1. gnome — general maxim, aphorism, terse saying with a moral Since, like Polonius in Hamlet, his speech seems to consist primarily of gnomes and clichés, I doubt he would be able to follow this play’s sustained allegory. 2. shirtwaist — tailored blouse for women The old-fashioned establishment did not allow Jane to dine …
Author Archives: mysterious6030
Friday Vocabulary
1. parergon — embellishment, thing subordinate to main subject Burgess maintains that the final chapter of A Clockwork Orange was essential to the novel and should never have been removed from the American edition, but Kubrick and many other readers have found it an unconvincing parergon. 2. adust — burnt up, scorched But under …
Friday Vocabulary
1. embonpoint — healthy plumpness; fleshy part of the body, esp. of the bosom Though two decades had passed, she seemed just the same — well, a slight tendency to embonpoint perhaps, which was only heightened by the stately curves of her gown. 2. catarrh — secretions from the nose and eyes which accompany …
Friday Vocabulary
1. rebarbative — repellent, annoying, unattractive I was confronted at the front desk by a rebarbative adolescent, if I can be excused the tautology, who claimed the right to review my credentials before passing me on to the vice principal. 2. compurgator — witness to an accused person’s innocence or truthfulness From the Old …
Friday Vocabulary
1. recreant — coward, craven; apostate, traitor You have shown yourself recreant before all assembled here, false to your duty and false to your word. 2. pruritus — itching, esp. with no visible cause Of course, pruritus may manifest itself when merely mentioned, much in the manner of certain allergies. 3. fremescent — …
Friday Vocabulary
1. beetle — to overhang, to project; to hang over with menace Try as I might, I could not completely ignore the beetling mounds of paper precariously perched upon the shelves of the boarder’s salon or bedroom, which mounds threatened to fall upon us every time we inadvertently jostled the furniture. 2. cattywampus — …
110K Songs, for Real this time, no, seriously, I really Mean it
Yesterday, at approximately 4:51 PM, I heard my one hundred and ten thousandth track in iTunes. The particular track was a peppy instrumental version of “Fly Me to the Moon” from a Customusic sampler album. Customusic was — and still is, apparently (just don’t click on the main logo; the Customusic Web site does not …
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300 Books: The List (Part II)
And now comes the second half of the list of the most recently read hundred books, books numbers 251 to 300. You may peruse the first half of the list here. This latter half-century has slightly more variety than the first had, though the mystery genre still has the lion’s share. Book read #251 is …
300 Books: The List (Part I)
As promised earlier, here’s the list — or at least the first half — of the most recently read hundred books. Once again I strive to say a word or two about a volume or two in each set of ten books listed. I hope you shall not be too terribly bored, though if you …
Friday Vocabulary [UPDATED]
NOTE: Due to recently (24 August 2019) discovered repetition of a previously used vocabulary word, the offending entry has been replaced with a new word, definition, and example sentence. The original entry is preserved with strikethrough formatting. 1. mulligrubs — grumpiness; depressed state; bad mood or temper I would not pester him with your request …