BOOKS AND MOVIES » words and vocabulary

Wondrous Words Wednesday – August 5, 2009

CarrieK — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:09:34 +0000

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Kathy at Bermudaonion. The idea is for bloggers to post about the unfamiliar words they have encountered in their reading the past week. Click over to read other book bloggers’ Wondrous Words, and leave a link to your post of some Wondrous Words of your own.

From Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell:

perron: an outdoor stairway leading up to a building entrance

‘They call that a perron, I believe, don’t they?’ she asked.

badinage: playful repartee

He was a widower, and likely to remain so; his domestic affections were centred on little Molly, but even to her, in their most private moments, he did not give way to much expression of his feelings; his most caressing appellation for her was ‘Goosey,’ and he took a pleasure in bewildering her infant mind with his badinage.

termagant: an overbearing or nagging woman

Though her papa laughed at her, quizzed her, joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called ‘really cruel’ to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her little griefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa’s ears, sooner even than into Betty’s – that kind-hearted termagant.

From The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge:

sempiternal: of never-ending duration

“I had something a little more sempiternal and epic in mind,” I said as I put my fingers to my mouth and whistled.

From Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant:

greensickness: chlorosis: an iron-deficiency anemia especially of adolescent girls that may impart a greenish tint to the skin

“Do you think we are looking at greensickness?”

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Wondrous Words Wednesday – June 3, 2009

CarrieK — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:35:42 +0000

Today’s words are all from the British novel Crossed Wires, by Rosy Thornton.

chary: cautious

This is a complicated question, the young author opened charily, because the concept of ‘home’ is somewhat fluid.

spliff: joint; marijuana

‘…Only good for tablecloths and oil painting, in my opinion, and, well, you know, spliffs.’

toad in the hole: a traditional English dish comprising sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and onion gravy.

For a start, Sal was at Mum’s again and had been promised toad in the hole for tea; it was also the day they changed their library books at school, so she would frankly hardly notice whether her mother appeared or not much before six o’clock.

gennel: a covered alleyway connecting two terrace houses

Where they left the pavements for a short way to cut up the gennel beside the newsagent’s and then past the swings on the triangle of untidy grass (you really couldn’t call it a park) at the back of their own street, the chemical glow from the streetlights thinned sufficiently to allow an impression of stars.

giro: 1: a system used between European banks and similar organizations, in which money can be moved from one account to another by a central computer; 2: a cheque which provides money from the government, through the giro, to someone unemployed, ill, or with very little income.

‘No, she gets her giro, so she ought to be able to make do all right.’

stroppy: touchy, belligerent

‘I mean, it’s a lot to take on, a stroppy teenage sister, and with a daughter of your own as well.’

maisonette: small house

She meant the empty maisonettes.

prang: to have an accident with; to cause to crash

‘But, yes, I’m afraid I’ve pranged your car.’

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Wondrous Words Wednesday – May 27, 2009

CarrieK — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:41:05 +0000

From The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

valetudinarian: a person of a weak or sickly constitution; especially one whose chief concern is his or her ill health

“My health is somewhat fragile,” he remarked, as he led the way down the passage. “I am compelled to be a valetudinarian.”

snib: to latch

“Window is snibbed on the inner side…”

From a Telegraph article, We still believe in Sherlock Holmes:

ratiocination: 1. the process of exact thinking: reasoning; 2. a reasoned train of thought

Today, the brilliant amateur could never edge out the professionals, because it’s the police who have the technology. With Holmes, we’re back in happier times, when ratiocination ruled.

From The Sense of Paper by Taylor Holden:

serried: crowded or pressed together

A serried rank of press photographers was lined up outside, their flashlights popping.

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Wondrous Words Wednesday – May 20, 2009

CarrieK — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:38:42 +0000

Today, I have more words from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

heliolatry: sun worship

His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene, explained the old-time heliolatries in a moment.

stopt-diapason: This took some searching, and all I could find out is that it’s an organ term.

apotheosis: 1. elevation to divine status: deification; 2. the perfect example: quintessence

Then their sister, with much augmented confidence in the efficacy of this sacrament, poured forth from the bottom of her heart the thanksgiving that follows, uttering it boldly and triumphantly in the stopt-diapason note which her voice acquired when her heart was in her speech, and which will never be forgotten by those who knew her. The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her; it set upon her face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek; while the miniature candle-flame inverted in her eye-pupils shown like a diamond.

I also have one word from Justice Hall by Laurie R. King.

anneal: strengthen, toughen

In a moment he would begin to sob, and humiliation would anneal itself to horror to make this day a burden for the rest of his life.

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Wondrous Words Wednesday

CarrieK — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:35:47 +0000

All of my words today come from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

calcareous: 1 a: resembling calcite or calcium carbonate especially in hardness; b: consisting of or containing calcium carbonate; also: containing calcium; 2: growing on limestone or in soil impregnated with lime

The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through.

tincture: 1: to tint or stain with a color: tinge; 2: a: to infuse or instill with a property or entity:impregnate; b:to imbue with a quality:affect

Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience.

I love this description of Tess!

conterminous: 1 : having a common boundary: 2 : coterminous; 3 : enclosed within one common boundary

The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul, conterminous with the universe in space, and with history in time.

pollarded: : to make a pollard of (a tree)

Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man, grew as they had grown when they were pollarded for bows.

mistarsher: mustache

“Mother, why did our grand relation keep on putting his hand up to his mistarshers?”

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Wondrous Words Wednesday – April 22, 2009

CarrieK — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:50:54 +0000

Two of my words this week come from the poem “A Good List” by Brad Leithauser. I received this poem in my e-mail box as part of National Poetry Month. Click the title to read the whole thing; it’s fabulous.

mulct: 1: to punish by a fine; 2 a: to defraud especially of money : swindle b: to obtain by fraud, duress, or theft

usufruct: the legal right of using and enjoying the fruits or profits of something belonging to another

Never mulcted—so far as I understand the term.
Or unjustly usufructed.

My last word comes from Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, Nick Hornby’s book of columns from “The Believer.”

poetaster: an inferior poet

You lot are probably all familiar with the Abbe Gauchat, the Theatines, the Jansenists, and the literary criticism of Elie-Catherine Freron, but I’m afraid I found myself flicking frantically between the text and the footnotes at the end; I was unhappily reminded of the time I had to spend at school reading Alexander Pope’s equally mordant attacks on poetasters and so forth. ~ p. 89

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