"Pellucid"...what on earth does that mean I wondered when I read the unfamiliar word in an article last week. It means clear and is often used in the context of water which would make sense as it was referring to a river.
That little revelation got me thinking....I am a terror for just skim reading over unfamiliar words these days or making an educated guess. For a couple of days I wrote down every new one I encountered....these are they culled from various books, magazines and crosswords that I dipped my nose into.....scut, asinine,funambulist, kismet, conflagration, ulna, erse, coruscations. Some I have heard of, but never used.
So the new word for today is axilla.....that's armpit to you and me. Perhaps if I paid a little more attention some of these new findings might stick around in my noggin for a little longer!!
Arilx
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I read somewhere of how many different words the average person actually uses regularly - it wasn't many and young people are using even less. So many words being lost
ReplyDeleteHad a similar experience reading the Edmund Crispin mysteries: my copies of his books now feature a glossary handwritten on the back blank pages.
ReplyDelete(Also gleaned some insight into liturgical music of the English Anglican Church.)
Brilliant idea :) I'm the same - gloss of words I don't quite get - might come in useful sometime to actually now what they mean lol
ReplyDelete