Words of the Day, 2009

When I encounter a word I don’t know, or don't know well, I look it up and write it on a list. Often later, reviewing the list, I've forgotten what the word means, this word that had such audacity as to be new to me—me, a word person, right? So I look it up again, and since I’ve read its meaning once before, the word is a little more familiar. But it's now bereft of context, detached from its original mooring, stripped clean, incorporeal. It's no longer noun or adjective or verb; it cannot do the work of meaning making. It just lies indignantly among its brethren, waiting.

I look at this list every day, lately, this impertinent, chanting crowd: violacious, adumbrate, exculpate, eidetic. And I pluck one word from its raucous company, and give it primacy that day. One day recently was cathexis. It was a deeply cathexis day. Another day was jejune, another revenant.

And so the word, connected to its day, re-acquires context, meaning, its queer significance. It can do some work, and so it lives again. 

addlepated adumbrate ambage ambit ambsace anent anodyne antipodal aperçu apothegm apposite argot asperse assay asseveration atrabilious augury bathos bight bonnyclapper carom cathexis cenobite chimera cidevant crepitate demotic dithyrambic doppelgänger dulcet echolalia éclat eidetic elision

enate endomusia equerry eristic esurient exculpate exiguous fantod farrago febrile felix culpa fixity folderol frit gelid gnomic grimalkin hamartia heliopause heuristic hight holpen hortatory ignominy illation inveigle invigilate isogloss jejune jeremiad kilderkin landrace lanthorn magus

malefic manqué merlon metonymy monitory noumenon nowell numinous panegyric parvenu pelage pelf pellucid percipience peripeteia perspicuous philter pinguid pis aller plangent plash pleonastic pneuma popliteal praxis prolix propinquity prosody punctilio purlieu radix refulgent revenant rubescent

runcible sanguine sapid sate sept shrive sigil solecism stilly stochastic stria sublunary surcease syncretize temerarious thew thill threnody Torschlusspanik triskelion twee ungual uxorious veraison videlicet violaceous virescent vocable wattle witting wont

Comments

[Meg Houston Maker]

Actually, full disclosure: I did know some of these words before I used them as words of the day. But they're just such cool words, and they sound so great when you say them, that they went on the list anyway. Words like dulcet, doppelgänger, wont, and magus; isogloss, heuristic, sanguine, and twee.

Et cetera, ad infinitem. Amen.