Tag: wondrous words

from the past week\’s reading. These new words I came across while reading The Marsh Lions:

Internecine– \”…. which prevents the lions from wasting their energies in senseless internecine warfare.\”
Definition: fatal to both side, mutually destructible

Volplane– \”At once his keen eager eyes picked out the inert shape on the ground, and he began his own stupdendous fall to earth, the wind hissing through his primary feathers as he vol-planed out of the blue.\”
Definition: to glide towards the earth (in a plane) with the engine cut off

Gralloch– \”For long periods he would disappear altogether, patrolling the outer reaches of his territory, until the gralloched corpse of a young impala dangling from one of his larder trees announced his return.\”
Definition: to remove the entrails of (especially a deer)

Kopje– \”The kopjes are very old.\”
Definition: a small hill rising up from the African plain

Ineluctable– \”Her nostrils drew in a tangle of ripe odours: geese and reedbucks, buffalo dung, rotting flesh, lion, grass, wildebeest and the black ineluctable reek of the Marsh itself.
Definition: unavoidable, inescapable

Corsair– \”Mysterious, elusive, enigmatic, they were the restless corsairs of the wide grass oceans.\”
Definition: a pirate, or a swift pirate ship

Vernal– \”The sound of the grass was in the wind, and its rank vernal smell was everywhere.\”
Definition: occurring in the spring, or fresh and youthful

Alate– \”All over the plains, their mounds and mud chimneys erupted, releasing hordes of winged alates into the waiting mouths….\”
Definition: having wings, or wing-like extensions

Riparian– \”There she grew up, a fierce recluse, keeping to the dense riparian forests…\”
Definition: on the banks of a river

Pronk– \”Some of the territorial bucks began to pronk, bouncing away in stiff-legged alarm.\”
Definition: to jump straight up

for more wondrous words, visit this meme\’s host Bermudaonion

I did want to write a book post, as I just finished No Room in the Ark. I have new words from that one, too, but not looked up yet. Either my head is too achy to think straight, or the cold medicine is making me sleepy- I\’m not up to writing well, now. All the BBAW posts are putting me in a whirl. Maybe next year…

9/19/09 Edit to add: here are the ones from No Room in the Ark:

Grenadilla– \”…we entered hot groves of semi-tropical fruits, oranges and grenadillas, pineapples and bananas.\”
Definition: fruit of the passionflower vine

Cafard– \”But it was not enough to beguile loneliness, to keep the cafard at bay.\”
Definition: this is a French word, and I think it means depression or apathy

Propinquity– \”This propinquity was altogether too much for one of our drivers who had not before this ventured far outside Nairobi.\”
Definition: close in time, place or relationship (in this case, close to a lion)

Intransigence– \”And the issue was still further confused by the fact that the Masai, perhaps because of their very toughness and intransigence, are rather admired by white men in Africa…\”
Definition: stubbornly refusing to compromise

from Oryx and Crake:

Vermiform– \”He\’d used the vermiform appendix as the base on which to construct the necessary organ…\”
Definition: shaped like a worm, long and thin

Inchoate– \”… events had marked him, he\’d had his own scars, his dark emotions. Ignorant, perhaps. Unformed, inchoate.\”
Definition: in an early stage, not yet fully developed

Troglodyte– \”He was feeling more and more like a troglodyte.\”
Definition: a primitive person who lives in a cave

Plangent– \”Maybe they\’d pick it up now, in time for a heartfelt, plangent, and action-filled finale.\”
Definition: expressing sadness, or: loud and resounding

Homogenized– \”Just in time, fear has homogenized his bowels.\”
Definition: to make uniform in consistency, especially through a fluid (ew)

Snaffle– \”He fills up an empty beer bottle with boiled water, then snaffles a standard-issue micro-fibre laundry bag from the bedroom…\”
Definition: to seize quickly and easily

and from The Cats of Lamu:

Raconteur– \”A great raconteur, Kay was full of fun and always ready for a put-on or a joke, which the locals loved- when they understood the sometimes alien punch line.\”
Definition: a person skilled at telling stories

Find more new words at this meme\’s host: Bermudaonion.

A day late, with this meme. Well, here are the rest of the new words I found, in Search for the Golden Moon Bear:

Ordnance– \”Unexploded ordnance still infects the countryside.\”
Definition: weapons and other military supplies

Epiphyte– \”The trees along the Mekong have epiphytes– ferns, orchids, and sometimes even cactic perch harmlessly on the branches…\”
Definition: a plant that grows on another plant for support but does not take nutrients from it

Echelon– \”No wonder he was still awaiting approval from the upper echelons of the Forest Department to proceed with his reintroduction plans…\”
Definition: a level of power or responsibility

and from Daughters of the Sunstone:

Rapproachement– \”She had made a final rapprochment with herself while she slept.\”
Definition: the re-establishment of friendly relations

Renege– \”Finally, Reyna guessed, she had grown so oppressed by the daily terror of waking and realizing that her challenge still lay ahead that she had simply gone, impulsively, without preparation or ceremony, before she could renege.\”
Definition: to renounce, disown; to fail to carry out a promise or commitment

Abrogate– \”Aberra had gone, abrogating every tradition of a palace daughter\’s leave-taking.\”
Definition: to abolish, do away with, cancel; especially by invested authority

Diffidently– \”The hall monitor approached and spoke diffidently, his wizened face concerned.\”
Definition: timidly, reserved

Impinge– \”Every sensory clue impinged upon her, demanding its brief moment of attention.\”
Definition: to trespass, encroach upon

for more wondrous words, visit Bermudaonion\’s Weblog

These words I came across when reading The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle:

Obstreperous– \”He was such an enormous man there was no knowing what he might do if he got really obstreperous.\”
Definition: noisy, aggressively defiant and difficult to control

Embrocation– \”… the Doctor took a large bottle of embrocation and began rubbing the sprain.\”
Definition: an ointment or lotion

Enteric– \”They would go back to their old unsanitary ways: bad water, uncooked fish, no drainage, enteric fever, and the rest.\”
Definition: of the intestines

These words are from The Snowflake:

Nanoscale– \”Yet self-assembly is hard to fathom because it usually involves either nanoscale objects, like the molecules in a crystal, or tremendously complex objects, like living things.\”
Definition: on a scale of nanometers, which is one billionth of a meter

Morphogenesis– \”A flower is a biological example of morphogenesis, the spontaneous creation of form- nature using chemistry and self-assembly to generate complexity.\”
Definition: formation of the structure of an organism, or a part thereof

And from the books I\’m currently reading, Search for the Golden Moon Bear:

Igneous– \”In a great igneous spine, they run for more than six hundred miles from the northeastern corner of Cambodia up along the border of Vietnam and Laos.\”
Definition: formed by molten rock cooling

Lyse– \”The chemicals would lyse, or burst the cells, and cause them to release their DNA.\”
Definition: to cause the disintegration of cells, by a chemical substance, antibody or enzyme

Montane– \”If Africa is a good analogy, montane rain forest spread down, but the lowland forest became savanna in what is now the Congo Basin.\”
Definition: of a mountain area

and Daughters of the Sunstone:

Compunction– \”I was busy,\” he said lamely, wondering how he had turned her away twice with no compunction.
Definition: uneasiness caused by guilt; feeling of regret

Inimical– \”He should have known before he encountered the arrogant Bullens, should have known before he challenged the Arnimi force curtain, that the Arnimi would be inimical to him.\”
Definition: harmful, injurious; hostile or unfriendly

Insipid– \”Tastes and scents grew insipid, colors dull, textures bland.\”
Definition: lacking in flavor, tasteless

Venality– \”Or did the women who governed them see that their venality was directed entirely outward?\”
Definition: susceptible to bribery, corruption; using a position of trust for dishonest gain

Compendium– \”She was the oldest mare of her herd and she carried the knowledge of their kind in the very tissues of her body, carried it like a compendium of redmane wisdom.\”
Definition: a summary of a larger work

Ostentatious– \”It was a crude weapon, but she worked on it ostentatiously, hefting it, testing its balance.\”
Definition: showy, pretentious. That doesn\’t quite seem to fit here. Does anyone know another definition?

Extemporize– \”It means our fathers were the same man once,\” Danior said, extemporizing. \”Though they are no longer, of course.\”
Definition: to do something without preparation or practice

That\’s a lot of new words! To see more, visit the host of this meme, Bermudaonion.

I\’m doing my wondrous words a day late. They all came from West with the Night, a book full of unfamiliar words, many (not listed here) which I could not find meanings for and only guessed at.

Muram– \”I peer ahead along the narrow muram runway.\”
Definition: a type of heavy, red clay soil used to pave roads

Posho– \”… the cedar forest that bounded our posho mill and paddocks.\”
Definition: a staple food in Africa made from ground maize and water

Syce– \”… she could be handled even by the syces.\”
Definition: a groom or stableman (word origins in India)

Manyatta– \”I could only wonder if he had been hurt and taken into a manyatta by some of the Masai Murani…\”
Definition: a Masai community made up of several huts enclosed by a fence

Magneto– \”Woody and I were preparing to take off for Nairobi and a doctor- and a new magneto, if one could be had.\”
Definition: a device that produces alternating current for distribution to the spark plugs, used in the ignition systems of some internal-combustion engines

Kiboko– \”… Bwana Elkington, who is saying a great many words I do not know and is carrying a long kiboko which he holds in his hand and is meant for beating the large lion.\”
Definition: a heavy leather whip

Profligate– \”He was profligate with money- his own and what he could borrow; but he spent nothing on himself and was scrupulously honest.\”
Definition: recklessly wasteful

Reimpie– \”It began with the stirring of Buller alseep, as always, at the foot of my reimpie bed in the mud and daub hut we shared together…\”
Definition: having a seat (or in this case a platform) of woven rawhide thongs

Donga– \”The lion that stood in the donga was not intimidated by Arab Maina\’s stare.\”
Definition: a dry gully

Lucerne– \”She nibbles at a single leaf of lucerne, too small to be tasted, then shambles on sluggish feet across the box.\”
Definition: alfalfa (in Britian and Australia)

Enure– \”It is an ancient lamp…. It is crumpled and slatternly, enured to failure, as if no man with hope in his fingers had ever trimmed its wick.\”
Definition: inure; to habituate oneself to something unpleasant

Nonage– \”… he will walk behind me now, when once, in the simplicity of our nonage, we walked together.\”
Definition: a period of immaturity

Strabismus– \”Please report to the examiners within three months and, if you have not contracted strabismus, or a melancholy point of view in regard to this Board, we will be happy to renew your permit.\”
Definition: a condition where the eyes are not aligned with each other

Sansevieria– \”Land on sansevieria and your plane is skewered like a duck pinned for taxidermy- land in it and walk away.\”
Definition: a type of shrubby, succulent perennial plant native to the Old World

Nostrum– \”…. each beckoning with such enthusiasm that I concluded the gin, rather than the quinine, was the nostrum immediately required.\”
Definition: \”patented\” medicine with secret ingredients (usually a quack remedy)

Snickersnee– \”The only difference is that the steer has neither the ability nor the chance to outwit the gentleman who wields the slaughterhouse snickersnee…\”
Definition: a large knife (slang, of Dutch origin)

Virescent– \”I think we were simply depressed beyond words with the business of hanging for so long a time under such a flat blue sky and above such a flat virescent swamp.\”
Definition: becoming green

Lachrymose– \”They are silent, limp or lachrymose, and in their midst sits Blix the Unsinkable- a monument of miserable sobriety, bleak as a lonely rock jutting from a lonely sea.\”
Definition: being tearful, or causing one to weep

Bermudaonion hosts this meme

I forgot to do this post yesterday, but I have been jotting down the new words in my reading! All these came from Maggie-Now, which I\’ve just finished.

Chromo– \”Ah, well, he thought, \’tis better to have the old Chromo\’s picture in the house rather than the old Chromo herself in person, sitting here and coming between husband and wife.\”
Definition: slang for a useless, annoying person, or a person of low moral standard

Lisle– \”Patsy… as was traditional with men, eying the women in their bathing suits, their legs in long, black lisle stocks and the ruffles of bloomers showing beneath knee-length skirts.\”
Definition: a finely spun cotton thread, used to make stockings and cotton underwear

Pot cheese– \” \’I\’ll have pot cheese and chives,\’ said Mary, \’and coffee.\’ \”
Definition: cottage cheese

Fagoting– \”I could teach them hemstitching and darning and fagoting and how to make buttonholes…\”
Definition: a type of decorative stitching that ties parallel threads together in groups

Shillelagh– \”She gave him a present in return – a knotty shillelagh, a treasure that had belonged to her first husband. He was proud of it, Pat was, and carried it with him whenever he went out, wishing he could get into an argument and make use of it.\”
Definition: a club made of heavy wood

Bollix– \”… well, Denny got everything all bollixed up.\”
Definition: to throw into confusion, make a mess of something

Lagniappe– \”Winer had never come across the word \’lagniappe\’. Yet he and many other storekeepers observed the custom.\”
Definition: a small gift given by a store owner to a customer with their purchase

For more wondrous words, visit this meme\’s host, Bermudaonion.

All my words this week came from reading Irving Stone\’s account of Darwin\’s travels aboard the Beagle, which I am beginning to find tiresome. I\’ve gotten through almost 300 pages of The Origin and find myself putting down the book, reading another one entire, and then wondering if I want to come back to it…

Inveterate– \”… both the Darwin and Wedgewood families had good libraries and were inveterate readers, but for enjoyment rather than education.\”
Definition: habitual, or well-established

Litmus– \”… he has a brain in that large skull of his, not only for sopping up knowledge like litmus paper, but for speculative theory.\”
Definition: a paper that turns red in acidic solutions and blue in alkaline; derived from lichens

Redoubtable– \”Even our redoubtable Wickham gets seasick in smaller boats.\”
Definition: worthy of resepect or honor; inspiring awe or fear

Desideratum– \”Size is not the ultimate desideratum.\”
Definition: something considered very neccessary

Davit– \”Twenty-five-foot whaleboats hung from the Beagle\’s quarter davits…\”
Definition: a small crane that suspends over the side of a ship for hoisting objects

Holystone– \”It was the midshipmen who caught the blast of his temper if a single spot of the deck had not been holystoned to a high gloss…\”
Definition: a soft sandstone used to scour the deck of a ship

Argot– \”He enjoyed listening to the argot of the sailors, gradually coming to understand the meaning of such terms as yar, swabber, wind-bound in a port…\”
Definition: slang or jargon used by a particular group of people

Factotum– \”The party included a young friend of the Scotsman named Gosling, a Brazilian guide from the interior; a black boy to serve as general factotum.\”
Definition: a person employed to do all kinds of work, mainly as an assistant

for more wondrous words, visit Bermudaonion\’s Weblog

On another note, I\’ve been rather neglectful of responding to comments and such because we have a houseguest this week (old friend of my husband\’s) and being hostess diverts my time and attention away from some of my favorite things (reading and blogging). A few days ago Jules so kindly gave me the Bookworms Award for Bookfriends. I just love the button for this award, which is for those book bloggers we truly appreciate. I followed the trail of this award back to another book blog new to me, Miscellaneous Mumblings.

I\’d like to pass this award on to some of the book blogs I\’ve more recently discovered. I don\’t know them very well yet, but I do know they share a love of books with me, and all the rest of you! This goes to: Read Quoi?, YA Fabulous, Under the Dresser, You GOTTA Read This, and Words by Annie.

New words I came across in the past week, from Seaworthy:

Parsimonious– \”He could be, on occasion, so strict in its practice and parsimonious with air that he would rhythmically breathe himself into a faint.\”
Definition: excessively frugal

Bauxite– \”She…. was the sort of creature who could readily construe a voyage on a bauxite freighter to obscure malarial ports in the West Indies a vacation.\”
Definition: a claylike substance that is the main source of aluminum

Enervating– \”Perhaps the enervating climate had something to do with it.\”
Definition: weakening, depriving of strength (medically, to remove nerves)

Consomme– \”Willis, quite beyond dissected parrots and primate consomme, was saltogether doomed.\”
Definition: a clear soup or rich broth

Eructation– \”Though he was slow to regain his stamina and feared a relapse with every twinge and eructation, Willis\’s ulcer failed to plague him further…\”
Definition: belching

Trimaran– \”Willis decided that his new raft would be a trimaran constructed of three steel pontoons…\”
Definition: a small, fast sailboat with three parallel hulls

and from Splendid Solution:

Tony– \”The blocks around the university, however, turned out to be far too tony for the $2,100 per year a researcher like Salk would be making…\”
Definition: markedly elegant or exclusive

Cachet– \”Corporate and political leaders like Edsel Ford and Averell Harriman joined the foundation board to lend it clout and cachet.\”
Definition: a mark of distinction or authenticity

Protean– \”The virus that caused the disease was an especially protean one, mutating from year to year and place to place.\”
Definition: able to constantly change shape or form, widely variable

Billet– \”But there were a lot of other investigators seeking the glamorous Berkeley billet as well…\”
Definition: a position of employment (more commonly, lodging for troops)

Interregnum– \”He…. studied viruses at Rockfeller University during the interregnum between hostilities…\”
Definition: a gap in continuity, especially between a person of power\’s reign of office and their successor

Adjuvant– \”… he wanted to study new ways to inactivate the virus so it could be used in a vaccine, and new ways to fortify that vaccine with adjuvants.\”
Definition: a substance added to a drug to increase its effectiveness

Miscegnation– \”Nothing short of an attempt at intravenous miscegnation.\”
Definition: the \”mixing\” of different ethnic groups or races

for more wondrous words, visit this meme\’s host, Bermudaonion.

for this week, my new words came from reading Living to Tell the Tale:

Rarefy– \”He had a power of evocation so intense that each thing he recounted seemed to become visible in the room rarefied by heat.\”
Definition: to purify or refine

Tutelary– \”The two tutelary almond trees that for years had been an unequivocal sign of identity had been cut down to the roots and the house left exposed to the elements.\”
Definition: one that serves as guardian or protector

Shirred– \”Recent generations do not seem moved by that princess with the shirred skirts, little white boots, and a braid hanging down to her waist…\”
Definition: cloth gathered into decorative rows by parallel stitches

Tertian– \”She had spent an uncertain childhood plagued by tertian fevers…\”
Definition: recurring every other day, or every third day

Parvenu– \”The majority of adults, however, viewed Luisa Santiaga as the precious jewel of a rich and powerful family whom a parvenu telegraph operator was courting not for love but self-interest.\”
Definition: a person newly risen to a higher social position who is lacks the culture or education of that status

Obdurate– \”… he expressed his heartfelt certainty that there was no human power capable of overcoming this obdurate love.\”
Definition: obstinate, hardhearted

and from Celebrating the Wild Mushroom:

Mycologist– \”The squadron leader is Kent McKnight, a highly respected professional mycologist who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.\”
Definition: a botanist who specializes in the study of fungi

Umbonate, Fibrillose– \”I knew immediately when a cap was striated or fibrillose, whether it was bell-shaped or umbonate.\”
U: having a knob or knob-like protuberance
F: covered evenly with small, threadlike fibers

Glabrous, Viscid– \”Is it glabrous or viscid?\”
G: smooth, having no hairs or projections
V: having a sticky or clammy coating

Amyloid– \”They are all pale yellow- to brown-capped, are amyloid, and posses a ring and a bulbous base.\”
Definition: a starchlike substance

Balkanized– \”Even within the genera, rules change from year to year, as old characteristics are reevaluated and new ones discovered; whole groups of mushrooms are balkanized while others are unified.\”
Definition: a territory or region divided into small, hostile states

Mycophogist– \”For mycophagists, they are a pleasant dream, and it matters not at all what they are called.\”
Definition: a person (or animal) who eats fungi

Tomentose– \”He goes outside and returns with his tennis racket covered with a magnificent array of chestnut-capped boletes in perfect condition, their pale pink pores firm, their thick, white, slightly tomentose stipes solid enough to walk on.\”
Definition: covered with short, dense matted hairs

Saprophyte– \”There are still thousands of varieties out there doing their job, acting as saprophytes or trading nutrients with trees and shrubs.\”
Definition: a living organism that absorbs its nourishment from dead organic matter

Duxelle– \”… with a little care you will have a full winter supply of ingredients for stews and ragouts, quiches, duxelles and omelettes.\”
Definition: a finely chopped mix of mushrooms, shallots, herbs and onions sauteed in wine

Duff– \”As with so many other mushrooms, the first one is the hardest to spot, and more often than not a little digging among the pine duff will produce more…\”
Definition: decaying leaves and branches on the forest floor

Find more wondrous words at the host of this meme, Bermudaonion\’s Weblog

New to me from Edward Abbey! These words are from my reading of Desert Solitaire:

Usufructary– \”Within this vast perimeter… are the 33,000 acres of Arches National Monument of which I am now sole inhabitant, usufructary, observer and custodian.\”
Definition: one who holds the right to use or enjoy profits from something belonging to another, as long as it is not damaged or altered

Potable– \”I dip my hands into the water and sample some. Pretty bad, neither potable nor palatable.\”
Definition: fit to drink

Pismire– \”Neurotic little pismires.\”
Definition: an ant

Vinegaroon, Solpugid– \”Watch out for rattlesnakes, coral snakes, whip snakes, vinegaroons, centipedes… kissing bugs, solpugids, tarantulas, horned toads, gila monsters, red ants, fire ants, jeruslaem crickets, chinch bugs and giant hairy desert scorpions before being seated.\”
V: the whip scorpion
S: a family of arachnids with large, powerful fangs and segmented abdomens

Tularemia– \”…the flesh is probably infected with tularemia.\”
Definition: an infectious disease found in rodents, transferable to man

Mucilaginous– \”He particularly enjoyed the mucilaginous green pods of the okra…\”
Definition: moist and sticky

Spalled– \”… slabs of sandstone shook free of their ancient fastenings, spalled from the cliffs and crashed with a sound like thunder into the heave and roar of the flood.\”
Definition: broken into chips or fragments

Syllogism– \”To me death was little more than a fascinating abstraction, the conclusion to a syllogism or the denouement of a stage drama.\”
Definition: a form of deductive reasoning moving from the general to the specific

Basque– \”Three of us, Roy, his Basque hired man Viviano Jacquez, and myself.\”
Definition: person from an area of the western Pyrenees in France and Spain

Strontium-\”We think we have forgotten but we cannot forget- the knowledge is lodged like strontium in the marrow of our bones…\”
Definition: soft, silvery metallic element used in making fireworks and signal flares

Chert– \”… you may find chipping grounds scattered with hundreds of fragments of flint or chert where the Anasazi hunters worked their arrowpoints.\”
Definition: a hard, brittle sedimentary rock consisting of microcrystalline quartz

Pecuniary– \”And whether good or bad in strictly pecuniary terms, industrial tourism exacts a spiritual price from those dependent upon it for their livelihood.\”
Definition: relating to money

Pellucid– \”The desert storm is over and through the pure sweet pellucid air the cliff swallows and the nighthawks plunge and swerve…\”
Definition: transparent or translucent, allowing light to pass through

Estivation– \”This little animal lives through dry spells in a state of estivation under the dried-up sediment in the bottom of a hole.\”
Definition: an inactive state of dormancy through which some animals pass the heat of summer

Couloir– \”The mountains are almost bare of snow except for patches within the couloirs on the northern slopes.\”
Definition: a deep mountainside gorge

Panegyric– \”… he would write of the canyon as a whole in panegyric accent.\”
Definition: formal speech or writing that praises a person, or an event

Alluvium– \”I find what looks like a deerpath leading up over an alluvium hill…\”
Definition: sand, silt, clay, gravel, or other sediment deposited by flowing water

Sachem– \”… we float on our backs in the still water, squat on the cool sand under the sheltering cottonwoods and smoke like sachems.\”
Definition: chief of a Native American tribe or confederation

Insouciant– \”… back to the greater world of Glen Canyon and the steady, powerful, unhurried, insouciant Colorado.\”
Definition: carefree, unconcerned

Defenestration– \”No man could have asked for a lovelier defenestration.\”
Definition: throwing something (particularly a person) out of a window

Febrile– \”Deliberately I compose my mind, quiet the febrile buzzing of the cells and circuits…\”
Definition: active and nervous, or feverish

Emunction– \”… with their sanctified ritual for nasal emunction: only one nostril may be discharged at a time, etc.\”
Definition: removing an obstruction from a body passage

these words from The Journey Home:

Scoriation– \”The bright enamel finish was scarred and scoriated, dulled by a film of dust.\”
Definition: a loosely cut groove or furrow characterized by the presence of material from what cut it

Camber– \”The car clanked forward on an oblique axis, crabwise, humping up and down on the eccentric camber of the flat.\”
Definition: a slightly arched surface

Panicle– \”The bear grass, with its showy panicle of flowers on a two- or three-foot stalk, is the most striking flower in the Glacier.\”
Definition: a loosely branched cluster of flowers

Ersatz– \”And what a terrible price most of us have to pay for… the luxuriously packaged ersatz food in the supermarkets…\”
Definition: an artificial imitation or substitute

I also came across azimuth again, which I remember finding in Quicksilver. I recognized it right away, glad that it stuck! It was used here thus: \”When the lookout spots a fire, he aims this device at the center of the smoke… and obtains an azimuth reading from the fixed base of the fire finder.\”

Visit Bermudaonion\’s Weblog for more wondrous words.