Kathy over at Bermudaonion's Weblog hosts Wondrous Words Wednesday. If you come across a word (or two) while reading that is new to you and would like to share your new knowledge, then hop over to Kathy's place an link up! I'm running late this week....life has gotten hectic.
Here is what I've got From Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker :
Castellation: furnished with turrets and battlements like a castle
Context: all along the ridge the rock cropped out, bare and bleak, but broken in a rough natural castellation.
Paroxysm: A sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity
Context: Within the niche Lady Arabella cowered in a paroxysm of fear.
Raucous: rough-sounding and harsh; boisterous and disorderly
Context: In a voice which was raucous and brutal--much like that which is heard when a wife is being beaten by her husband in a slum--he hissed out, his syllables cutting through the roaring of the storm....
From Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
Vademecum: Something regularly carried about by a person
Context: I measured it with my stick--the gentleman-scout's vademecum, I call it--it's marked off in inches.
I could guess castellation from the context and both paroxysm and raucous were familiar to me...but when I found myself groping to put into words what they meant, I figured I better look them up and share. I completely missed vademecum on my previous readings of Sayers and had no clue what this was.
5 comments:
I don't blame you for being a day late since you're working on an Eagle Court of Honor. Congratulations to your son - that's quite an accomplishment.
The only word on your list I knew was raucous. Thanks for playing along!
I didn't know vademecum. I've only read a couple of Sayers and I remember reaching for my dictionary a lot!
Congrats to your Eagle Scout!
Thanks for the good words about my Scout. I thought the hard part was over. Who knew it would be just as much work getting him to agree to a ceremony ("Can't they just hand it to me and then we can all eat cake?")?
Raucous I knew and like you was familiar with paroxysm, the others are new to me.
My nephew is getting near the Court of Honor phase and I see what my sister is going through so I know your pain. He's also a "hand it to me and eat cake" kind of guy.
I knew the first three, and I thought I knew vademecum as well -- but I was wrong! :-)
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