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

[chrispenycate]

Ungulate - Hoofed mammal, a member of the order 'ungulata'.
Unguiculate - Clawed
Caprine - goat like, of or pertaining to a goat.

 

[Abernovo]

Virga - a mass of streaks of rain appearing to hang under a cloud and evaporating before reaching the ground

Virescent - greenish

 

[Greenwoody]

Just had this atavistic (relating to or characterised by reversion to something ancient or ancestral) phantasmagoria (a sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a dream: what happened next was a phantasmagoria of horror) but luckily it didn't result in ataxia (the full loss of control of bodily movements).
Great thread! (almost iridescent (Producing a display of lustrous, rainbowlike colors))

 

[Ursa major]

hendiadys n. figure of speech where two words (both nouns) are joined by 'and' instead of one being an adjective modifying the other (e.g. 'furious sound' becomes 'sound and fury')

litotes n. figure of speech where an understatement is negated to emphasize something (e.g. not inconsiderable = really considerable)

hendiatris n. a figure of speech where three words are used, for emphasis, to express one idea (e.g. "Truth, Justice and the American Way" and "the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth)

 

[sooC]

Bombinating buzz hum
Had to look this up the other night. It was used to describe a beard of bees. 'The bombinating illusion'.
As a reader I enjoy coming across a new word. There's pleasure in increasing my vocabulary. While reading fiction if I have to consult a dictionary too often it I find that it stops me from being immersed in the story. One new word per page is manageable, not that it happens too often.

 

[Tyburn]

Eloquent no, esoteric maybe:

hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia - fear of long words, I kid you not. Go for it Ursa!!!

So, exactly how long have you been able to read my mind? To me, that is the greatest word in the English language, specifically for it's utter cruelty. Though another phobia which comes close is:

aibohphobia - the fear of palindromes.

These phobia-namers are a nasty bunch I can tell you.

 

[J Riff]

All roity. I'm digging into ancient texts, as is my wont, and I found this copy of Peveril of the Peak (1820s) by Sir Walter Scott, in an alley, so here's wot I've run into so far.

wannion - 'with a vengeance' - from a Shakesperean glossary. Related to other old words meaning beating, leather thongs, weeping, etc.

dogbolt - archaic : wretched fellow : mean contemptible person
or a type of window lock.
Odzooks!

barouche - a four-wheeled carriage.



more anon.

 

[J Riff]

Drat, I lost that book... so here's some content from All About Words - Ernest Weekly 1936, a terrific book.

Judge. 'What do you mean by a slogan?'
Barrister. 'It is an American advertising term, my lord.'
Judge. 'Really! I thought it was the war-cry of a Highland clan.'

The judge is right, as a judge should be. Slogan is a Gaelic word meaning army-yell. Adopted by the Lowlands, it became 'sloggorn', a corrupted form which led Chatterton to include it in his pseudo-antique vocabulary as the name of a trumpet (slug-horn) an absurdity copied by Browning.
----------

Few words convey more of a poetic suggestion than glamour. It has that obscurite indispensable which Baudelaire regarded
as a chief element in the poetic. Glamour is the same word as grammar, its change of meaning reflecting the medieval conviction that the learning of the clerk bordered on the magical.

 

[J Riff]

an older thread that needs fresh blood...
grandiloquent - adj. - Lofty in style, puffed up with vanity; "a grandiloquent and boastful manner"
magniloquent - adj. - Lofty in style.
beetling - adj. - jutting or overhang, be suspended over or hang over, "This huge rock beetles over the edge of the town."
2: Fly or go in a manner resembling a beetle, "He beetled up the staircase"; "They beetled off home"
3: Beat with a beetle. (similar: protrusive.)

 

[Ursa major]

licit adj. not forbidden by the rules (formal or informal ones)

illicit adj. forbidden by the rules

elicit v. To obtain information (or a response)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Since the subject of smelling salts came up in another thread:

hartshorn an aqueous ammonia solution used as smelling salts, originally prepared from the horns of deer. Also known as sal volatile.

vinaigrette 1. precursor of the smelling bottle. Vinaigrettes held perfumes usually made with an alcohol or vinegar base. Although used in the same manner as a pomander, vinaigrettes also came to be used to revive swooning ladies. This term is also used of smelling bottles containing sponges soaked in hartshorn or sal volatile.

2. a two-wheeled carriage invented in 17th century France, named for its resemblance to the carts of vinegar sellers.

pomander 1. a mixture of aromatic substances, once believed to ward off infection, usually carried in a perforated container (often in the form of a ball)

2. dried flowers and spices contained in a bag or envelope, hung in a closet or placed in a drawer to scent clothes or linens

3. a orange studded with cloves, used for either of the purposes above

 

[Ihe]

I actually keep a Word document filled with interesting unknown words I find in my literary incursions. Needless to say, it's gotten so big I don't even know why I have it anymore. I might as well just highlight a dictionary. But well, I doubt these next words will be in many dictionaries.

My theme for the words I'll be defining has to do with foreign words that sound too cool to pass up, with definitions that are even cooler:

Hamartia: a hero's tragic flaw

Glásnost: judiciary transparency in the face of the public and the media

Zeitgeist: the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time

Folie à deux: shared psychosis

Götzengeschwätz: "idol chatter". Basically, praying to a god you don't really believe in

 

[Joshua Jones]

As @The Judge just brought this thread up in another thread, it seems a suitable time for thread necromancy...

I think someone mentioned exegesis toward the beginning, but it has a lesser known opposite in eisegesis. Where exegesis is drawing a meaning out of a text, eisegesis is inserting a foreign meaning into the text. And, those who practice these are exegetes and eisegetes, respectively. These aren't limited to religious scholars, btw. One could speak of "Judge Matthews, craven eisegete and purveyor of exegetical malaise. His creative distortions of plain laws leave his hearers twisted in pretzels of incredulity."

Pontificate is a great one as well. It means to "express one's opinions in a way considered annoyingly pompous and dogmatic."

 

[Cathbad]

I may be pompous, but I'm not dogmatic!!

 

[ZlodeyVolk]

I know that the reading age of the general public is something like seven and three-quarters and plummeting. I know there is a school of thought which says we shouldn't make things difficult for our readers because if they don't understand us they will refuse to read further. Yet I cannot believe that the way to combat stupidity is to surrender to it. We should be striving to use the best word we can in any given situation - and if that means the risk of upsetting the ignorant, so be it. We should not be seeking to decrease our vocabulary since that way lies a colourless life of 'the cat sat on the mat' illiteracy. The brain is like a muscle - it needs to be stretched, to be exercised, if it is to be fit.

Please excuse my shouting, but

TESTIFY, SIBLING!

I have been having this argument with so many would-be writers, of late—you know, people who insist that readers want to be entertained, rather than educated. I simply fail to see why the two should be mutually exclusive. I mean, one of the things I enjoyed about Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever was that I had to look up so many new words in a dictionary and enlarged my word-hoard, thereby.

I'm just so happy to know that I'm not the only one who thinks this.

And now, with a view toward ending the game by joining in:

callipygian

adjective (comparative more callipygian, superlative most callipygian)
1. Having beautifully shaped buttocks.