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: .

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