Now we know.

[slemslempike]

I looked up the words from the book, and I thought that I would post them here so that a) I might have a better chance of remembering and b) people can judge me for not knowing them and c) other people can say that they too were previously unknowing. A few I roughly knew from context but wanted to know properly (uxorious, synecdoche) but most were completely baffling.

irenic - conducive to peace
uxorious - overly submissive to a wife
gravamen - grievance, basis of a legal action
strabismus - eye misalignment
bibulous - given up to the consumption of alcohol
adipose - pertaining to fat
adumbrate - give a sketchy outline of, to indistinctly foreshadow
lineaments - facial features
sidereal - relating to stars
sempiternal - dateless, no known beginning
meniscus - curved surface of liquid in a narrow diameter tube
noumenal - unknowable
penumbra - the area of a shadow in partial vision, the lighter part of an eclipse's shadow
chiaroscuro - use of light and dark in a painting
apophthegms - short pithy instructive saying
farouche - fierce, wild
synecdoche - referring to a concept by part of it
apian - relating to bees
monad - one, a unit
afflatus - creative inspiration
Procrustes - Greek guy with an adjustable bed
Ziggurat - step pyramid from Ancient Mesapotamia

I like sempiternal a lot, and noumenal. I am probably not going to remember any of them sufficiently to use them myself, but perhaps if I meet them again in writing it won't take me out of it.

Wednesday. What happens on Wednesdays?

Comments

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

This should be a poll! I am so excited about these words that I am commenting without reading other comments, so I'm sorry if someone else said that.

Okay, I knew: bibulous, adipose, adumbrate, lineaments, meniscus, penumbra, chiarascuro (because I took a film class once, ha), synecdoche, monad, afflatus, and Ziggurat. I could only define bibulous, lineaments, meniscus, chiaroscuro, synecdoche, and monad offhand, though. (Yes, I tested myself. Word geek!) A few of them are what I consider genuinely 19th century words; I've only ever seen "bibulous" in mid-19th (mostly women's!) writing.

This was such fun. Thank you.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oooh, you know loads! You clever thing. Bibulous was one that I knew when I'd looked it up, and had the whole book not made me so uncertain I would have been fine with it.

You're very welcome! I have a vague resolution to look things up more, after a while of realising that lots of words I thought I knew I only knew in context, so there may well be more posts. Not for a bit though, as my next reading is one of the Meg Cabot Mediator books, and she's not so great with the vocabulary stretching.