Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. These first few words I came across in Sandy:
Caruncular– \”…. when the feathers began to rub away, exposing more and more of the caruncular red of maturity.\”
Definition: a fleshy naked outgrowth, like a chicken\’s wattles
Termagant– \”For almost sixteen years, Sandy dominated my marriage like a termagant mother-in-law…\”
Definition: an overbearing or nagging woman
The rest are from A Paddling of Ducks:
Cote– \”The birds were reared in their pigeon cotes with small jackets around their wings preventing their stretching or exercising.\”
Definition: a small shelter for birds (or sheep)
Trophic– \”Baby wood ducks have an instinctive, almost a trophic response for the first forty-eight hours after hatching.\”
Definition: stimulating growth? the meanings I found all had to do with nutrition…
Gudgeon– \”It looked to me like some green greasy gudgeon of the Limpopo…\”
Definition: A small eurasian freshwater fish related to the carp and used for bait
Cytologist– \”Dr. Yamashina, the well-known Japanese cytologist and ornithologist, has proposed a new theory about these birds.\”
Definition: one who studies the structure, formation and function of cells
Welter– \”Sir David carefully unlocked the cabinet, reached in, and abstracted from the welter a small package wrapped in a sheet of newspaper.\”
Definition: a confused mass or jumble
Fatuously– \”… the birds will swim upstream, as it were, into the breeze, curious to see the dog, and led along by the fatuously tame mallards.\”
Definition: unreal, delusive
I started doing a new thing with my discovered words this week. Every time I jotted down a word on my notepaper, I also wrote next to it what I thought the word meant. I found that more often than not, I already had a pretty good idea, sometimes it was a word I\’d run into before. The ones I share with you here are words I totally had no idea on, or the definition was a lot more specific than what I guessed. Happy reading!
8 Responses
I love your idea of guessing what the word means! I think a lot of people don't look up new words because they think they've figured it out. Thanks for playing along today.
Ewww, caruncular is yucky. But I like welter.
It's amazing how much you can get just taking the word in context. I try to do that but sometimes I have absolutely no idea. Unfortunately I'm too lazy to write down words or look them up at this point. I used to carry a pocket dictionary with me all over the place.
You know, I really ought to do this, as I realize so often I just guess at the meanings of words because of context. I think I knew what fatuously meant, but now I know I was wrong!Also, I've given you an award–come by and check it out: http://tiny.cc/3OU2RYes, because you are awesome 🙂
Bermudaonion- I used to do that all the time- just guess and keep reading. Now I realize half the time I guessed wrong!Jenny- isn't it? Every time I came across the word in text, even though I knew it meant the bird's bald head, I kept thinking of some cancerous disease…Trish- Yeah, half of the time I'm pretty close to the mark. And some other times I'm wayyy off!Gentle Reader- Thanks for the award! That's so cool.
Cytologist actually makes sense… like cytoplasm. And gudgeon just sounds like a fun word to use in a sentence.
Gudgeon made me think of a weapon, a heavy club. But of course that didn't fit the sentence, I figured it was some kind of ugly fish or eel.
I agree, it's a great idea to try to guess the meaning of words before you look them up. I think I'm going to start doing that too. All your words were new to me except for welter!