Word Roundup

Here’s a corral of words I gathered in my travels the latter half of this year.

Continuing from previous word alert entries, here are some words from the remainder of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groans:

• plaice: a type of fish.
• escutcheon: a nameplate or surface bearing symbols of heraldry.
• querail: quarrelsome? A Peake-ism.
• gelid: cold.
• gateau: cake.
• glacid: from context, describing a deep clear sky — glassy (or maybe glacé) + placid? Another Peake-ism, I think.
• palliasse: straw mattress or similar bedding.
• benison: benediction or blessing.

I set the rest of Gormenghast aside to sample bite by bite at a later date.

From Gideon the Ninth, book one of Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series:

• uncanorous: unpleasant to the ear; not canorous.
• parclose: a screen or railing that separates part of a church or tomb from a more public area. (This definition lead me to read about hagioscopes and anchorites — yeesh.)
• complaisant: obliging and compliant; eager to serve (to be complacent is similar but perhaps more passive).
• catarrh: a phlegmy inflammation of mucous membranes.
• folderol: nonsense!
• cavil: to raise frivolous objections. To cite a lot of folderol.
• deliquesce: to dissolve, perhaps specifically in a slimy fungal sort of way.
• lahar: volcanic mudslide.
• tergiversation: wishy-washiness; evasive flip-flopping. (I think this one came from book two, Harrow the Ninth.)

From The Knight, book one of Gene Wolfe’s Wizard Knight duology:

• purling: gold embroidery or the swirling motion and babbling sound of a brook.
• chary: wary and prudent.
• raddle: a rod woven into the structure of a fence, or something so woven.
• merlon: the raised parts of a battlement; the gaps between them are crenels. Used as an adjective: merloned.

There were more (it was Wolfe, after all), but I think I took a break from noting new words around the time I read this book.

From other books I’ve read in recent months:

• yclept (from Nick Mamatas’ fandom pastiche I Am Providence): named or called.
• agnate (from an Ann Leckie story auxiliary to Ancillary Justice): paternal lineage; in-universe, a matriarchal clan.
• cynosure (from the forthcoming Book of Flaco): a focal attraction, or a guide to such a point of attraction.
• abseil (from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time): to rappel up or down a rope (or spiderweb).
• condottiere (from the illustrated owl book The Nightwatchers by Angus Cameron and Peter Parnnall): a mercenary.
• cyma (also from The Nightwatchers): the “S” shape where a convex and concave curve meet. Bonus term: ogee, a pointed arch formed from a pair of cyma curves.
• refulgent (from Return of the Osprey by David Gessner): radiant.
• quincunx (from The Book of Barely Imagined Beings by Caspar Henderson): an arrangement of five points, as on the five-pipped face of a die.
• irenic (from The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson): conducive to peace or reconciliation.
• pettifogging (from Encounter with the Archdruid by John McPhee): quibbling or posing petty objections.
• plebiscite (from Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh) a referendum or vote among the whole electorate.

From other media, articles, and unrecorded sources:

• suzerainty (from the comic adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser illustrated by Mike Mignola): the domain of a feudal lord.
• sinecure (from Gary K Wolf’s review 0f a Sofia Samatar book): a cushy job or office with little responsibility.
• welter (from a game of Words with Friends, and subsequently seen elsewhere): to be jumbled or tossed about, especially as on the waves.
• embayment (from an article in NY DEC’s Conservationist magazine): a bay or the surrounding coastal landform
• quiddity (from a China Miéville essay): an essential essence, perhaps found only in the details of a thing.
• adumbrated (from David Langford’s Omega Point entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [SFE], a reference that leans hard into esoteric terminology): foreshadowed.
• afflatus (from a John Clute quote in the Wikipedia article on Gordon Dickson): divine inspiration.
• empyrean (from a NYT Style article about Pat Sajak’s retirement): a heavenly region.
• octavo: a book formed by folding (and perhaps cutting) printed sheets into eighths; compare to the more common folio.
• mondegreen: a misheard lyric.
• vastation: devastation.
• factotum: a person or worker who performs many roles.

Are these words relics, raw materials, or highly refined terminological technology? Perhaps all of the above.

Posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2024. Tags: words.