It’s amazing how many words I’ve been hoarding, from the little time I’ve had with books, the TLS and the NYT. Ill try to catch up with some of them.
echidna noun, a spiny insectivorous egg-laying mammal with a long snout and claws, native to Australia and New Guinea. Also called spiny anteater. ●Family Tachyglossidae, order Monotremata: two genera and species. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: modern Latin, from Greek ekhidna ‘viper’, also the name of a mythical creature which gave birth to the Hydra; compare with ekhinos ‘sea urchin, hedgehog’.
I never knew the name of the Hydra’ s mother-?- parent.
Hesiod : ( c.700 bc ), Greek poet. One of the earliest known Greek poets, he wrote the Theogony, a hexametric poem on the genealogies of the gods, and Works and Days, which gave moral and practical advice and was the chief model for later ancient didactic poetry.
I think I remember him.
instantiate verb [ with obj.] represent as or by an instance: a study of two groups who seemed to instantiate productive aspects of this • (be instantiated) Philosophy (of a universal or abstract concept) be represented by an actual example. DERIVATIVES instantiation |-ˈeɪʃ(ə)n| noun ORIGIN 1940s: from Latin instantia
This is too fancy to use.
corvid noun, Ornithology; a bird of the crow family (Corvidae); a crow. ORIGIN mid 20th cent.: from modern Latin Corvidae (plural), from Latin corvus ‘raven’.
I knew this; it’s a good one.
xeriscape chiefly US: noun, a garden or landscape created in a style that requires little or no irrigation or other maintenance, used in arid regions. it has become trendy to replace water-thirsty gardens with xeriscapes. verb [ with obj. ]: cultivate (an area) as a xeriscape. I wanted to remove the grass along the sidewalk and xeriscape that area too. ORIGIN 1980s: from xeric + -scape.
This is a god word to know and a good practice to follow given the state of our planet.
bloviate |verb [ no obj. ] US informal; talk at length, especially in an inflated or empty way. DERIVATIVES bloviation noun, bloviator noun. ORIGIN mid 19th century.
There’s a lof of this going on.
ludic, adjective formal: showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness. ORIGIN 1940s: from French ludique, from Latin ludere ‘to play’, from ludus ‘sport’.
I knew this one too. I’s a good one, very useful.
apricity noun. apricity (uncountable) (obsolete) The warmth of the Sun in winter.- Wiktionary
Google for a list of wintry words.
meretricious adjective: 1 apparently attractive but having no real value: meretricious souvenirs for the tourist trade.. 2 archaic relating to or characteristic of a prostitute. DERIVATIVES: meretriciously, meretriciousness, ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin meretricius (adjective from meretrix, meretric- ‘prostitute’, from mereri ‘be hired’) + -ous.
tetanal from tetanus, noun [ mass noun]: 1 a bacterial disease marked by rigidity and spasms of the voluntary muscles. See also trismus. 2 Physiology the prolonged contraction of a muscle caused by rapidly repeated stimuli. DERIVATIVES tetanize (also tetanise)verb, tetanoid adjective. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin, from Greek tetanos ‘muscular spasm’, from teinein ‘to stretch’.
pantoum noun: a Malay verse form, also imitated in French and English, with a rhyme scheme abab. [ count noun ] : smart's the word for pantoums and haiku. [ mass noun ] : we could end as a line of pantoum. ORIGIN late 18th cent.: Malay pantun .
I’d like to play with this one. Give me some time.