1. confusticate — [slang] to perplex, to bother, to confuse With fourteen voices clamoring at him all at once demanding this and that and the other, Kip was so confusticated that he put the towels in the microwave and the sausages in the sink. 2. umbel — [botany] inflorescence of short flower stalks radiating …
Author Archives: mysterious6030
Friday Vocabulary
1. luthier — maker of stringed instruments In addition to being a talented songwriter in her own right, Shelsea is also a trained luthier, having learned the craft from her uncle who crafted guitars and mandolins for the greats of the Grand Ol’ Opry. 2. nard — scented balsam derived from the Himalayan spikenard …
Friday Vocabulary
1. soubise — onion sauce For this delicate filet an equally delicate soubise is the perfect accompaniment, the sauce also serving to highlight the flavor of the fresh leeks. 2. prescind — to cut off; to separate in thought, to consider apart But as Peirce points out, one cannot prescind color from space or …
900 Books
Yesterday I finished my 900th book, counting back from the time when my wife gave me a barcode scanner and a book database and I started keeping track of such things, back in 2015. My 900th book (as usual discounting comic books and graphic novels from my ‘official’ count, of which I’ve read some 118 …
Friday Vocabulary
1. madding — frenzied, acting like a madman; tending to drive (one) insane You seem to still have the illusion that this madding bureaucracy is a mistake, a misapplication of higher ideals and the tenets of a purer political science—when of course the very arbitrariness and nonsensical practice you bemoan is the very core, the …
Friday Vocabulary
1. orthopnea (also orthopnoea) — difficulty breathing except in standing or sitting upright position Among the consequences of massive heart failure are dyspnea or orthopnea as the weakened ventricular muscles can no longer sustain the effort required. 2. splificate — [British slang] to annihilate, to obliterate, to destroy That last week of less than …
Friday Vocabulary
1. enfeoff — to give a fiefdom Due to the political realities, King Jane had enfeoffed the duke with his old holdings under the previous dynasty, but the new king did not—of course—entirely trust his vassal. 2. chuffed — [British informal] delighted “And on top of that, I finally found my reading glasses, so …
Friday Vocabulary
1. assiduous — persistently diligent, constant I should have been more specific in my request, for Hervey’s assiduous nature interpreted my vague instructions as an order to read the entirety of the New York Herald-Tribune‘s sports pages from 1923 through 1950. 2. aroint — [archaic] begone, get hence Aroint thee, ye vile knave, or …
Friday Vocabulary
1. oolite — spherical sedimentary rock formed in concentric layers The walls of the keep have fallen almost in ruins, and are made from oolite from the Northland deposits some twenty miles away. 2. stumer — [British slang] fraud; bad check; failure After Wally’s remarks before, I expected that Russell’s check would turn out …
1000 Books (not really)
In the beginning was the word …. Well, in fact those words come well over halfway through this, The Book. I started reading a little bit each day just over a year ago, as sort of a 2022 project, and have just finished the last chapter of The Revelation of Saint John the Divine this …