slemslempike | Now we know.

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?

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I always forget what 'uxorious' means - have only recently got it into my head that it means something to do with a wife. And 'afflatus' I would definitely assume was to do with farting not inspiration.

Is it 'stabismus' or 'strabismus'? Also, 'chiaroscuro' surely.

I love the words Procrustes and Ziggurat.

Yes, strabismus (as in, 'Dr S, whom god preserve, of Utrecht), and that is correct spelling of chiaroscuro (clear/obscure). No ph in apothegm.

I not only know most of those, I have been known to employ several of them in conversation.

Strabismus and chiaroscuro are my typing, but apophthegms is thus in the book, and pops up in several reasonably safe places online, so is it perhaps an unpreferred spelling?

The OED online gives it as a possible spelling, so I guess it's permissible (if poss a bit archaic?)

Phew, thank you Oursin, you have stopped me feeling like a frightful swotty Mrs Knowit. And you know about Dr Strabismus!

Ah yes, strabismus and Chiaroscuro are my typing. I shall go and correct them.

Ziggurat is a great word to say. It seems like it should be a 70s guitar style.

I only know the word Ziggurat because Rimmer in Red Dwarf likes to say "Up, up, up the Ziggurat!" when encouraging himself in his quest to become an officer.

Now we know.

I know a fair few but not all

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New York Ziggurats

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