it and walk away."
Definition: a type of shrubby, succulent perennial plant native to the Old World

Nostrum- ".... each beckoning with such enthusiasm that I concluded the gin, rather than the quinine, was the nostrum immediately required."
Definition: "patented" medicine with secret ingredients (usually a quack remedy)

Snickersnee- "The only difference is that the steer has neither the ability nor the chance to outwit the gentleman who wields the slaughterhouse snickersnee..."
Definition: a large knife (slang, of Dutch origin)

Virescent- "I think we were simply depressed beyond words with the business of hanging for so long a time under such a flat blue sky and above such a flat virescent swamp."
Definition: becoming green

Lachrymose- "They are silent, limp or lachrymose, and in their midst sits Blix the Unsinkable- a monument of miserable sobriety, bleak as a lonely rock jutting from a lonely sea."
Definition: being tearful, or causing one to weep

Bermudaonion hosts this meme

wondrous words

I forgot to do this post yesterday, but I have been jotting down the new words in my reading! All these came from Maggie-Now, which I've just finished.

Chromo- "Ah, well, he thought, 'tis better to have the old Chromo's picture in the house rather than the old Chromo herself in person, sitting here and coming between husband and wife."
Definition: slang for a useless, annoying person, or a person of low moral standard

Lisle- "Patsy... as was traditional with men, eying the women in their bathing suits, their legs in long, black lisle stocks and the ruffles of bloomers showing beneath knee-length skirts."
Definition: a finely spun cotton thread, used to make stockings and cotton underwear

Pot cheese- " 'I'll have pot cheese and chives,' said Mary, 'and coffee.' "
Definition: cottage cheese

Fagoting- "I could teach them hemstitching and darning and fagoting and how to make buttonholes..."
Definition: a type of decorative stitching that ties parallel threads together in groups

Shillelagh- "She gave him a present in return - a knotty shillelagh, a treasure that had belonged to her first husband. He was proud of it, Pat was, and carried it with him whenever he went out, wishing he could get into an argument and make use of it."
Definition: a club made of heavy wood

Bollix- "... well, Denny got everything all bollixed up."
Definition: to throw into confusion, make a mess of something

Lagniappe- "Winer had never come across the word 'lagniappe'. Yet he and many other storekeepers observed the custom."
Definition: a small gift given by a store owner to a customer with their purchase

For more wondrous words, visit this meme's host, Bermudaonion.

wondrous words and more

All my words this week came from reading Irving Stone's account of Darwin's travels aboard the Beagle, which I am beginning to find tiresome. I've gotten through almost 300 pages of The Origin and find myself putting down the book, reading another one entire, and then wondering if I want to come back to it...

Inveterate- "... both the Darwin and Wedgewood families had good libraries and were inveterate readers, but for enjoyment rather than education."
Definition: habitual, or well-established

Litmus- "... he has a brain in that large skull of his, not only for sopping up knowledge like litmus paper, but for speculative theory."
Definition: a paper that turns red in acidic solutions and blue in alkaline; derived from lichens

Redoubtable- "Even our redoubtable Wickham gets seasick in smaller boats."
Definition: worthy of resepect or honor; inspiring awe or fear

Desideratum- "Size is not the ultimate desideratum."
Definition: something considered very neccessary

Davit- "Twenty-five-foot whaleboats hung from the Beagle's quarter davits..."
Definition: a small crane that suspends over the side of a ship for hoisting objects

Holystone- "It was the midshipmen who caught the blast of his temper if a single spot of the deck had not been holystoned to a high gloss..."
Definition: a soft sandstone used to scour the deck of a ship

Argot- "He enjoyed listening to the argot of the sailors, gradually coming to understand the meaning of such terms as yar, swabber, wind-bound in a port..."
Definition: slang or jargon used by a particular group of people

Factotum- "The party included a young friend of the Scotsman named Gosling, a Brazilian guide from the interior; a black boy to serve as general factotum."
Definition: a person employed to do all kinds of work, mainly as an assistant

for more wondrous words, visit Bermudaonion's Weblog

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On another note, I've been rather neglectful of responding to comments and such because we have a houseguest this week (old friend of my husband's) and being hostess diverts my time and attention away from some of my favorite things (reading and blogging). A few days ago Jules so kindly gave me the Bookworms Award for Bookfriends. I just love the button for this award, which is for those book bloggers we truly appreciate. I followed the trail of this award back to another book blog new to me, Miscellaneous Mumblings.

I'd like to pass this award on to some of the book blogs I've more recently discovered. I don't know them very well yet, but I do know they share a love of books with me, and all the rest of you! This goes to: Read Quoi?, YA Fabulous, Under the Dresser, You GOTTA Read This, and Words by Annie.

wondrous words

New words I came across in the past week, from Seaworthy:

Parsimonious- "He could be, on occasion, so strict in its practice and parsimonious with air that he would rhythmically breathe himself into a faint."
Definition: excessively frugal

Bauxite- "She.... was the sort of creature who could readily construe a voyage on a bauxite freighter to obscure malarial ports in the West Indies a vacation."
Definition: a claylike substance that is the main source of aluminum

Enervating- "Perhaps the enervating climate had something to do with it."
Definition: weakening, depriving of strength (medically, to remove nerves)

Consomme- "Willis, quite beyond dissected parrots and primate consomme, was saltogether doomed."
Definition: a clear soup or rich broth

Eructation- "Though he was slow to regain his stamina and feared a relapse with every twinge and eructation, Willis's ulcer failed to plague him further..."
Definition: belching

Trimaran- "Willis decided that his new raft would be a trimaran constructed of three steel pontoons..."
Definition: a small, fast sailboat with three parallel hulls

and from Splendid Solution:

Tony- "The blocks around the university, however, turned out to be far too tony for the $2,100 per year a researcher like Salk would be making..."
Definition: markedly elegant or exclusive

Cachet- "Corporate and political leaders like Edsel Ford and Averell Harriman joined the foundation board to lend it clout and cachet."
Definition: a mark of distinction or authenticity

Protean- "The virus that caused the disease was an especially protean one, mutating from year to year and place to place."
Definition: able to constantly change shape or form, widely variable

Billet- "But there were a lot of other investigators seeking the glamorous Berkeley billet as well..."
Definition: a position of employment (more commonly, lodging for troops)

Interregnum- "He.... studied viruses at Rockfeller University during the interregnum between hostilities..."
Definition: a gap in continuity, especially between a person of power's reign of office and their successor

Adjuvant- "... he wanted to study new ways to inactivate the virus so it could be used in a vaccine, and new ways to fortify that vaccine with adjuvants."
Definition: a substance added to a drug to increase its effectiveness

Miscegnation- "Nothing short of an attempt at intravenous miscegnation."
Definition: the "mixing" of different ethnic groups or races

for more wondrous words, visit this meme's host, Bermudaonion.

wondrous words

for this week, my new words came from reading Living to Tell the Tale:

Rarefy- "He had a power of evocation so intense that each thing he recounted seemed to become visible in the room rarefied by heat."
Definition: to purify or refine

Tutelary- "The two tutelary almond trees that for years had been an unequivocal sign of identity had been cut down to the roots and the house left exposed to the elements."
Definition: one that serves as guardian or protector

Shirred- "Recent generations do not seem moved by that princess with the shirred skirts, little white boots, and a braid hanging down to her waist..."
Definition: cloth gathered into decorative rows by parallel stitches

Tertian- "She had spent an uncertain childhood plagued by tertian fevers..."
Definition: recurring every other day, or every third day

Parvenu- "The majority of adults, however, viewed Luisa Santiaga as the precious jewel of a rich and powerful family whom a parvenu telegraph operator was courting not for love but self-interest."
Definition: a person newly risen to a higher social position who is lacks the culture or education of that status

Obdurate- "... he expressed his heartfelt certainty that there was no human power capable of overcoming this obdurate love."
Definition: obstinate, hardhearted

and from Celebrating the Wild Mushroom:

Mycologist- "The squadron leader is Kent McKnight, a highly respected professional mycologist who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Definition: a botanist who specializes in the study of fungi

Umbonate, Fibrillose- "I knew immediately when a cap was striated or fibrillose, whether it was bell-shaped or umbonate."
U: having a knob or knob-like protuberance
F: covered evenly with small, threadlike fibers

Glabrous, Viscid- "Is it glabrous or viscid?"
G: smooth, having no hairs or projections
V: having a sticky or clammy coating

Amyloid- "They are all pale yellow- to brown-capped, are amyloid, and posses a ring and a bulbous base."
Definition: a starchlike substance

Balkanized- "Even within the genera, rules change from year to year, as old characteristics are reevaluated and new ones discovered; whole groups of mushrooms are balkanized while others are unified."
Definition: a territory or region divided into small, hostile states

Mycophogist- "For mycophagists, they are a pleasant dream, and it matters not at all what they are called."
Definition: a person (or animal) who eats fungi

Tomentose- "He goes outside and returns with his tennis racket covered with a magnificent array of chestnut-capped boletes in perfect condition, their pale pink pores firm, their thick, white, slightly tomentose stipes solid enough to walk on."
Definition: covered with short, dense matted hairs

Saprophyte- "There are still thousands of varieties out there doing their job, acting as saprophytes or trading nutrients with trees and shrubs."
Definition: a living organism that absorbs its nourishment from dead organic matter

Duxelle- "... with a little care you will have a full winter supply of ingredients for stews and ragouts, quiches, duxelles and omelettes."
Definition: a finely chopped mix of mushrooms, shallots, herbs and onions sauteed in wine

Duff- "As with so many other mushrooms, the first one is the hardest to spot, and more often than not a little digging among the pine duff will produce more..."
Definition: decaying leaves and branches on the forest floor

Find more wondrous words at the host of this meme, Bermudaonion's Weblog

wondrous words

New to me from Edward Abbey! These words are from my reading of Desert Solitaire:

Usufructary- "Within this vast perimeter... are the 33,000 acres of Arches National Monument of which I am now sole inhabitant, usufructary, observer and custodian."
Definition: one who holds the right to use or enjoy profits from something belonging to another, as long as it is not damaged or altered

Potable- "I dip my hands into the water and sample some. Pretty bad, neither potable nor palatable."
Definition: fit to drink

Pismire- "Neurotic little pismires."
Definition: an ant

Vinegaroon, Solpugid- "Watch out for rattlesnakes, coral snakes, whip snakes, vinegaroons, centipedes... kissing bugs, solpugids, tarantulas, horned toads, gila monsters, red ants, fire ants, jeruslaem crickets, chinch bugs and giant hairy desert scorpions before being seated."
V: the whip scorpion
S: a family of arachnids with large, powerful fangs and segmented abdomens

Tularemia- "...the flesh is probably infected with tularemia."
Definition: an infectious disease found in rodents, transferable to man

Mucilaginous- "He particularly enjoyed the mucilaginous green pods of the okra..."
Definition: moist and sticky

Spalled- "... slabs of sandstone shook free of their ancient fastenings, spalled from the cliffs and crashed with a sound like thunder into the heave and roar of the flood."
Definition: broken into chips or fragments

Syllogism- "To me death was little more than a fascinating abstraction, the conclusion to a syllogism or the denouement of a stage drama."
Definition: a form of deductive reasoning moving from the general to the specific

Basque- "Three of us, Roy, his Basque hired man Viviano Jacquez, and myself."
Definition: person from an area of the western Pyrenees in France and Spain

Strontium-"We think we have forgotten but we cannot forget- the knowledge is lodged like strontium in the marrow of our bones..."
Definition: soft, silvery metallic element used in making fireworks and signal flares

Chert- "... you may find chipping grounds scattered with hundreds of fragments of flint or chert where the Anasazi hunters worked their arrowpoints."
Definition: a hard, brittle sedimentary rock consisting of microcrystalline quartz

Pecuniary- "And whether good or bad in strictly pecuniary terms, industrial tourism exacts a spiritual price from those dependent upon it for their livelihood."
Definition: relating to money

Pellucid- "The desert storm is over and through the pure sweet pellucid air the cliff swallows and the nighthawks plunge and swerve..."
Definition: transparent or translucent, allowing light to pass through

Estivation- "This little animal lives through dry spells in a state of estivation under the dried-up sediment in the bottom of a hole."
Definition: an inactive state of dormancy through which some animals pass the heat of summer

Couloir- "The mountains are almost bare of snow except for patches within the couloirs on the northern slopes."
Definition: a deep mountainside gorge

Panegyric- "... he would write of the canyon as a whole in panegyric accent."
Definition: formal speech or writing that praises a person, or an event

Alluvium- "I find what looks like a deerpath leading up over an alluvium hill..."
Definition: sand, silt, clay, gravel, or other sediment deposited by flowing water

Sachem- "... we float on our backs in the still water, squat on the cool sand under the sheltering cottonwoods and smoke like sachems."
Definition: chief of a Native American tribe or confederation

Insouciant- "... back to the greater world of Glen Canyon and the steady, powerful, unhurried, insouciant Colorado."
Definition: carefree, unconcerned

Defenestration- "No man could have asked for a lovelier defenestration."
Definition: throwing something (particularly a person) out of a window

Febrile- "Deliberately I compose my mind, quiet the febrile buzzing of the cells and circuits..."
Definition: active and nervous, or feverish

Emunction- "... with their sanctified ritual for nasal emunction: only one nostril may be discharged at a time, etc."
Definition: removing an obstruction from a body passage

these words from The Journey Home:

Scoriation- "The bright enamel finish was scarred and scoriated, dulled by a film of dust."
Definition: a loosely cut groove or furrow characterized by the presence of material from what cut it

Camber- "The car clanked forward on an oblique axis, crabwise, humping up and down on the eccentric camber of the flat."
Definition: a slightly arched surface

Panicle- "The bear grass, with its showy panicle of flowers on a two- or three-foot stalk, is the most striking flower in the Glacier."
Definition: a loosely branched cluster of flowers

Ersatz- "And what a terrible price most of us have to pay for... the luxuriously packaged ersatz food in the supermarkets..."
Definition: an artificial imitation or substitute

I also came across azimuth again, which I remember finding in Quicksilver. I recognized it right away, glad that it stuck! It was used here thus: "When the lookout spots a fire, he aims this device at the center of the smoke... and obtains an azimuth reading from the fixed base of the fire finder."

Visit Bermudaonion's Weblog for more wondrous words.

wondrous words

New words that I have found in my reading this week, from Almost Perfect:

Brux- "He's bruxing. That's the noise a rat makes when it's really happy."
Definition: grinding the teeth

and from It's Not About the Bike:

Peloton- "The spectator rarely sees the technical side of cycling, but behind the gorgeous rainbow blur of the peloton is the more boring reality that road racing is a carefully calibrated thing..."
Definition: the main group of riders in a cycling road race

Velodrome- "We went into a velodrome to look at my position on the bike and determine where I was loosing power.
Definition: an indoor arena with a banked track for bicycle races

Collate- "That first week my mother picked up all of my prescriptions, collated my medical records, scoured bookstores for cancer material, and organized my schedule."
Definition: to gather or arrange pages into a proper sequence

for more wondrous words, visit Bermudaonion's Weblog!

wondrous words

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. These first few words I came across in Sandy:

Caruncular- ".... when the feathers began to rub away, exposing more and more of the caruncular red of maturity."
Definition: a fleshy naked outgrowth, like a chicken's wattles

Termagant- "For almost sixteen years, Sandy dominated my marriage like a termagant mother-in-law..."
Definition: an overbearing or nagging woman

The rest are from A Paddling of Ducks:

Cote- "The birds were reared in their pigeon cotes with small jackets around their wings preventing their stretching or exercising."
Definition: a small shelter for birds (or sheep)

Trophic- "Baby wood ducks have an instinctive, almost a trophic response for the first forty-eight hours after hatching."
Definition: stimulating growth? the meanings I found all had to do with nutrition...

Gudgeon- "It looked to me like some green greasy gudgeon of the Limpopo..."
Definition: A small eurasian freshwater fish related to the carp and used for bait

Cytologist- "Dr. Yamashina, the well-known Japanese cytologist and ornithologist, has proposed a new theory about these birds."
Definition: one who studies the structure, formation and function of cells

Welter- "Sir David carefully unlocked the cabinet, reached in, and abstracted from the welter a small package wrapped in a sheet of newspaper."
Definition: a confused mass or jumble

Fatuously- "... the birds will swim upstream, as it were, into the breeze, curious to see the dog, and led along by the fatuously tame mallards."
Definition: unreal, delusive

I started doing a new thing with my discovered words this week. Every time I jotted down a word on my notepaper, I also wrote next to it what I thought the word meant. I found that more often than not, I already had a pretty good idea, sometimes it was a word I'd run into before. The ones I share with you here are words I totally had no idea on, or the definition was a lot more specific than what I guessed. Happy reading!

wondrous words

Quiet here, but I've still been reading! All the new-to-me words this week come from Vet on the Wild Side.

Greasepaint- "What we needed were three good-natured circus elephants, brought up to the roar of the greasepaint, the shouting of clowns..."
Definition: theatrical makeup, from grease mixed with paint. This one doesn't seem quite right, but I couldn't find any other meaning of the word.

Caliph- "To make way for the mighty albino, lying like a dead caliph on his bier, two security guards with whistles and batons went ahead."
Definition: a successor of Muhammad, a leader of Islam

Inglenook- "The pair of tigers were magnificent animals, adolescents who still retained some cubbishness, and as friendly and stroke-happy as any inglenook moggy."
Definition: a corner beside the fireplace

Compos mentis- "By now Savari should have been up on his feet, groggy, but more or less compos mentis."
Definition: of a sound mind

Pantechnicon- "The pantechnicon's engine wouldn't fire, so we had to push-start the enormous vehicle."
Definition: large van used to move furniture

Plonk- "Perhaps the wine of the Plaza Mayor was colored chemical plonk."
Definition: cheap or inferior wine (slang)

Suzerainty- "By democratic standards the Cubans are not a free people, but they are free of grinding poverty... and of the diseases of poverty, and they're free of American suzerainty."
Definition: the power or domain of a suzerain, a feudal lord

Dauphin- "The arts of falconry and the love of the possession of those 'kingdom of the daylight's dauphins' courses in his blood."
Definition: formerly, the eldest son of the King of France

Shahin, Houbara- "... but what did they know about the shahin in practice, the ways of the houbara and gazelle, such subtle quarry?"
S: a swift Asiatic falcon
H: a large bird of the bustard family

Thermidor- "Several of us were looking forward to having a thermidor for Saturday dinner, but we had reckoned without Andrea."
Definition: a dish of cooked lobster meat mixed with cream

Boffin- "I'll get us an appointment to see a boffin!"
Definition: (archaic) a scientist or technician engaged in research

Priapic- "... the male madrill's startling colours, perfeclty normal in mature adults, did add a certain dramatic quality to these handsome animals' frequent priapic revels."
Definition: phallic

Trish asked me in the comments last week what my retention is like on the new vocab I find. Truthfully, half the time I forget them! I know I've come across caliph and suzerainty before, but the meaning escaped me so I looked them up again. Often I have to look up a word two or three times before it sticks well. For a while, several years back, I wrote out new words and their definitions by hand in a notebook; the physical act of writing them seemed to help me remember them better. Typing doesn't quite have the same sticking-factor, for me. (But it's faster! And easeir to search). To find more wondrous words, visit this meme's host at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

wondrous words

I've been so out of it I missed posting for wondrous words on wednesday- so here are my finds, on a friday. Hope no one minds.

These new words are from Dolphin Chronicles:

Proprioceptive- "A dolphin might have a hard time conveying an accurate acoustic image he'd echolocated on if the other party didn't also have access to his proprioceptive information..."
Definition: the ability to sense the body's location, position and orientation

Antiphonal- "They often whistle in antiphonal fashion- when one whistles, another calls in response."
Definition: occurring or responding in turns

Vicissitude- "She'd suffered through the various vicissitudes of the project, all the waiting and all the uncertainties."
Definition: a change or variation

Prophylactic- "Forrest prescribed a prophylactic regimen of antibiotics for both Echo and Misha..."
Definition: acting to defend against or protect something

Anthropogenic- "Excluding the mad slasher, anthropogenic causes include fishing nets, pollution, and boats."
Definition: caused by humans

Seriatim- "Not all at once- they don't necessarily need to broadcast along the whole length of the bay- but seriatim."
Definition: one after another, in a series

These words are from Ice Bound:

Antipodal- "Other points of departure for the huge continent include Cape Town, South Africa; Punta Arenas, Chile; and a few other antipodal ports."
Definition: situated on opposite sides of the Earth

Austral- "But it was late in the austral summer, and almost everybody was already in place at the three US bases."
Definition: relating to or of the southern region of the globe

Ablate- "I had to surgically ablate the dead skin, cut below it to loosen and stretch it and repair the wound..."
Definition: to remove an organ or body structure

Sastrugi-"We were airborne, skimming the tops of sastrugi."
Definition: a long wavelike ridge of snow formed by wind

wondrous words

Here's the new words I found in my reading during the week:

From Adventures of a Zoologist:

Noncom- "... we watched through the windows as noncoms fried steaks on a grill among the snowdrifts."
Definition: a subordinate officer appointed from enlisted personnel

Otolith- "Students at Evergreen State College, on Puget Sound, are finding out what seals eat by examining fish otoliths in seal scats recovered from the beach."
Definition: a calcerous particle found in the inner ear; in bony fishes it forms a hard shape distinctive to each species

From Dolphin Chronicles:

Purview- "Even in a boat it's difficult to track dolphins at sea for any length of time, and then we generally see only the surface of their lives- most of their activity takes place under water, beyond our purview."
Definition: range of vision, comprehension, or experience

Necropsy- "They were about to perform a necropsy on Arrow, Jane said, and would let us know the results."
Definition: what an autopsy is called when performed on animals

Sobriquet- "So what better sobriquet than Mikhal Baryshnikov's nickname?"
Definition: an affectionate or humorous nickname (one of the dolphins was named Misha)

Gelid- "A true athlete- triathlete, actually- with the smoothly muscled physique of a competitive swimmer, she swam regularly in the gelid waters of Monterey Bay."
Definition: very cold, icy

Umbrage- "After some initial umbrage at the appellation, we decided to claim the title as our own: we were the dolphinettes, and proud of it."
U: feeling of anger, taking offense
Appellation: a name or title (see above usage)

For more wondrous words, visit the host of this meme at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

wondrous words

The bulk of these words, again, are from Quicksilver.

Scrivener- "That is his money-scrivener."
Definition: a professional copyist or scribe

Moiety- "The Admirality.... or some moiety or faction thereof."
Definition: a small portion or share

Claque- "But the sect was shattered into a thousand claques and cabals."
Claque: a group of fawning admirers
Cabal: a conspiring group of plotters

Cochineal- "Daniel and Charles and Hooke had been making them for some weeks out of yard-long glass tubes, filled with spirits of wine, dyed with cochineal."
Definition: a vivid red dye made from an insect

Ricercar- "...they were taught to play a little lute and dance a passable ricercar."
Definition: a musical form of the 16th century

Turpitude- "Not that anyone would pay any notice, anyway, if the son of Drake were to level an accusation of moral turpitude against the Duke of York."
Definition: depravity

Obloquy- "... no one would hear them above the roar of obloquy."
Definition: abusive language or blame

Limn- "Now as the day went on and it sank toward the horizon, it turned orange and then red, and began to limn vast billows and towers of smoke..."(describing the sun sinking, in a haze from fire)
Definition: to depict in a painting or drawing

Theophany- "Like a theophany of the Old Testament."
Definition: divine manifestation

Corsair- "John Churchill was one of the few courtiers who actually did things like go to Barbaray and go mano a mano with heathen corsairs..."
Definition: a pirate, a swift pirate ship

Argent- "Once he'd focused on that, a couple of tiny adjustments brought Isaac's waterfall of ardent hair into view..."
Definition: silver colored

These two from The Ra Expeditions:

Hermetically- "Archeologists had recently discovered that a large ship lay buried on each side of this large pyramid; four ships in all were lying there, hermetically preserved."
Definition: sealed to prevent air from entering, or escaping

Tricorne- "The papyrus reed was six to eight feet long and about two inches thick at the root, with a tricorne-shaped cross section.
Definition: having three corners

Visit the host of wondrous words wednesdays at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

wondrous words

The first two on this list came from my reading of The Other End of the Leash. The rest are from Quicksilver. Even though I have made slow progress with this book (only 127 pages so far), it still supplies me with many many new words each week!

Sinusodial- "The dogs would waver back and forth, moving in a sinusodial S curve, trying to follow the molecules of scent as they moved through the air..."
Definition: curving (isn't the phrase redundant, then?)

Paedomorphic- "This tendency to continue exuberant play into adulthood is one of the factors that leads most scientists to consider dogs and humans as paedomorphic..."
Definition: retaining juvenile characteristics into adulthood

Coelestial- "The tail of Ursa Major was like the hand of a coelestical clock, and Daniel had been studying how to read it."
Definition: another spelling for celestial

Spadroon- "The black-clad fellow drew out a sword of his own, something dull and clanging, a heavier spadroon, and the scarlet boy came at him like a boiling cloud, with lightning movements darting out of the center."
Definition: a broadsword used both to cut and thrust

Sizar- "Daniel finally recognized him as Roger Comstock, the sizar."
Definition: a student at Cambridge who having passed certain examinations, was exempt from paying for food and tuition and had lodgings at very low cost

Ween- "I ween you are of the same mind, Mr. Waterhouse, but sailing on a ship across the North Atlantic is not for cowards, and so you are here."
Definition: to think or suppose

Lascar- "The lascars spring up and busy themselves drawing up his equipage on ropes."
Definition: an East Indian seaman

Gnomon- "Newton was constructing a sundial on a south-facing wall, using as gnomon, a slender rod with a ball on the end."
Definition: stationary arm on a sundial whose shadow indicates the time

Shawm- "Stourbridge Fair was already audible: barking of dogs, wild strains from bagpipes and shawms whipping over their heads like twists of bright ribbon unwinding in the breeze.
Definition: a double-reed instrument that preceeded the oboe

Numismatic- "If you would allow me to approach within ten feet of these coins, it would help me to appreciate their numismatic excellence...."
Definition: having to do with coins or currency

Saturnine- "In a country inn, on the way to St. Ives, he encountered a saturnine, beetle-browed chap name of Oliver Cromwell who had recently lost his faith, and seen his life ruined..."
Definition: of a melancholy or solemn disposition, from being born under the sign of Saturn

Pedantry- ".... out of a stubborn belief that pedantry and repetitiveness could through some alchemy be forged into wit."
Definition: giving excessive attention to academic learning or formal rules

Caitiff- "Have you ever felt a certain annoyance, when one of your semi-educated Londoners speaks of 'a vile rascal' or 'a miserable caitiff' or 'crafty knave,' 'idle truant,' or 'flattering parasite'?"
Definition: a despicable person, a cowardly wretch

Homiletical- "Daniel exhausted the Terms of Abuse in a few short hours, then moved on to Virtues (intellectual, moral, and homiletical), Colors, Sounds, Tastes and Smells, Professions (viz, carpentry, sewing, alchemy) Operations, and so on."
Definition: relating to or having the nature of a homily: an inspirational saying or moralizing lecture

Phew! This book is giving me words every other pages, it feels like. Visit Bermudaonion's Weblog to see what new words other readers discovered this week.

wondrous words

Again, my new words come from two books. The first few are from Compost This Book! Then we get into Quicksilver, a heavy tome rich with descriptive unknowns. This is just the beginning of what I'm going to be looking up in the next week or so (it's a 900-page book)!

From Compost This Book!:

Geriatric- "There'd be a whole ecosystem in miniature lurking in that geriatric vegetable."
Definition: relating to the aging process

Sybaritic-"When Marty's heap is really cooking, the sybaritic creature is nearly always stretched out on top, luxuriating in the warmth."
Definition: devoted to or marked by pleasure and luxury

Chelating- "Like the sugar coating on a pill, the chelating humus makes the minerals palatable...."
Definition: to combine (a metal ion) with a chemical compound to form a ring

From Quicksilver:

Doppelganger- "Now he knows why: his doppelganger is a lad, moving about like a drop of quicksilver that cannot be trapped under the thumb."
Definition: a ghostly double of a living person that haunts its living counterpart

Erudition- "We have, as I said, found the place where your erudition gives way to ignorance."
Definition: profound scholarly knowledge

Mephitic- "They break out into the mephitic bog on its western flank."
Definition: poisonous or foul-smelling

Azimuth- "The schoolmaster adjusted his azimuth as the target moved, like a telescope tracking a comet, but none of his blows seemed to have actually been felt by the fair boy yet..." (this usage does not make sense to me, with the def.s I could find)
Definition: the arc of the sky between the zenith and the horizon or the horizontal angle of a bearing measured clockwise from the north (in surveying)

Ontogeny- ""There was a dollhouse and a clan of rag dolls in diverse phases of ontogeny."
Definition: the origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult

Empiricist- "Oh, he will be a great empiricist."
Definition: one who disregards scientific theory and relies solely on practical experience

Visit Wondrous Words Wednesdays at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

wondrous words

Some of the words I have for this week are from the end of Emma, the rest are from the book I just finished, Sand. Quite a difference in subject and theme- from Victorian drawing rooms to the American West and cowboy lingo!

From Emma:

Conundrum-"Agreed, agreed. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?"
Definition: a riddle whose answer is (or involves) a pun

Acrostic- "I had an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name which I was not at all pleased with."
Definition: a poem or verse where the first (or last) letter of each line forms a word or phrase

Ostler- "... when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John the ostler had been telling him..."
Definition: a stableman at an inn (I remember this word now, from Black Beauty)

Extenuation- "Let us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations."
Definition: to excuse a fault (archaic meaning, the more common definition is to make something thin or stretched)

From Sand:

Nubbin- "Sometimes tho, he thought, he sure would rap them hands of his and make him let go of the nubbin."
Definition: a short, projecting part (here the saddle horn)

Rowel- "...and with a well placed rowel against the shortribs of that horse, lined him out from the one spot and set him going for other sods on a long crowhopping lope."
Definition: a sharp-toothed wheel on a spur

Senatorium- "And another thing, this camp is no riding academy, nor senatorium."
Definition: a resort for the improvement of one's health

Whang, Marlin spike- "There was rawhide hobbles, a marlin spike, a few strips of whang leather which, Skip had told him, was handy to mend things with."
M-S- a pointed metal spike used to separate rope strands while splicing
W- a thong or whip made of hide or leather

Hackamore- "Then, amongst other odds and ends, was a hackamore, a rope full of the knots which the Kid had started teaching him to tie...."
Definition- a halter or bridle with no bit, having a noose to tighten around the nose or a wide band that can be lowered over the horse's eyes, used in breaking to halter

Soogan- " 'Well, I guess it's time for me to hit the soogans,' he says"
Definition: a bedroll

Latigo- "Ropes are muddy and stiff, so are the latigoes and everything else a cowboy touches."
Definition: a strap that tigthens the saddle girth

Queer- "There been just a snag which come near to queering everything."
Definition: slang for to ruin or thwart

Visit Bermudaonion's Weblog to see what new words others have found this week.

wondrous words

This week all my new words came from Emma. Even if I'm not enjoying the book, it's expanding my vocabulary! A lot of them are so archaic, though, I fear I'll never use them. O well, at least they'll be recognizable next time I meet them in print.

Valetudinarian- "The evil of the actual disparity in their ages was much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years..."
Definition: a sickly or weak person, constantly concerned with their own health

Mizzle- "Ever since the day that Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway-lane, when, because it began to mizzle, he darted away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us..."
Definition: rain in a fine mist, drizzle

Cockade- "Here is my sketch of the fourth, who was a baby... and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would wish to see."
Definition: a feather or rosette on a hat

Cavil- "Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eye-brows, had never been denied their praise, but the skin, which she had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom."
Definition: to find fault with, or make a trivial objection

Recontre- "...the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress of the affair was so glorious- the steps so quick from the accidental recontre, to the dinner at Mrs. Green's, and the party at Mrs. Brown's..."
Definition: an unplanned meeting

Tippet- "Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you? Here is your tippet. Mrs. Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will be draughts in the passage."
Definition: a woman's fur shoulder cape with hanging ends

There were also a lot of words I knew, but whose spelling gave them unfamiliar faces: chuse for choose, foretel for foretell, beaufet for buffet, stopt for stopped, sopha for sofa, surprize for surprise, huswife for housewife, etc. I'm not sure which of these words have different spellings because they're British, or just because spelling wasn't standardized back in the 1800's? But they made for interesting reading!

For more wondrous words, visit the host of this meme at Bermudaonion's Weblog.