eloquent... exotic... esoteric... (please provide definitions)

[digs]

mendacious - dishonest; lying; untruthful
mien - air, bearing or demeanour
inscrutable - incapable of being scrutinised; impenetrable; not easily understood
mellifluous - sweetly or smoothly flowing
pulchritude - beauty

 

[digs]

Another awesome word, coined by James Joyce in Ulysses, is melonsmellonous, but it's very hard to define. And it's a bit sexy. I would say it's something like 'having the smooth, rounded qualities of a melon in a trascendently raunchy manner'.

 

[J Riff]

Scout - n. recconoiter v.t. reject scornfully, dismiss as absurd

Peroration - n. passing the whole night in watch or prayer

Gammon - n. humbug, nonsense

 

[Learning...]

I fell in love with:

Diatribe - A vicious verbal attack with vocabulary vehement. The kind spat out with no regard for being holy, moral and respectful.

 

[J Riff]

Elizabethan era words

copesmate - lover; comrade
comfit - sweet containing a nut or seed, preserved with sugar
cinequepace - galliard, a dance characterized by rapid steps

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

lachrymose tearful; tending to suggest or cause tears; mournful

laconic using few words, concise; terse almost to the point of sounding rude

incorporeal insubstantial, having no material body or form; pertaining to beings that have no material body

discarnate disembodied, incorporeal

miscreant (adjective) depraved, villainous, base; (noun) a vicious person, an evil-doer, someone without scruples, a reprobate

reprobate (noun) a wicked or unprincipled person, a scoundrel; (adjective) morally depraved, unprincipled, evil, or corrupt; (verb) to condemn or censure

 

[Ursa major]

insightful adj. possessing insight

inciteful adj. that incites or provides incitement

inadvertent adj. not intentional, not on purpose, not conscious

advertent adj. intentional


(I heard a UK government spokesman on the radio this morning use the word, inciteful, when commenting on a certain notorious facebook "page". I must admit I thought he'd made the word up and inadvertently suggested something akin to the opposite of what he'd intended: that those contributing to the page were being insightful. I still think it was unwise to use the word, though.)

 

[digs]

lachrymose tearful; tending to suggest or cause tears; mournful

laconic using few words, concise; terse almost to the point of sounding rude

Both great words! Fun fact time: 'laconic' is derived from Laconia, the region of ancient Greece where Sparta was located. Spartans were known for their pithy sayings!

callipygian - having shapely buttocks

incarnadine - of a fleshy pink colour (used in a sentence: 'Get in the car, Nadine!')

 

[The Judge]

I agree, Ursa. A poor choice of word in the circumstances, though off the top of my head the only comparable adjective I could come up with was provocative (stimulating strong reaction, esp anger, usually deliberate). Mind you, in the circumstances outrageous (shockingly bad), infamous (wicked, abominable) and scurrilous (making scandalous claims) all came to mind, even if the latter isn't strictly accurate**


**it may well be one of those words which is acquiring a secondary meaning. Strictly speaking, the scandalous claims are against a person esp with a view to diminishing his reputation, ie comparable to slanderous (defamatory), but I've seen it used informally in a more general sense of insulting, and not only in a humorous context.

 

[The Judge]

incarnadine - of a fleshy pink colour

I'd have said more of a crimson, a bright red:

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand willl rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
MacBeth

though I see it does derive from the Italian for flesh-coloured

 

[Precise Calibre]

Expectorate - Verb - To hack, cough or spit up some content of the respiratory tract, usually unpleasant.

Sputum - noun - The expectorated contents of the respiratory tract, again, usually unpleasant.

 

[digs]

I'd have said more of a crimson, a bright red:

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand willl rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
MacBeth

though I see it does derive from the Italian for flesh-coloured

What, you've never seen a fleshy pink sea!?

I think it can mean either, which is a bit confusing, although I guess it would usually be clear depending on context.

 

[HareBrain]

I'd have said more of a crimson, a bright red:

[...]

though I see it does derive from the Italian for flesh-coloured

Stick me under the Italian midday sun for half an hour and you'll see the connection.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Once again it appears that this thread is defunct (dead, deceased, extinct; no longer in use, not operating or functioning).

Though not, I hope, beyond our powers to resuscitate (to revive, especially from apparent unconsciousness or death).



But on another note entirely, and to move on to the words that actually bring me back to this thread:

fribble to act in a frivolous or foolish manner; a trifler; something trivial or frivolous

frivol to behave frivolously, to trifle; to spend frivolously; to waste time on trivial things

footle to talk or act in a foolish or silly way; nonsense, foolishness

frippery cheap and tawdry decoration; pretentious, gaudy, or second-hand finery; trifling, trivial, or contemptible.

 

[The Judge]

Window-shopping for antiques yesterday, I came across a beautiful glass epergne -- apparently defined as "an ornamental centrepiece for a table, typically used for holding fruit or flowers". I can't quite see how I can shoehorn it into my SF, though it won't be for lack of trying, but I offer it freely to all those writing steampunk, as I imagine it reached its heyday in the Victorian/Edwardian eras.

Also come across just now, while looking for other esoteric ornamental table pieces (somehow the words "salt cellar" don't cut it, even they are beautiful, especially the Cellini; perhaps we should call them all Saliera...) a Berkemeyer -- a wide, flared-bowl drinking glass on a very thick stem. A bit clumpy-looking in itself, it could be transformed into something approaching a chalice -- a large (? possibly ornamented) cup or goblet -- by means of a decorated silver glass holder.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Nef, which is a particular kind of salt-cellar does not sound particularly beautiful either, unless you know what it is: a elaborate salt dish* in the shape of a ship, usually made from silver or gold. Here is one that I quite like,

Salt cellar - The Burghley Nef - Victoria & Albert Museum - Search the Collections

*Although sometimes used to hold other spices or cutlery as well.

 

[The Judge]

Going off-topic briefly, I think we forget sometimes how things we take for granted were regarded very differently by our predecessors. When you see something as beautiful as the nef or the Cellini, it brings home how much value had to be placed on salt and/or other spices to have warranted such extravagance. Though I imagine the importance of gift-giving between states and nobles remains much the same.

And while I'm here again, something I'd never come across before, but I saw a couple of beautiful pieces in the Rijksmuseum website: an aquamanile -- a waterjug used in washing the hands.

 

[Xelebes]

Toilette - a dressing table, usually adorned with combs, brushes, makeup and perfumes. Hence, the term eau d'toilette.

Quomodocunquise - to seek wealth with avarice; to attain wealth by any means possible.

Feoh or Fee - Old English: cattle, money, property - shares same cognate with fee and fief. Especially useful word for translation of hrynhenda verse, like the famous lamentation in the Norse epic, Havamal:

Dead fee; Dead friends; / dead self the same.
What does not die / is one's own deeds.

Hrynhenda - Alliterative verse format used by Norse skalds where there is attention paid to the assonance, the lifts and the caesura. The meter is 4 syllables per bit, with two lifted (raised) syllables each.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

guerdon a reward or recompense

commiserate to feel sorrow or sympathy; to pity; to condole

furbish to restore to a fresh appearance or condition; to polish or clean

refurbish to renovate, refurnish, or redecorate

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Going through the dictionary today, looking for another word entirely, I came across two familiar ones that I wanted to share:

ophidian a snake; snakelike

oriflamme the ancient red and gold battle standard of the French kings; any inspiring banner, symbol, or idea; something that inspires courage or devotion

and while we are in the O's

odalisque a female slave or concubine in a harem