This week, my words are from The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian. There are a number of herbalists in the story, so a number of my words are associated with plants and herbs.

1. Scapes - A long, leafless flower stalk coming directly from a root.

“Reseda Hill stood in her greenhouse a few steps in front of Anise, inspecting the scapes on the coral root she had transplanted earlier that winter.”

2. Amalki – Indian Gooseberry, Amlaki is known as a rasayana herb that enhances and restores the process of conservation, transformation and resurgence of the life force.

“Basil and parsley had no business mixing with hypnobium, belladonna, or amalaki.”

3. Epazote - A Mexican herb that has a very strong taste and sometimes has a gasoline or perfumey type odor. It has been used in Mexican cuisine for thousands of years dating back to the Aztecs.

“Reseda misted the hypnobium, epazote, and derangia in her greenhouse.”

And in case you were wondering about hypnobium and derangia, I think they are the author’s invention. I can’t find any reference to them elsewhere.

4. Amphisbaena - a serpent with a head at each end of its body

“Consequently, she stepped over the shin-high stone statue of amphisbaena, careful not to trip over either of the serpent’s heads (in myth, amphisbaena meat was an aphrodisiac; its skin could cure colds)”

5. Calandrinia - a large genus of low-growing herbs; widespread throughout tropical and warm temperate regions having usually basal leaves and panicles of purplish ephemeral flowers.

“The rosemary and the calandrinia?”

6. Niveous - Snowy or resembling snow

“…how you never grew less enamoured of the niveous white magnificence of clouds as you gazed down at them from thirty or thirty-five thousand feet.”

7. Inter-cycle - ice which forms between cyclic activation of a mechanical or thermal de-ice system.

8. Runback – ice that is the result of water freezing on unprotected surfaces. Often forming behind deicing boots or heated leading edges

9. Rime – ice that is rough and opaque, formed by supercooled drops rapidly freezing on impact

“…just as you know the federal aviation definitions for ice: Glaze. Inter-cycle. Known or observed. Mixed. Residual. Runback. Rime.”

What new words did YOU learn this week?

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, I’ve got a few remaining words from Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright. I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would in the beginning!

1. Passeggiata – (Italian) stroll : evening stroll after work hours by the residents of a town

“For his turtle-dove serenaded and rosemary-scented passeggiata around the garden, he has taken to wearing Harry’s plum-colored trousers and his Lock’s panama.”

2. Oiks – (English slang) Deprecatory schoolboy word for a member of another school; an unpopular or disliked fellow-pupil

“He asks Jade to open the gates, a Victorian Gothic wooden door, studded with fancy medieval ironwork — Cy will love this — and as he arrives at the car park she is waiting, sturdy, beside the gate, plumped up defensively like a hen, as if ready to repel the oiks.”

3. Boffin - (English slang) A person engaged in scientific or technical research: “a computer boffin”

“He has no hope of getting his own computer to work because he can’t afford to get in a boffin until he’s paid.”

4. Epigone - A less distinguished follower or imitator

“…she’s having sex with a huge, hairy Afrikaner, an epigone of Harry, an uncultured, shallow and faintly hectoring athlete.”

I thought this would be pronounced like epitome, it’s opposite, but the pronunciation is entirely different!

5. Spivs - (English slang) a person without employment who makes money by various dubious schemes; goes about smartly dressed and having a good time.

“The spivs in London and Frankfurt have lost hundreds of billions pissing into the wind and now I can’t even get my grant.”

6. Cottager - (British slang) one who engages in anonymous gay sex in public toilets. Has its roots in self-contained English toilet blocks that look like cottages.

“Her own father had lived fairly placidly amongst them for fourteen years, before it turned out he was gay and a vigorous cottager.”

Lots of British slang today! Be sure to check back for my review.

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, my words are from Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright. The book is about a bank failure and a family’s decline. The bank is located in England, which might explain some of the vocabulary.

1. Mistral - A strong, cold northwesterly wind that blows through the Rhône valley and southern France into the Mediterranean

“The almond blossom is out, the sea loses its darkness, the cold rains have mostly been swept mysteriously away, the mistral has cleared the skies and the geraniums are being planted out.”

2. Billy-o - very much, hard, strongly, etc: e.g., It’s raining like Billy-o

“…his old retainer Len at the wheel, his Lobb shoes (invisible but easily imagined) shining like billy-o, a man who was born to wealth.”

3. Boulevardier - wealthy, fashionable socialite

“Dax smells of cologne, like an old-fashioned boulevardier.”

4. Protean - Able to do many different things; versatile

“As you know, he was a wonderful, protean character, brought up speaking Gaelic, as I said, and steeped in the romance of ancient legend…”

5. Extirpated - Root out and destroy completely

“Daniel is now to receive a couple of hairs from his scalded knuckle along with the wax, which has extirpated them.”

6. Gavotte – a French peasant dance of Baroque origin in moderately quick duple meter or the music for this dance

“Harry watches the doves, moving about in a stately pigeon gavotte.”

7. Pétanque - a French game similar to bowls

“He’s even the pétanque champion down at the port.”

What new words did YOU learn this week?

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, my words come from a book I just finished, A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd. This is one of the Bess Crawford mysteries — Bess is a nurse serving in World War I and a sort of accidental investigator. Great, great stories!

1. Nursing sister – A nursing sister, usually just referred to as a sister, is a senior female nurse, usually in charge of a ward or other unit.

“I’m a nursing sister, I’ve just returned from France.”

I originally thought that a nursing sister was a nun! It wasn’t until I read further and Bess’ life didn’t seem to be that of what I thought of as a sister that I checked the definition of the word.

2. Gorse - A yellow-flowered shrub (genus Ulex) of the pea family, the leaves of which are modified to form spines.

“But this was dramatically different, low, black, twisted branches of stunted heather and gorse, filling the horizon now as far as the eye could see.”

3. Oriel - A projection from the wall of a building, typically supported from the ground, or a window in such a structure.

“High above the door, an oriel window broke the plainness of the facade, the panes dark and lifeless under the dull sky.”

4. Suttee - The former Hindu practice of a widow immolating herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.

“The British had done their best to outlaw suttee, but it hadn’t been completely abolished.”

5. Maharani - A maharaja’s wife or widow.

“For dinner I wore the pale green gown that my father particularly liked, with the rope of pearls that had been given to me when I was twelve by the maharani who was a friend of my mother’s.”

6. Crocodile - a file of people, especially schoolchildren, out for a walk.

“I hung about for an hour or more, and then the nuns appeared with a crocodile of children.”

I love it when I find a new definition for a common word! This is chiefly British, which explains why I hadn’t come across it before.

7. Subaltern - An officer in the British army below the rank of captain.

“The subaltern who had missed the corpse got a severe dressing down.”

And there you have it — a good list of words, I think. What new words did YOU learn this week?

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, I’ve got some very unusual words from my recently-finished book, Blood and Other Cravings. It’s a book of short stories, so there are a lot of different writing styles to draw from.

1. Sordes – dirt or debris; dark brown or blackish crustlike deposit on the lips, teeth, and gums of a person with dehydration

“The last time his bowels moved, he took the shriveled sordes and crushed them up with garlic, for the windowsill.”

2. Verso – A left-hand page of an open book, or the back of a loose document

“He dips into it at random, picking up the text at the top of the verso page, reading until his eyes ache, setting is aside with no marker.”

3. Apostasy – The abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief

“When he is confronted with such apostasy he thinks of sucking out their brains, the gray and spongy material that surrounds their tiny thoughts, and draping them on a line to wave in the breeze before he puts the torch to them.”

4. Kilim – A flat-woven carpet or rug made in Turkey, Kurdistan, and neighboring areas.

“Cora bought a genuine kilim rug to offset, she said, the bad taste of the flowery chintz covers Janice got for the couch and chairs.”

So that’s a little sampling from my book…what new words did YOU learn this week?

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, I’ve got some words from my recent book, The Hypnotist by M.J. Rose. An interesting book about art and reincarnation — check out my review and the great guest post from the author.

1. Chryselephantine – (of ancient Greek sculpture) Overlaid with gold and ivory.

“At the heart of Iran’s request was an eight-foot chryselephantine statue of the Greek god Hypnos, the god of sleep…”

2. Oculus - A round or eyelike opening or design, in particular.

“They’d stepped in front of an exposed stone wall with an oculus in its center.”

3. Foxing – Small, irregular, brown blemishes on paper.

“If there’s too much moisture in the air it can lead to mildew, mold and foxing of pages.”

What new words did YOU learn this week?

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, I’m working my way through The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill. It’s a terrific thriller and it certainly gave me the challenging reading material I was talking about last week!

1. Pizzicato - Plucking the strings of a violin or other stringed instrument with one’s finger.

“And over the wide woodland tract, so rarely free of the wind’s soughing music above, and the pizzicato of crackling twigs below…”

2. Ailurophilia - A fondness or love for cats or other felines.

“As he explained later, it was ambition rather than ailurophilia that caused him to neglect his other guest.”

3. Expatiate - Speak or write at length or in detail

“He asked her about her book, prompted her to expatiate on her ideas…”

4. Uxorious - Having or showing an excessive or submissive fondness for one’s wife

“Next day he had renewed the attack when  he rang to say that Mr. Childs had been the guest of the uxorious Mr. Justice Toplady, whose cat-loving wife was always on the lookout for elderly bachelors to pair with her unmarried sister.”

5. Ur-text - An original or the earliest version of a text, to which later versions can be compared.

“If ever any doubts about the rightness of his cause crept into his consciousness, all he had to do was refer back to this ur-text and all became simple and straightforward again.”

6. Brocken Spectre - the apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank, or even from an aeroplane, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name.

“…she might be able to lead him to a moment of self-knowledge when, like a mountain walked confronted by a Brocken Spectre, he would draw back in horror from the monstrous apparition before him, then recognize it as a projection of himself.”

7. Lonning - a small lane

“The ruts on the lonning up to Birkstane Farm were frozen hard.”

And I’m only half-way through the book! Surely there are lots of great words, still to be discovered.

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones. It’s been a while since I came across a new word (which probably means I need more challenging reading material), but I did have one word, so I wanted to join in! This week, I’ve got a new word from Pitch Dark by Steven Sidor. Very scary and very interesting so far.

1. Perseverate - Repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased.

“He tried not to perseverate on its loss.”

What new words did YOU learn this week?

Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones.

This week, I’m reading Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow. Great short stories from amazing fantasy authors like Jim Butcher, Melissa Marr and Peter S. Beagle. I even found a few new words:

1. Pooka - A mischievous spirit in Irish folklore.

“How the Pooka Came to New York City”

2. Selkie - A creature or spirit in Scottish and Irish folklore that has the form of a seal but can also assume human form

“Yet in this same city, on this poisonous dock, the Pooka had just met a selkie in his man shape, hauling boxes that stank of iron as strongly as the air stank of dead fish.”

3. Glede – a bird of prey

“His body was sore but no longer wracked with pain, and the burning glede upon his neck had cooled a degree or perhaps more.”

That definition doesn’t really make sense in context. Glede seems to refer to a charm or poultice of some sort that the Fae woman applied to the Pooka’s neck.

4. Bialy - A flat bread roll topped with chopped onions

“When he brought Adie the coffee and half a bialy, she was sitting up in bed reading email on her laptop.”

5. Roupy – infected with roup, a disease of the eyes and nasal passages

“A roupy old voice behind him said, ‘Don’t you get too close. He’s mean.”

What new words did YOU learn this week?

I am so excited! I haven’t had any new words for a while (my reading hasn’t been challenging enough, I guess), but I’ve got a whole slew of them this week! I just finished William Gibson’s Zero History and I loved it – plus, it gave me all these words to share with you…

1. Vitrine – a glass display case

“To her right, in shadow, illuminated form within by an Edwardian museum fixture, stood a vitrine displaying taxidermy.”

2. Liminal - Of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process

“Something too thoroughly liminal about them.”

3. Ormolu - A gold-colored alloy of copper, zinc, and sometimes tin, cast into desired shapes and often gilded, used esp. in the 18th century for decorating furniture and making ornaments

“Variously sized heads of marble, ivory, ormolu.”

4. Slut’s wool - the accumulated fluff of dust that can be found under beds or in corners of rooms

“And decked, she always noted with a certain satisfaction, with a bit of frank slut’s wool, the only actual dust she’d yet seen in Cabinet.”

5. Gyratory - Of or involving circular or spiral motion

“Then they were in it, fully gyratory, the driver expertly and repeatedly inserting the Hilux’s secretly massive but oddly skittish bulk sideways, it seemed, into absurdly small lane-change gaps.”

6. Curettage - The removal of tissue or growths from a body cavity, such as the uterus, by scraping with a curette.

“Curettage. Nasty.”

7. Maquette - A sculptor’s small preliminary model or sketch

“The maquette for one of the early takes on a collaboration between Taser and Mossberg, the shotgun manufacturer.”

8. Avuncular - Kind and friendly toward a younger or less experienced person

“Behind them, somehow worringly avuncular, loomed Bigend.”

9. Patinate – To acquire a patina, a change in surface due to age or exposure

“Everything they were wearing, he decided, qualified as what she’d call ‘iconic,’ but had originally become that way through their ability to gracefully patinate.”

10. Gear-queer - Military Lingo – A person who always wants the newest scope, site, rail system, or thing that they will never end up using.

“But many of the rest have gone gear-queer, to one extent or another.”

11. Palimpsest - 

“I told that to Reg, last month, and he said it was a palimpsest.”

12. Tattersall - A woolen fabric with a pattern of colored checks and intersecting lines, resembling a tartan.

“Jun had been busy unbuttoning and unfolding a tattersall shirt, which he now helped Milgrim into.”

13. Spiv - a person without employment who makes money by various dubious schemes; goes about smartly dressed and having a good time

“‘You look good,’ Bigend said, ‘like a fox-hunting spiv.’”

14. Androgenic - Pertaining to the development of male characteristics.

“If he’s the one I think you mean, he makes me want to believe that global warming isn’t androgenic just to spite him.”

WOW.  That’s a lot of words! And some of them are a lot of fun.

What new words did YOU learn this week?