New Vocabulary, 4th Edition

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New Vocabulary, 4th Edition

1thorold
okt 8, 2020, 7:57 am

The previous thread was due for a reboot after 275 posts in just under eight years!

2thorold
okt 8, 2020, 8:08 am

I've just finished Rose Macaulay's historical novel They were defeated, which turns out to be a positive riot of obscure (and authentic, as far as I could tell) 17th century English. Amongst many other gems, she uses:

admire = be surprised by (it turns out that our sense of "express admiration for" only came into use in the 19th C)
allthing = everything
flockmeal = in large amounts, cf. modern "wholesale"
gust = taste
let = prevent, hinder
suddenly = soon, directly
tedious = irksome (PO'B readers will be used to Stephen Maturin using this in the same way)
yare = ready (a word I'd only ever come across before in its nautical sense — as used rather memorably by Katherine Hepburn standing in a swimming pool with a model sailing boat...)

3varielle
okt 25, 2020, 4:49 pm

Turma - a cavalry unit in Roman times, sometimes refers to a squadron. From The Master and Margarita.

4varielle
nov 13, 2020, 4:21 pm

Still slogging through the Witcher series with Lady of the Lake.

Voivode - a Slavic term for a military leader or warlord.

5varielle
dec 6, 2020, 4:10 pm

Hustings - a meeting where candidates address potential voters from Jack and Jackie: Portrait of an American marriage.

6varielle
Bewerkt: dec 7, 2020, 5:32 pm

Accoucheuse - a female obstetrician. From The Luminaries.

7varielle
dec 16, 2020, 9:52 am

I should have known this one but somehow it never came up.

Tilth- condition of tilled soil in preparation for sowing seeds. From Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus.

8msemmag
jan 19, 2021, 12:41 pm

Banditti - the plural of 'bandit' (n., a robber or outlaw belonging to a gang and typically operating in an isolated or lawless area.)

That was a surprise from Sense and Sensibility today!

9varielle
Bewerkt: feb 26, 2021, 11:39 am

Clamant - demanding attention. From Historical Whodunits in which Brother Cadfael has a nosy noblewoman poking about his lab asking too many questions.

10JulieLill
Bewerkt: mrt 2, 2021, 10:29 am

Eleemosynary - relating to or dependent on charity; charitable from the book The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry

11varielle
mrt 4, 2021, 11:18 am

Veronal - a barbiturate. From Under a Glass Bell by Anais Nin.

12JulieLill
Bewerkt: apr 2, 2021, 9:06 am

Queue- braid of hair worn at the back. From Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

13varielle
apr 6, 2021, 12:50 pm

From The Tulip by Anna Pavord The text claims the word tamis is used for the tulip stamen. The only definition I’ve found for tamis is a type of kitchen strainer. Can anyone verify if this usage is from another language?

14thorold
Bewerkt: apr 6, 2021, 4:34 pm

>13 varielle: Under tamis n., my Shorter OED also gives “....2 Bot. The anthers of a flower. M17-E18”. The word is marked as obsolete in English.

In French tamis is the normal word for a sieve or strainer. The TLFi suggests that there might be a link to Latin stamen, which can mean the warp of a loom, but doesn’t seem very confident about it. And it doesn’t list the botanical use in French.
http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/advanced.exe?8;s=66863550;
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stamen

15thorold
apr 6, 2021, 4:58 pm

>14 thorold: ... If you search tulip tamis on Google Books you come up with two or three botanical uses from the 17th and 18th century. And a lot of noise.

16JulieLill
apr 15, 2021, 6:05 pm

muskeg - a North American swamp or bog consisting of a mixture of water and partly dead vegetation, frequently covered by a layer of sphagnum or other mosses.

17JulieLill
apr 19, 2021, 4:57 pm

These 2 stumped me from The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood-

chthonic- concerning, belonging to, or inhabiting the underworld

cloaca- a common cavity at the end of the digestive tract for the release of both excretory and genital products in vertebrates (except most mammals) and certain invertebrates. Specifically, the cloaca is present in birds, reptiles, amphibians, most fish, and monotremes.

18varielle
apr 30, 2021, 3:11 pm

From The Story of San Michele - serir with a ^ over the e which my keyboard won’t allow. It means a pebble strewn desert particularly in Libya. 🐪

19varielle
mei 5, 2021, 5:49 pm

Praxis- practice as distinguished from theory. From The Luminaries wherein a gentleman is speculating about a lady of the evening.

20varielle
Bewerkt: mei 11, 2021, 11:37 pm

Bezique - a French trick taking card game for two players. A game played by Churchill on board the Queen Mary during a secret trip to the US in 1943, as detailed in The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy.

21varielle
Bewerkt: mei 23, 2021, 10:25 am

Secateurs - scissorlike hand pruners. From the intro to Enchanted April.

Chaconne- a musical composition popular during the Baroque era or a dance performed to it. Found in From Dawn to Decadence.

22boulder_a_t
Bewerkt: mei 23, 2021, 10:53 am

.

23varielle
mei 29, 2021, 5:37 pm

Canicular - of or pertaining to the Dog Star, Sirius. I should have been able to figure that out because it came from Doggerel: Poems about Dogs.

24varielle
jun 27, 2021, 1:02 pm

“Not a dickey-bird” - various spellings. Originally a dicky bird was any small chirruping bird. The phrase above means there was not any kind of sound. From The Hedgehog’s Dilemma in which the narrator is out stalking hedgehogs without success in the middle of the night. Apparently hedgehogs can make a good bit of noise when they’re out and about.

25thorold
jun 27, 2021, 1:28 pm

>24 varielle: In that phrase, “not a dicky-bird” is traditionally used as rhyming-slang for “not a word” — it’s obviously moved through a second step of abstraction in order to be applied to hedgehogs.

26varielle
Bewerkt: jul 8, 2021, 1:44 pm

Pipped- British slang meaning shot or wounded. From the Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy wherein the British were getting pipped in Sicily because Monty decided to deviate from the battle plan without telling his Allies.

27varielle
Bewerkt: jul 25, 2021, 12:37 pm

Paphlagonian - of the ancient city state of Paphlagonia, an ally of Troy. In this case calling someone a Paphlagonian seems to be an insult since it references a degenerate black mailer. From Historical Whodunits.

Secesh or cecesh - an abbreviated nickname for a secessionist during the American Civil War. From Nurse and Spy in the Union Army.

28varielle
jul 29, 2021, 3:38 pm

Strimmer-UK term for a string trimmer. On the left side of the pond it’s a weed whacker. Dang, those Brits have a name for everything! From The Hedgehog’s Dilemma in which you are encouraged to have a care with your strimmer lest you whack one of the wee beasties.

29JulieLill
aug 17, 2021, 12:36 pm

Mille-feuille -a rich dessert consisting of many very thin layers of puff pastry and such fillings as whipped cream, custard, fruit, etc. from A Gentleman in Moscow. I never heard of this dessert.

30varielle
aug 31, 2021, 9:21 pm

From The Day of Battle

mastaba- an ancient Egyptian tomb made of mudbrick and having a flat roof.

31varielle
Bewerkt: sep 4, 2021, 4:54 pm

Felo-de-se from Historical Whodunits A concept applied to the estates of someone presumed to have committed suicide, which was once considered a crime.

32thorold
sep 4, 2021, 1:56 pm

>31 varielle: Filo-de-se — according to my law dictionary, that's the crime of making your own pastry. You were thinking of Felo-de-se...

Autocorrect strikes again! :-(

33varielle
sep 4, 2021, 4:55 pm

It does sound tastier. 😜

34JulieLill
sep 14, 2021, 12:19 pm

I am reading Hamnet now. I came across the word domino in it and it just didn't seem the right word so I looked it up and it has a several meanings -

(1): a long loose hooded cloak usually worn with a half mask as a masquerade costume

(2): a half mask worn over the eyes with a masquerade costume

(3) dominoes or dominos plural in form but usually singular in construction : any of several games played with a set of usually 28 dominoes

(4): a member of a group (as of nations) expected to behave in accordance with the domino theory

No. 1 is the one that applies to my book!

35varielle
sep 17, 2021, 6:04 pm

Cynosure - a person or thing that’s the center of attention. From The Collected Stefan Zweig.

36varielle
sep 27, 2021, 4:41 pm

Palapa - an open sided dwelling with thatched palm leaves for a roof. From Costalegre by Courtney Maum.

37petricor
sep 27, 2021, 4:46 pm

From a recently finished book... (just because nothing so far in my current book has stumped me..)

chatoyancy - an optical reflectance effect seen in certain gemstones, woods, and carbon fibre; coined from the French "œil de chat", meaning "cat's eye" - from Around the World in 80 Trees

38LyndaInOregon
nov 14, 2021, 1:39 pm

I just finished The Liar's Dictionary, and if I started listing the "new vocabulary" from it, this post would be several thousand words long.

Just read it.

Okay, if you insist ... mimolette ... corymb ... zugzwang ... pelike ... and mountweazel (which is sort of the point of the whole thing).

39varielle
nov 14, 2021, 2:15 pm

Littoral - related to or situated on the shore of a sea or lake. From The Day of Battle in which the Allies are having a bad time gaining a toehold during the invasion of Italy.

40varielle
nov 19, 2021, 3:36 pm

Still slogging through From Dawn to Decadence and found :

Aleatory- based on the throw of the dice, random chance

41Tanya-dogearedcopy
nov 19, 2021, 7:54 pm

Not in a book, but book-related (from a London Review of Books podcast about Shakespeare):

alterity -- which is basically "otherness"

42thorold
Bewerkt: nov 27, 2021, 9:11 am

Whilst reading a couple of old bookbinding textbooks (Douglas Cockerell and Joseph William Zaehnsdorf) I came across dozens of technical terms that were more or less new to me. At random:

forwarding : Not, as I imagined, the opposite of backing, but a term for the production process of a book up to the stage where it is in bare boards.

kettle-stitch : the lock-stitch used for linking sections together during sewing. Nothing to do with kettles, it seems to come from informal German Kettel, a small chain (diminutive of Kette).

glair : a paste made from egg-white used as an adhesive in gilding. From an old word for egg-white, and ultimately Latin clarus, which is where we also get words like "clear" from. The OED has a fun citation from Skelton's Tunning of Elynour RummyngHer lewde lyppes twayne They slauer, men sayne, Lyke a ropy rayne, A gummy glayre.

43ghr4
dec 4, 2021, 10:05 am

aphasia - loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage.

from The Beetle by Richard Marsh

44varielle
dec 8, 2021, 9:11 pm

Scores - as in “calves heads in scores”. I’m not sure this is the correct definition but I believe it means a crosshatch pattern in meat to make it cook evenly rather than scores, i.e. a group of 20. From The Sway of the Grand Saloon. If anyone can provide a more precise definition of how this can be done with a calf’s head I would appreciate it.

45thorold
Bewerkt: dec 9, 2021, 6:26 am

>44 varielle: Odd!

That phrase comes up in a passage from American notes where Dickens is describing large amounts of provisions being loaded into a ship — presumably what Brinnin was quoting — so I would guess it's more likely to be talking about quantity than about ways of cooking. As well as being a group of twenty, a score was also a unit of weight (20 or 21 pounds) often used when talking about livestock, but it looks to me more like simply a way of saying "unexpectedly large numbers".

The OED doesn't mention a specifically culinary use of "score" — "in scores" does come up as a way of saying "in debt", but that doesn't make sense here.

There's a 19th century recipe for calf's head here: http://www.foodreference.com/html/calfs-head.html — no scoring or scratching mentioned.

Dickens:
For every gallant ship was riding slowly up and down, and every little boat was splashing noisily in the water; and knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of 'dread delight' on the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party of men were 'taking in the milk,' or, in other words, getting the cow on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into the hold...

46varielle
dec 14, 2021, 9:29 pm

Contravallation - a continuous chain of breast works and redoubts by a besieging army used to isolate defenders and prevent sallies. From Julius Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. The man knew a thing or two about tactics.

47varielle
jan 20, 2022, 10:15 pm

Arz - one of the steps of distillation in making milk vodka in Mongolia. In this use it is being thrown on a fire by a lama for purposes of divination. From A Fortune-teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani.

48varielle
jan 23, 2022, 8:10 am

Uxoricide - murdering one’s wife. I don’t know why this word isn’t in more common use since it happens so often. From The Sway of the Grand Saloon. In this case Mr. Marconi’s wonderful invention was used to track and capture a man who had murdered his wife in England and fled to Quebec. This was the first time wireless telegraphy was used in international criminology.

49thorold
jan 23, 2022, 10:45 am

propeller — in the sense of a complete propulsion system for a ship (engine + propeller) — from Abdulrazak Gurnah's Afterlives, where it appears in an East African setting in the early 1920s. The OED doesn't list this sense, so it's perhaps a specifically East African one.

>48 varielle: That's an odd one: it only seems to have come into English in the mid-19th century, and never really stuck. Words like fratricide, patricide, regicide — even suicide and homicide — are all much older (draw your obvious feminist conclusions here!). To be fair, the examples for uxoricide in the OED in the senses of "wife-murderer" and "wife-murder" both include one that mentions Henry VIII.

I suppose it would be useful in your example because Marconi charged per word for his wireless messages, but otherwise "uxoricide" doesn't really seem to have the impact of "wife murderer" or similar.

The n-gram for "uxoricide" vs. "wife murder"/"wife murderer" suggests that the latin term only ever overtook the Anglo-Saxon one for a short time around 1960 — obviously this doesn't take into account the thousand and one other possible synonyms:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=uxoricide%2C%28%5Bwife-murder%5D+%...

50varielle
feb 6, 2022, 1:20 pm

Arietation(s) - the act of head butting like a ram or the use of a battering ram. From The Essays of Francis Bacon. In this case, it’s the definition of a battering ram as it is discussing the superior abilities of ordnance and musketry.

51varielle
Bewerkt: mrt 16, 2022, 9:56 am

provaunt- an obsolete spelling of provant meaning to provide with provisions, usually used in military references to mercenaries. It’s also the name of an insecticide created by DuPont.
From Tales of a Thousand Nights and a Night translated by Sir Richard Burton.

52varielle
mrt 22, 2022, 3:04 pm

Marabout - a Muslim holy man or hermit especially in North Africa, or a shrine marking their burial place. From An African in Greenland.

53lyzard
mrt 22, 2022, 8:33 pm

One from a slightly unlikely source: The Casino Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine (though the series does preen itself on its "high-browness"):

desuetude: a state of disuse

54varielle
mrt 27, 2022, 11:36 am

Chine(s) - a backbone as in a cut of meat. From Women’s Letters: From the Revolutionary War to the Present. In which a thanksgiving meal was prepared using chines of pork due to food shortages during the American Revolution.

55maeve27
apr 2, 2022, 4:59 am

palimpsest
- a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing.
- something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

56varielle
mei 8, 2022, 1:28 pm

Rebarbitive - unattractive and objectionable. From Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. In which the heroine is objecting to her companion’s smoking habit.

57varielle
Bewerkt: jun 12, 2022, 12:12 pm

Gallabea - aka djellaba, a North African garment, a loose fitting, unisex outer garment. From I Should Have Stayed Home: the Worst Trips of the Great Writers in which a naive young traveler gets offered one in Egypt in exchange for a camel ride. *wink* *wink*

Recce - also from I Should Have Stayed Home meaning to visit an area to become familiar with it. In this instance our intrepid travelers blunder into a Sudanese war zone.

Another one - grass widow - a woman whose husband is often away. In this case a young traveler describes herself as a grass widow. She and her beau were traveling the hippie trail in Asia during the 70s when they parted ways. I have a hard time remembering this one despite qualifying as a grass widow.

Defilade - A military unit or position is in defilade if it uses natural or artificial obstacles for protection, in other words they are in position to avoid being enfiladed, ie protected from incoming fire across the ranks. From The Day of Battle wherein the Allies are attempting to take Monte Cassino.

Sapid - having a strong pleasant taste. From Make, Sew and Mend wherein the author references inspiration as being sapid.

58varielle
Bewerkt: aug 29, 2022, 8:11 am

Decree nisi- A court order that a legal action can proceed at a future date unless certain conditions are met. In this case it was pertaining to a divorce that would be allowed to proceed from In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin.

Sclerotic - 1. Having sclerosis. 2. Becoming rigid or unresponsive , losing the ability to adapt. In this case the second definition in reference to the inability of the Allies to dislodge the Germans from Italy in WWII from The Day of Battle.

Sangar- A sangar is a temporary fortified position with a breastwork originally constructed of stones, and now built of sandbags, gabions or similar materials. Sangars are normally constructed in terrain where the digging of trenches would not be practicable. in this case the fortifications were being used by the New Zealanders on the March to Rome.

Bangalore torpedo - A Bangalore torpedo is an explosive charge placed within one or several connected tubes. It is used by combat engineers to clear obstacles that would otherwise require them to approach directly, possibly under fire. In this case the French were using them in the March north up Italy.

Mesopotamian tell - a human made archaeological mound found in Mesopotamia and other ancient areas. In this case it was used to reference the appearance of the ruins after the fall of Monte Cassino.

Flinders - something that has been smashed to splinters. This is in reference to the trees on the March to Rome that had been blasted to flinders.

Laagering - Making camp. Typically an encampment protected by a circle of wagons or armored vehicles. In this case it was Sherman tanks.

Boche - a German, especially a soldier.

Opera buffa- a comic opera. In this case a description of Mark Clark’s Fifth Army entering Rome.

As you can see military lingo is not my forte.

59varielle
aug 16, 2022, 1:25 pm

Wali - refers to an Islamic Saint or civil authority meaning protector or custodian. From TR: The Last Romantic in which young Teddy is traveling the Ottoman Empire with his family.

60varielle
Bewerkt: dec 18, 2022, 4:32 pm

Bashaw- a title for a a North African pasha in the 19th century. From The Race for Timbuktu.

Tuareg - from an Arabic phrase meaning the abandoned of god. The Tuareg are an ethnic Bedouin group who were initially reluctant to be converted when Islam swept North Africa.

Bister - a brownish-yellowish pigment made from the ash of burned wood. In this case it was a reference to the color of the Sahara.

Exsiccated - to remove the moisture from something. As in that’s what the Sahara does to the corpses when they fall, i.e. camels and people.

Addax - the white antelope which is native to the Sahara.

61kac522
sep 5, 2022, 12:46 pm

stotius--an Irish term for drunk; inebriated. Found in Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These.

62varielle
Bewerkt: dec 9, 2022, 10:17 pm

a fortiori - from the Latin meaning from the stronger argument. Meaning drawing a conclusion that’s more obvious or convincing than one previously drawn. From TR: The Last Romantic.

Scurrility - the use of obscenities, vulgarities, or slanders. This was in reference to the election of 1884 when Teddy Roosevelt was first making a name for himself in politics.

Albionist - Albion is an archaic poetical term for the British isles. TR considered himself an Albionist.

63varielle
Bewerkt: sep 28, 2023, 12:40 pm

Adumbration - foreshadowing, providing vague advance indications. From A Child of the Century the autobiography of Ben Hecht.

Bombinated - a buzz or hum. As in Mr. Hecht bombinated through life.

Cheviot - a woolen suit fabric made from the wool of a Cheviot sheep native to the border between Scotland and England. Mr. Hecht was referencing his interviews with people in their cheviot suits.

Uhlan - a European cavalryman armed with a lance. In this case he was referencing a Polish sculptor who looked like a Prussian uhlan.

Canaille- the common people or the masses. Used in regard to the social upheaval in Germany following WWI.

Minnesinger - a German lyric poet and singer of the 12th-14th centuries who sang songs of courtly love. This is in reference to the high life of the roaring 20s in NYC.

Dornick- a small stone suitable for throwing. As in a newspaper writer who kept dornicks and dead cats in his portmanteau presumably for metaphorical throwing.

Maecenas-a patron. From Gaius Macenas an advisor to Octavian and patron of the arts. In this case it references two Hebrew gentlemen who Hecht took out for drinks who were looking for a Maecenas to find the then (1941) nonexistent Jewish Republic of Palestine.

Zouaves - a class of light infranty regiment formerly of the French army. In this case He is referencing a group of volunteer firemen in costume marching in a parade.

64varielle
mrt 3, 2023, 12:11 pm

Gasalier- A chandelier that burns gas. From Nana by Emile Zola.

65varielle
mrt 5, 2023, 12:59 pm

Plangent - regarding sound that is loud, reverberating, and often melancholy.

From Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman. In which Rickman references a Rufus Wainwright concert he attended.

66varielle
mrt 14, 2023, 1:28 pm

Mittimus - a warrant issued to a sheriff commanding the delivery of a person to prison. From The Penguin Book of Witches in which the arrest of a suspected witch was ordered.

67varielle
apr 14, 2023, 4:34 pm

Valorize- give or ascribe value or validity to (something). "the culture valorizes the individual" raise or fix the price or value of (a commodity or currency) by artificial means, especially by government action. From The Potlikker Papers in reference to the diminishing numbers of black farmers and the white consumers who valorize their labor.

68LyndaInOregon
apr 14, 2023, 7:53 pm

filibuster - (historical) - a person engaging in unauthorized warfare against a foreign country.

From The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, referencing frivolous romantic novels about "pirates and filibusters".

69ghr4
apr 15, 2023, 9:47 am

indurated - adjective - having become firm or hard, as in hands becoming indurated from years of manual labor.

From Billy Budd, Foretopman by Herman Melville

70varielle
Bewerkt: aug 6, 2023, 7:53 pm

Ailanthus - Ailanthus altissima /eɪˈlænθəs ælˈtɪsɪmə/, commonly known as tree of heaven, ailanthus, varnish tree, or in Chinese as chouchun (Chinese: 臭椿; pinyin: chòuchūn), is a deciduous tree in the family Simaroubaceae. It is native to northeast and central China, and Taiwan. Unlike other members of the genus Ailanthus, it is found in temperate climates rather than the tropics. From Wikipedia. It is considered an invasive species. From Letters from a Traveller by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The good father encountered the plant during his groundbreaking travels in China.

col - the lowest point of a ridge or saddle between two peaks, typically affording a pass from one side of a mountain range to another. In this case Father Teilhard was traveling by horse and camel through a col.

Obo— a cairn that is also used as a shrine, border marker, and altar found in Mongolia.

Askari - a local soldier in service of a colonial power. In this case they were hired to protect Pere Teihard’s retinue from bandits.

Coralline - calcified red algae remains which can form prehistoric geologic formations. In this case a coralline plateau.

Plenum - an assembly of members of a group. In this case Pere Teilhard was referring to the plenum of Japanese invading China at the beginning of WWII.

Noosphere - a postulated sphere of evolution popularized by Pere Teilhard that is dominated by consciousness and interpersonal relations.

71librorumamans
apr 25, 2023, 10:54 am

Seagulls, fossicking among its hidden rocks, appear to be walking on water.
Leroi, Armand Marie. The Lagoon

I fossicked in my bag for a Bounty bar and devoured it whole.
— Lette, K. quoted in the OED

72kac522
mei 14, 2023, 2:03 am

sneck: Scottish/Northern English

noun: a latch on a door or window.
verb: close or fasten (a door or window) with a latch.

"The graveyard wall was in good repair, although, surprisingly, the narrow gate's sneck was smashed and it was held-to by a loop of binder twine."

from A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr (1980), p. 6

...would make a great word for wordle.

73librorumamans
mei 15, 2023, 12:29 pm

The bears, along with the harsh winters and williwaw gusts off the mountainsides, compelled Stormy to apply for state-sponsored assisted living in town.
– The Guardian
May 15, 2023

"Chiefly nautical: A sudden violent squall or gust of cold wind, esp. in coastal waters in high latitudes." – OED

74ShayWalker
mei 18, 2023, 6:02 pm

I'm reading The Long Game by Ben Rose again. It's written almost entirely in hipster patois. The use of language like "dig the riff" and "solid sender" and "problems your cranium can't tolerate" is one of the finer aspects of the novel.

I enjoy new vocabulary words

75varielle
Bewerkt: sep 25, 2023, 5:01 pm

Quiddity- the inherent nature or essence of something or someone. From Reporting at Wit’s End: Tales from the New Yorker. In which it references the quirks of distinction or quiddity of the New Yorker’s featured people.

Gelid - extremely cold or icy. In this case it was describing the behavior of an embezzler.

Fuilleton - part of a newspaper or magazine devoted to fiction, criticism, or light literature.

76varielle
Bewerkt: jan 14, 1:23 pm

Ouistiti - a marmoset. From Axel Munthe’s The Story of San Michel. In which the author was studying primates in the zoo.

Suedois - French for Swedish. There should be an accent mark over the e. A very rude Vicomte kept referring to Munthe as “the suedois”.

Carex- a type of sedge grass. Munthe commented on it while visiting the Laplanders.

Uldra- a type of fairy that lives under the tundra in the Arctic.

Stalo- A big, scary figure within the Sami religion. They can be a troll or half human that can rob or eat people.

Frate- Italian for monk. In this case Munthe was speaking with an old frate during a cholera epidemic in Naples.

Leichenbeg­leiter - bodyguard. In this case Munthe was transporting a body from Germany to Sweden. A Leichenbegleiter was legally required to transport a corpse.

77varielle
jul 3, 2023, 11:15 am

Poete maudit- a poet who is insufficiently appreciated by their contemporaries. From Glitter and Doom which is describing the cultural atmosphere of the Weimar Republic.

78JulieLill
jul 5, 2023, 12:49 pm

>76 varielle:
I was curious how to pronounce that word- seems there is a website for pronouncing words. Here is the website!
https://www.howtopronounce.com/ouistiti

79varielle
Bewerkt: sep 21, 2023, 3:57 pm

Bastinadoed - repeated blows with sticks. From The Virginian by Owen Wister. In this case a runaway wagon was being pounded by sticks and rocks over rough ground.

Caracoling - a half turn executed by a horse and rider. From Spanish for the spiral of a snail’s shell. In this case a man was running to catch a train when he tripped on wire and went caracoling.

80varielle
Bewerkt: nov 2, 2023, 4:24 pm

Emendation - the process of making a correction to a text. From Robert GravesThe Greek Myths 1 in which it mentions an emendation to myths.

Parthenogenesis- asexual reproduction where offspring develops from the females egg without fertilization by a male. This is in reference to the birth of Athena.

81varielle
sep 17, 2023, 2:17 pm

Lavabo - a washing trough in a monastery. From Murder Wears a Cowl.

82varielle
Bewerkt: okt 17, 2023, 7:57 am

Theodolite - a surveying device used to measure horizontal and vertical angles. From Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. In this case a descendant of the witch Agnes Nutter named Anathema Device is using one to take the measure of the quaint village of Tadefield.

Albedo - the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet or moon. In this case someone is being quizzed by an alien about the earth’s albedo.

83Coffeehag
okt 7, 2023, 9:31 pm

Sortes Virgilianae: the practice of seeking guidance by randomly selecting pages from Virgil. Read in the endnotes to the Oxford World Classics edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's South Sea Tales.

84librorumamans
okt 8, 2023, 1:14 am

I also like haruspicate and scry which appear in Eliot's Four Quartets, as well as hierophant, which turned up in Saturday's newspaper.

hierophant: one who interprets sacred or arcane mysteries
To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,
Observe disease in signatures, evoke
Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers;
"Dry Salvages" §5

85Coffeehag
okt 10, 2023, 10:51 pm

Contumelious: insolently abusive and humiliating. Found in the endnotes to the Oxford World Classics edition of South Sea Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson.

86Tea58
okt 11, 2023, 7:09 pm

neophyte-new at an endeavor is the definition. I must have seen this word a hundred times. I never looked it up. Single words, vocabulary, have become very important. I have fun learning new definitions. It's the pronunciation that is hard for me. Earlier, I would just think about spelling of a word.

87librorumamans
okt 25, 2023, 6:08 pm

Andrew Krivak, The signal Flame: [on skinning a deer] "He took his belt knife back out ... and began to work the blade along ... stopping only to wipe the hair off of the choil."

choil: The name of the indentation in a pocket-knife where the edge of the blade adjoins the ‘tang’ or thick part by which it is hafted; or the corresponding part of any knife where the cutting edge ends. — OED

88varielle
nov 15, 2023, 7:13 pm

Bouchon- it can be a type of French restaurant but in this case it refers to a matching card game. In Rodin: A Biography soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War were sitting around playing the game.

89varielle
nov 22, 2023, 1:56 pm

In Gone for a Soldier: The Civil War Memoirs of Private Alfred Bellard a Union soldier died in the arms of a vivandiere.

A Vivandière or cantinière is a French name for women who are attached to military regiments as sutlers or canteen keepers. Their actual historic functions of selling wine to the troops and working in canteens led to the adoption of the name 'cantinière' which came to supplant the original 'vivandière' starting in 1793. The use of both terms was common in French until the mid-19th century, and 'vivandière' remained the term of choice in non-French-speaking countries such as the US, Spain, Italy, and Great Britain.1 Vivandières served in the French army up until the beginning of World War I, but the custom (and the name) spread to many other armies. Vivandières also served on both sides in the American Civil War, and in the armies of Spain, Italy, the German states, Switzerland, and various armies in South America, though little is known about the details in most of those cases as historians have not done extensive research on them.

90thorold
Bewerkt: nov 23, 2023, 5:20 am

*Polybdenum — in The Dharma Bums, the Kerouac character buys a “polybdenum bottle, with a screw top” as part of his camping gear. He intends it “for carrying honey up to the mountains” and he later fills it with “fresh bus-station water”.

I wondered if this might be some sort of forgotten 1950s wonder-plastic, but the internet is unhelpful: almost all the Google hits seem to be obvious transcription errors for “molybdenum”, and the rest are science-fiction, or discussions about Kerouac. I checked the USPTO database, and it doesn’t seem to be in there as a live or dead trademark, so I suspect Kerouac’s use might have been a mishearing for “molybdenum steel”, maybe conflated in his mind with the names of polymers. Or simply a made-up name he was using to avoid mentioning the trademarked name of an actual product.

>89 varielle: For some more famous literary vivandières, see Schiller’s Wallenstein’s camp and Brecht’s Mother Courage.

91varielle
dec 11, 2023, 9:44 pm

Feldwebel - Feldwebel (Fw or F, lit. 'field usher') is a non-commissioned officer (NCO) rank in several countries. The rank originated in Germany, and is also used in Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia.

From A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot in which our heroine is attempting to learn the fate of her fiancé in WWI. The feldwebel are often seen escorting prisoners.

92varielle
Bewerkt: dec 28, 2023, 9:00 am

From Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead. Pardon the language but this was a rough memoir.
possum-f*cked - from Urban Dictionary, because I couldn’t find an explanation elsewhere means a super rude, a*sh@le maneuver. In this case Swofford and his comrades were used as bait out in the open during a bombardment during the First Gulf War.

93varielle
jan 1, 10:24 am

Hammam - in the Islamic world a Turkish bath or steam bath. Here the wives of Aman Akbar are preparing themselves to go rescue their husband who has unfortunately been turned into a donkey by a genie in The Harem of Aman Akbar by Elizabeth Scarborough.

94varielle
jan 22, 5:54 pm

Recit (with an accent mark over the e which my phone won’t allow) - a narrative. From Marguerite Yourcenar’s Coup de Grace in which she explains why she writes in first person.

95librorumamans
Bewerkt: jan 22, 11:24 pm

metage: official duty paid for the measuring of dry or liquid goods (OED)

"Alan thought of the oblivion of the bottle waiting at home for him in the empty apartment. The familiar metage of misery, of stupor, of holding on."
— Anne Michaels, Held, 2023

Metage, in distinction to weighage.

96LisaMorr
feb 10, 4:12 pm

In the span of 13 pages of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, I came across the following:

lacuna - gap, something missing
catachresis - the use of a word in a way that is not correct
ithyphallic - having an erect penis (especially of a statue of a deity or other carved figure)
psychomanteum - a small, enclosed area set up with a comfortable chair, dim lighting, and a mirror angled so as not to reflect anything but darkness intended to communicate with spirits of the dead

I haven't needed to look up words while reading a contemporary book in quite some time!

97LisaMorr
feb 10, 4:16 pm

And then I was continuing The Devastating Boys, a collection of short stories by Elizabeth Taylor, and came across a few words I needed to check out in The Excursion to the Source:

drugget - a floor covering made of a coarse woven fabric
tisane - an herbal tea
coign - a projecting corner or angle of a wall or building

98LisaMorr
feb 12, 11:25 am

I finished We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves yesterday, and learned the following words:

hypnopompic - relating to the state immediately preceding waking up
hathos - a pleasurable sense of loathing
anosognosia - a neurological condition in which the patient is unaware of their neurological deficit or psychiatric condition
piloerection - the contraction of small muscles at the base of hair follicles resulting in visible erection of hair (goose bumps)
mimesis - mimicry
diegesis - the telling of a story by a narrator
hypodiegesis - a story within a story

99BookConcierge
feb 15, 11:28 am

oubliette - An oubliette was a specialized type of dungeon, with the only entrance a trap door at the top, agonizingly out of reach of the prisoner.

100LisaMorr
Bewerkt: feb 18, 7:03 pm

A couple more from the Devastating Boys:

convolvulus - a twining plant with trumpet-shaped flowers, some kinds of which (such as bindweed) are invasive weeds, while others, especially morning glories, are cultivated for their bright flowers

budgerigar - also known as the common parakeet, shell parakeet or budgie is a small, long-tailed, seed-eating parrot (so this is the budgie!)

101librorumamans
Bewerkt: feb 17, 9:36 pm

. . . tales of "grief-stricken daughters struggling to conceive – alongside philosophical essays on loneliness; Oulipian jokes about language as a numbers game . . ." Globe and Mail February 17, 2024, page R6.

Oulipian from Oulipo: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Workshop of potential literature), a French literary movement. See Wikipedia.

102librorumamans
feb 17, 9:32 pm

>100 LisaMorr:

I believe it's convolvulus.

103LisaMorr
feb 18, 7:02 pm

>102 librorumamans: yes, thanks, you’re correct, typo

104librorumamans
feb 18, 9:14 pm

rudology: the study of garbage. From Lat. rudus: rubble, broken masonry.

Seen in Le Monde online.

105LisaMorr
feb 20, 12:42 pm

From p. 11 of The Thirteenth Tale:

hoarding: a very large board on which advertisements are shown

Obvious for UK readers, I never knew this was a billboard!

106librorumamans
feb 20, 9:33 pm

shaw, n. 1. a small thicket or grove; especially 2. a narrow strip of wood forming the border of a field.

Who knew?

107thorold
feb 21, 4:33 pm

>106 librorumamans: For any word like that, where you don’t know what it means but it’s super-familiar in names of people or places, there’s about an 80% chance that it’s either a small piece of woodland or a place where people live.

108LisaMorr
Bewerkt: feb 22, 10:08 am

Came across a new unit of measurement for me from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich:

pood - a unit of weight, used in Russia, equal to 36.1 pounds or 16.39 kilograms

Also learned the following:

taiga - a moist northern forest that consists mostly of cone-producing trees (as pines, spruces, and firs) and begins where the tundra ends

lag - 'an old lag' - a prisoner, a criminal

And one term that I couldn't find with a proper definition anywhere:

magara gruel, which is basically cooked yellow grass as Solzhenitsyn describes it; it's the second course for breakfast

109varielle
feb 22, 3:20 pm

From Josephine Tey’s The Franchise Affair:
Douce- from the Scottish meaning quiet, gentle, and sedate. In this case it’s referencing a douce country lawyer.

B^etise - with the ^ over the e which my phone is incapable of doing. Meaning a foolish, ill-timed remark or action. In this case it references a remark made by a woman in legal peril who disliked a capable lawyer because he wore striped suits.

110varielle
Bewerkt: mrt 25, 6:46 pm

Aeropagite - a member of the aeropagus, a judicial council in ancient Athens that met on a hill by that name. From Rodin: A Biography by Frederic Grunfeld in which Rodin refers to Mallarme as an aeropogite for defending him from cultural and political critics.

Algolagny- S & M. Used in reference to a perverse Scottish sculptress.

Encaenia - A commencement. In this case Rodin visited an Encaenia at Oxford.

Surmoulages - (art) The fraudulent practice of taking a casting directly from a sculpture rather than from the artist's original.

111varielle
mrt 24, 3:29 pm

Gracile - slender or thin. In this case it's referencing someone's hands. From Winter on the Plain of Ghosts by Eileen Kernaghan.