So, every day I am sent a “word of the day.” About half the time, I already know what these words mean, the other half of the time I am either stumped, or I sort of know what they mean in context. For awhile, I saved the latter half in a folder in my hotmail account, because I’m a word nerd. But it started taking up too much space, so I have selected the stumpiest ones and placed them here for the delight of my many, many readers. All five of you. Enjoy! The glory of language!
Yaaaaaaaaay.
From that list, I don’t know the following
zeugma
florilegium
deke
trichotillomania
opusculum
superficies
deracinate
Now I’m headed to my dictionary.
I can’t find “deke”–did they give you a definition?
Psst… click on the words… 🙂
Gaaaah. I’m an idiot.
But I did my homework!
Wow. Totally awesome. Some really surprised me, but I suppose it’s because I’ve heard them used in different contexts and didn’t associate the word immediately with the meaning. E.g. There’s a mummichog (kind of fish) whose Latin name is “Fundulus diaphanous” (I kid you not). The only difference I see with it and the “Fundulus heteroclitus” is that the former has stripes. Hence, I figured the word “diaphanous” had something to do with stripes. Who knew it meant translucent (that doesn’t make sense! They’re naming fish all wrong!!).
I’m going to try and use some of these in a sentence this week. We’ll see how it goes.
Perhaps the word was used to mean “delicate”?
speaking of words, how did the 50k novel go?
Ohhh… that…
Hey! Look over there! Isn’t that Big Foot?!
heh…it did seem like a daunting challenge.
i might try it next year though, it does sound
worthwhile to give it a shot.
Oh my heavens above, I love this entry!
And I will respond to it on my own LJ, because otherwise my comment would be longer than your entire post.