Again, my new words come from two books. The first few are from Compost This Book! Then we get into Quicksilver, a heavy tome rich with descriptive unknowns. This is just the beginning of what I\’m going to be looking up in the next week or so (it\’s a 900-page book)!
From Compost This Book!:
Geriatric– \”There\’d be a whole ecosystem in miniature lurking in that geriatric vegetable.\”
Definition: relating to the aging process
Sybaritic-\”When Marty\’s heap is really cooking, the sybaritic creature is nearly always stretched out on top, luxuriating in the warmth.\”
Definition: devoted to or marked by pleasure and luxury
Chelating– \”Like the sugar coating on a pill, the chelating humus makes the minerals palatable….\”
Definition: to combine (a metal ion) with a chemical compound to form a ring
From Quicksilver:
Doppelganger– \”Now he knows why: his doppelganger is a lad, moving about like a drop of quicksilver that cannot be trapped under the thumb.\”
Definition: a ghostly double of a living person that haunts its living counterpart
Erudition– \”We have, as I said, found the place where your erudition gives way to ignorance.\”
Definition: profound scholarly knowledge
Mephitic– \”They break out into the mephitic bog on its western flank.\”
Definition: poisonous or foul-smelling
Azimuth– \”The schoolmaster adjusted his azimuth as the target moved, like a telescope tracking a comet, but none of his blows seemed to have actually been felt by the fair boy yet…\” (this usage does not make sense to me, with the def.s I could find)
Definition: the arc of the sky between the zenith and the horizon or the horizontal angle of a bearing measured clockwise from the north (in surveying)
Ontogeny– \”\”There was a dollhouse and a clan of rag dolls in diverse phases of ontogeny.\”
Definition: the origin and development of an individual organism from embryo to adult
Empiricist– \”Oh, he will be a great empiricist.\”
Definition: one who disregards scientific theory and relies solely on practical experience
Visit Wondrous Words Wednesdays at Bermudaonion\’s Weblog.