Clearing my Paper Desk I came across lots of scraps of paper each with one or two words printed on them for me to look up either to learn or to remind. I have to pedal soon so I’d better get at them.

cyan noun: a greenish-blue colour which is one of the primary subtractive colours, complementary to red. ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Greek kuaneos ‘dark blue’.

I was just this morning listing all the words for different shades of blue (as I was swimming, so no books or paper handy), but I never thought of this one because I didn’t know it. Learn something every day.

lenticular adjective 1 shaped like a lentil, especially by being biconvex: lenticular lenses. 2 relating to the lens of the eye. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin lenticularis, from lenticula, diminutive of lens, lent- ‘lentil’.

bast noun (also bast fibre) [ mass noun ] fibrous material from a plant, in particular the inner bark of a tree such as the lime, used as fibre in matting, cord, etc. • Botany the phloem or vascular tissue of a plant. ORIGIN Old English bæst; related to Dutch bast,German Bast; of unknown origin.

I put a note beside my word, that is was a shoe - so, a shoe made of bast or fibre. Where did I read it?

oneiric adjective formal, relating to dreams or dreaming. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Greek oneiros ‘dream’ + -ic.

This is such a nice one, why didn’t I remember it?

synaesthesia noun [ mass noun ] Physiology & Psychology, the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. DERIVATIVES synaesthete |sɪnˈiːsθiːt, -ˈɛs-| noun synaesthetic |-ˈθɛtɪk| adjective ORIGIN late 19th cent.: modern Latin, from syn-‘with’, on the pattern of anaesthesia.

When the dental hieigenist (so-called) starts scraping my plaque, my nose gets itchy. Is that synaesthesia?

That’s all for now.