It’s Wednesday, and I have some new words for you!  These are from my current book, Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja.  It’s about the goings-on at a brothel in Brussels in the 1870s, so you can imagine it has some interesting and obscure words.

1. Chary – characterized by great caution and wariness

“…but he is chary of much socializing, a reticence I respect and understand”

2. Spavined – Marked by damage, deterioration, or ruin

“Or Jonathan Shopshine, poor mutilated bastard, hunching down at a spavined piano and calling Wolfgang Mozart back from the dead”

3. Bombazine – A fine twilled fabric of silk and worsted or cotton, often dyed black and used for mourning clothes.

“Velma, resplendent in unaccustomed bombazine…”

4. Diddakoi – a Gypsy outside the Romany tribes and of mixed blood

“Now, to look at him, lean as he is and dark as a diddakoi, you wouldn’t think he could box it up, man to man.”

5. Louche – of questionable taste or morality; decadent

“…the rest are amply titillated by its lithe, if louche, athletics.”

Okay, that’s enough for this week – I’ll save the rest for next Wednesday.   Look for other new words over at BermudaOnion’s Weblog.

What new words did YOU learn this week?