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 and link up! Here's what I've got this week from Vane Pursuit by Charlotte MacLeod:
1. Verdegrised: Coated with a deposit--usually greenish or bluish in color.
Context: The hand-wrought copper silhouette, verdigrised with time and soap fumes, depicted a lanky man sitting in a round washtub. (p. 1)
2. Beeves: old English plural of the word “beef” (may refer to cows, bulls, oxen, etc) Saponifications: processes that produce soap, usually from fats and lye
Context: Both had been here since the late 1860s, the cannon's muzzle pointing straight towards the factory's tallow room within whose vats thousands upon thousands of beeves had over the years rendered up their fat to be converted by the alchemy of potash and perfume into Lumpkin's Lilywhite for lovely young ladies, Lumpkin's Latherite for dirty old men, Lumpkin's Launderite for the washing you love to hang, and no doubt a good many more subtle saponifications of which Helen knew nothing. (p. 3)
3. Oleagonious: Rich in, covered with, or producing oil; oily or greasy OR Exaggeratedly and distastefully complimentary; obsequious.
Context: He played the bass viol, or thought he did, and pontificated a good deal about music using the right words in all the wrong places. Oleaginous creature. (p. 72)
4. Tenebrous: Dark; shadowy or obscure; shady; murky
Context: "It did seem awfully tenebrous trying to pin a rap on a woman I've never met just because she happens to use an unusual name." [Helen Shandy]
"And even more tenebrous to pounce on the woman's husband just because he happens to have part of his barn left." [Peter Shandy]
5. Titivating: To make decorative additions to; spruce up.
Context: What I'd suggest, Miss Binks, is that you put on your--er--shore-going clothes and let Swope and me drive you. We could stop at my house near the college long enough for you to do any--er--titivating you may feel inclined to. (pp 203-4)
7 comments:
What fabulous words these are! I just love titivating. I shall definitely have to try and incorporate that one. I knew verdigris, but have never seen verdigrised used before.
All new to me, although I could have guessed verdegrised and saponification from context and root words.
This seems like a funny book. I loved the sentence for oleagonious.
When I really looked at verdigrised, I realized I knew it, but the rest are new to me. Thanks for playing along!
Hi Bev,
So many great words from just one book, although the only one which was new to me is 'Tenebrous'.
This is an author I haven't come across before, but the books look like great fun, nothing too taxing or heavy, for those times when I want a lazy read, so I have added them to my reading list.
Yvonne
Numerous words ! I like titivating ! In France we speak of "vert de gris" with the same meaning. The word use the name of the two colors green (vert) and grey( gris).
Hard words, I will stick with "titivating."
Good words... they just roll off the tongue. I may actually remember to use titivating and beeves.
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