Accismus is a useful term for pretending to be disinterested in something when you actually want it. Pull this word out when you see someone acting like he doesn’t want the last donut.
lexicon
1) A dictionary.
2) A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary.
Ex: The lexicon of football, such as hike, pass, lateral, and punt.
Apricate (verb)
A beautiful and uncommon word based on a Latin term, apricate means to bask in the sunshine. Pull this gem out when you’re commenting on your cat’s behavior or writing about your last trip to the beach.
Example: "The cat lay apricating on the back of the couch near the window."
Analogue
something having the property of being analogous to something else, parallel, similarity - the quality of being similar.
Ex: the horned lizard of the United States and the moloch or thorny devil of Australia are analogues. Both feed on ants, and have defensive horns on the skin, but they are unrelated.
Metanoia (noun)
When you’re talking about a fundamental shift in how someone sees something, you’re talking about metanoia. This is a great unusual word to use in essays.
Example: "The conquering country required complete metanoia from those it ruled; they must believe in the ideals of the rulers, not just pay lip service."
Insouciant (adjective)
Someone who is very calm and doesn’t seem bothered by the concerns of daily life can be described as insouciant. This is a great positive word to use in a variety of situations.
Example: "The rain began to fall, but she turned her face up to it with the insouciant joy of someone who doesn't mind forgetting an umbrella."
Gerunds are words that are formed with verbs but act as nouns. They’re very easy to spot, since every gerund is a verb with ing tacked to its tail. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Like all things grammar, gerunds do take a tiny bit of detective work to spot. The problem here is that present participles also end with the letters ing. Besides being able to spot gerunds, you should be able to tell the difference between a gerund and a present participle.
Let’s go back to the definition of a gerund for a moment. Remember that gerunds are words that are formed with verbs but act as nouns. Present participles do not act as nouns. Instead, they act as modifiers or complete progressive verbs. To find gerunds in sentences, just look for a verb + ing that is used as a noun. It’s that simple.
Examples of Gerunds
As you read these examples of gerunds, notice the verbs they contain, and notice that every single one of them ends in ing. By the end of this quick lesson, you’ll have no problem recognizing gerunds when you see them.
Swimming in the ocean has been Sharon’s passion since she was five years old.
The ballerina taught us dancing.
Apologizing to me isn’t enough this time.
She is afraid of flying.
They are capable of doing hard work.
diaphanous
A word I've been searching for in vain and just now stumbled upon. I like it when that happens m
dī-ăf′ə-nəs
adjective
Sufficiently thin or airy as to be translucent.
Of such fine composition as to be easily damaged or broken; delicate.
Allowing light to pass through, as porcelain; translucent or transparent; pellucid
Frolloped
Iain CM Gray - Writer
@iaincmgray
·
1h
I don't usually do this when I'm writing, but tonight I made up a word. I've used the word frolloped to describe the movement a decapitated dead body makes when shocked with a cattle prod.
What do you think? (Apart from, **** what a horrible thing to do, my MC is nasty).
Alliteration--
Long word meaning using identical letters at the beginning of consecutive words. Cute when done intentionally but assiduously avoided in formal writing.
assiduous--
Performed with constant diligence, unremitting.
Loquacious--
Very talkative, wordy
Pretentious--
Marked by an extravagant or presumptuous outward show; ostentatious
@coluber2001,
Titular
It sounds grand, but it merely refers to the title
"Relating to, having the nature of, or constituting a title."
Elmer Gantry is the titular protagonist.
Restive
adj 1. restless, nervous, or uneasy
Respite
rĕs′pĭt
A usually short period of rest or relief. synonym: pause.
A bit of rest
Spam
Junk mail online.
Meat product in a can containing unknown ingredients, maybe even to the manufacturer. Nevertheless, it formed a goodly portion of my diet at one time.
@coluber2001,
I ate Spam for dinner last night.
@edgarblythe,
I used to love it, but I'm mostly vegetarian now.
@coluber2001,
I eat a big salad with most every dinner. A wide variety of veggies.
Pareidolia
păr″ī-dō′lē-ə
1.The perception of a recognizable image or meaningful pattern where none exists or is intended, as the perception of a face in the surface features of the moon.
2. The tendency to interpret a vaguestimulus as something known to the observer, such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals, seeing shapes in clouds, or hearing hidden messages in music.
Synesthesia
"A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color."
The mixing up of two senses, such ad hearing colors or seeing music. The only way I can relate to that is remembering having a high fever and, while listening to music, I would see patterns. I don't know if that's the same thing.
What's the meaning of the phrase 'What the dickens'?
'What the dickens...' is an intensified form of simple 'what...?' questions.
For example, the question 'what is that weird flashing light in the sky?' might be intensified to 'what the dickens is that weird flashing light in the sky?'.
The 'dickens' intensifier is used in various questions - 'where the dickens?', 'why the dickens?', how the dickens?', but 'what the dickens' is by far the most commonly used.
All of the above forms are rather antiquated and you are more likely to come across them in period dramas than in everyday speech.
Two great English writers are often associated with the phrase 'what the dickens'. No surprise that one of them is Charles Dickens - the other is William Shakespeare.
As it turns out, the phrase has nothing to do with either of them.
Dickens is a euphemism for the word devil, possibly via devilkins. A devilkin is a diabolical imp - a king of mini-devil.
Euphemisms that avoid mention of either God or the devil are known as minced-oaths and 'what the dickens' is an archetypal example of that form.
Shakespeare used 'what the dickens' in 'the Merry Wives of Windsor, 1600:
I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.
The bard didn't coin the expression though. The earliest use in print that I know of is in a play by the Tudor writer Thomas Heywood - 1st Part King Edward IV, 1599:
By my hood ye make me laugh, what the dickens is it love that makes ye prate to me so fondly, by my fathers soule I would I had job'd faces with you.
Two words there don't translate easily into modern-day English - prate and job'd. Prate is straightforward, in that it means 'chatter/prattle'. Job'd is less so. The word is used in other texts as a variant spelling of 'jabbed' and I can find no other meaning for it. However, that meaning doesn't seem to make sense in the context of the citation above. I have to admit defeat on this one.
As far as 'what the dickens' goes, Heywood beat Shakespeare to the punch by one year and Dickens by more than 200. What the dickens he meant by job'd, I really don't know
Futz
Usually followed by "around," such as to futz around. My mother frequently used this phrase. It sounds like the common f word, but it apparently has a Yiddish derivation.
