Wordy Wednesday (11)

 Wordy Wednesday is a meme I host here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.  I also like to include the sentence it came from in the book I was reading as long as it doesn’t include spoilers.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Nacreous: (adj) 1. pearly, lustrous. 2. resembling mother-of-pearl

First used around 1830-1840. Nacre is the technical term for what we know as mother-of-pearl.

 “My gaze fell upon his scales–each was a different shade of orange, red or gold, all slightly nacreous.”

Florence
Ciye Cho

Wordy Wednesday (10)

  Wordy Wednesday is a meme I host here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.  I also like to include the sentence it came from in the book I was reading as long as it doesn’t include spoilers.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Wordy Wednesday (9)

 Wordy Wednesday is a meme I host here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.  I also like to include the sentence it came from in the book I was reading as long as it doesn’t include spoilers.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Cudgel:  1. (n) a stick used as a weapon. 2. (v) to strike with or beat with a cudgel. 3. to come to the defense (take up cudgels, like take up arms). 4. to remember something or think hard about something (cudgel on’es brain).

From the Old English word “cycgel” for “stick with round head,” and was first used as a verb around 1596.

 “Excellent stroke with the cudgel,” Stephen said. “But only a superficial wound.”

Wordy Wednesday (8)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.  I also like to include the sentence it came from in the book I was reading as long as it doesn’t include spoilers.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Motley: 1. Diverse 2. Made of different elements or colors. 3. Heterogeneous assemblage 4. Medley

First used about the late 1400s, likely from Old English “mot” for speck.

 

Wordy Wednesday (7)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.  I also like to include the sentence it came from in the book I was reading as long as it doesn’t include spoilers.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Maudlin: 1. Foolishly or weakly emotional. 2. Irrationally sentimental when drunk.

First used around the very early 1500s.   The Middle English proper name was “maudelen” meaning “tearful.” Another word that is related is Magdalene, which is why Mary Magdalene is often portayed weeping in art.

Funny thing about this word, there is a town near where I live called Mauldin, and I thought Why would someone name a town this?? Then I realized I was having a dyslexic moment, the town is Mauldin and the word is Maudlin.

 “I haven’t used the word happy to describe my emtional state much since the accident.  God, I’m being maudlin now.  Things are bad enough without me “dwelling,” as my grandmother would say, and making them even worse.”

Kiss Me Kill Me
Lauren Henderson

Wordy Wednesday (6)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.  I also like to include the sentence it came from in the book I was reading as long as it doesn’t include spoilers.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Reticent: 1. reluctant; restrained; reserved.  2. to be silent and not speek freely. 3. not tell all that one knows.

From reticere “to keep silent,” originating around 1834.

 “He seemed very reticent in a reply e-mail to my question regarding Ami, evidenced by the fact that there was only one exclamation point in the whole thing.”

Psych Major Syndrome
Alicia Thompson

Wordy Wednesday (5)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Foible:(this one has two totally different meanings) 1.  Small flaw or defect; minor weakness, including one of character. 2.  The weaker section of a sword between the sword’s tip and middle.

This word originated from French in the mid 1600’s along with the word feeble.

 

 

Wordy Wednesday (4)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Laconic: (adj) using few words or expression in few words.

From the Greek “lakonicos.”  Inhabitants from Lakonia, an area around Sparta, were known for their very brief use of speech and were proud of this trait.  “If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground,” was the threat from Philip of Macedon, to which the Spartan’s replied, “If.”

 While Dmitri understood Greek more or less fluently, he was laconic to an extreme, and when he did speak, it was in short bursts of his incomprehensible mountain tongue.”

The Darkening Dream
Andy Gavin

Wordy Wednesday (3)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Lilliputian: 1. Extremely small (adj) 2. Petty or trivial (adj) 3. A small person (n) 4. An inhabitant of Lilliput (n)

This term was started by author Jonathan Swift in 1726 with his tale, Gulliver’s Travels.  Lilliput was the island with the tiny people.

 “I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us.”

 Gulliver’s Travels

 

 

Wordy Wednesday (2)

 Wordy Wednesday is a new meme I will have here at On The Shelf.  I love to learn new words and being the avid reader I am, I am bound to come across words I don’t know, so this meme is to spread word knowledge! If you’d like to participate, just post the word and the definition and any other fun facts you may want to list as well.

For this Wordy Wednesday I have:

Wherewithal:  necessary means or ability needed in order to do something or for having something.
First known use was in 1534, but wasn’t recorded as a noun until 1809.

 “‘I blacked out,’ I say.  I meant for it to be a question, but my voice can’t summon the wherewithal required for inflection.”

Fever
Lauren Destefano