In July 2001 I began receiving a word a day from the Merriam Webster dictionary site; I would read them and if I liked something about them: sense, etymology, sound, etc. I would save them. After a while I decided to do something with them.
So I began to write sentences using each saved word in the order I received it, one or two in a complete sentence without knowledge of the next word to come. I began the first sentence without any idea of overall meaning beyond the first word. As I wrote each subsequent sentence I tried to make sense of the thoughts as the words appeared and the sentences continued. I ended the paragraphs when they seemed to be complete.
In February 2006 the words inexplicably stopped coming so I stopped writing. About six months later the words began coming again, but something had changed and I didn’t begin again.
July 4 ’01-August 1 ‘01
It’s an Aesopian(1) world, and weltschmerz(2) is the truest dawn. Clear and auriferous(3) though it may seem, by nightfall its only a sweeping rodomontade(4). The hastilude(5) of our day produces little that is laudable(6). The imprimatur(7) for our wealth of euphuisms(8) is long expired. We drift in our liminal(9) world. Yet, dauntless(10) we seek the elusive hierophant(11) between our qualms(12) about it all. Living in vast conurbations(13) of the self we are indifferent to the repeated burgling(14) of our soul.
The implacable(15) world resists our efforts to etiolate(16) life’s palette. Our gauche(17) behavior in the aerie(18) of creation seems the obverse(19) of common sense. We look for synchronicity(20) hoping to proliferate(21) aught(22); as we wait for yet another baleful(23) morn.
1) Aesopian \ee-SOH-pee-un or ee-SAH-pee-un\ (adjective)
1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of Aesop or his fables
*2 : conveying an innocent meaning to an outsider but a hidden meaning to a member of a conspiracy or underground movement.
Example sentence:
"With some courageous exceptions, 'official' writers had to be content with the minor, Aesopian art of sneaking clever allusions past the censor." (Craig R. Whitney, The New York Times Book Review. Mar. 19, 1989)
Aesop is the legendary Greek author of well-known fables featuring animals who speak and act like humans. On the surface, Aesop's fables are entertaining stories, but they also have an underlying purpose, which is to teach a moral lesson. In the 20th Century, "Aesopian" -- which had previously meant simply "characteristic of Aesop or his fables" -- took on an extended meaning. "Aesopian language" referred to the cryptic or ambiguous language authors used in subversive material, often to avoid censorship. This use originated in Russia with "ezopovskii," the Russian version of the term. It was most often used in reference to communist writing -- and later, writing produced under communist regimes. Today "Aesopian" occasionally means "having hidden meaning" without any implications of subversive political meaning or avoidance of censorship.
* indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
2) Weltschmerz \VELT – shmairts\ (noun)
*1 : a mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world to an ideal state
2 : a mood of sentimental sadness
Example sentence:
“German critics have written of a cosmic Weltschmerz afflicting all the noblest spirits of Europe in the era following the Napoleonic wars.” (Times Literary Supplement, August 1950 )
The word “Weltschmerz” initially cane into being as a by-product of the Romanticism movement in Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The poets of the romantic era were a notably gloomy bunch, unwilling or unable to adjust to those realities of the world that they perceived as threatening their right to personal freedom. “Weltschmerz,” which was formed by combining the German words for “world” (“Welt”) and “pain” (“Schmerz”), aptly captures the melancholy and pessimism that often characterized the artistic expressions of the era. The term was coined in German by the Romantic author Jean Paul (pseudonym of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter) in a 1827 novel, but “Weltschmerz” wasn’t adopted into English until nearly 50 years later.
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
3) auriferous \aw-RIH-fuh-russ\ (adjective)
: containing gold
Example sentence:
“In our ignorance of the nature of auriferous deposits, we expected…. to strike places where we should dig uo 200 or 300 pounds of gold a day without difficulty.” (John S. Hittell, in a speech on Sept. 9, 1869)
Students in chemistry class learn that the chemical symbol for gold is “Au.” That symbol is based on “aurum.” The Latin word for the element. Now’s a golden opportunity to look at a few words in English that come from “aurum.” In the 18th century, English speaker appended the “-ous” ending to “aurifer.” The Latin adjective meaning “containing gold” or “producing gold,” to produce “auriferous.” (The “-fer” is from “ferre.” a Latin verb meaning “to produce” or “to bear.”) Not surprisingly, “auriferous” is a term that often shows up in geological contexts. Some other descendents of “aurum” include “aureate”(“of a golden color” or “marked by grandiloquent style”), “auric” (“of, relating to, or derived from gold”), and “or” ( “the heraldic color gold or yellow”)
4) rodomontade \rah-duh-mun-TAYD or rah-duh-mun-TAHD\ (noun)
1 : a bragging speech
*2 : vain boasting or bluster : rant
Example sentence:
In Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, the arrogant Mr. Bounderby is given to frequent flights of rodomontade about what a heard-working, self-made man he is.
“Rodomontade” originated in Italian poetry. Rodomont was a fierce and boastful king in the circa 1485 epic Orlando Innamorato by Count Matteo M. Boiardo – and later in the sequel Orlando Furiso, written by poet Lodovico Ariosto in 1516. In the late 16th century, English speakers began to use “rodomont” as a noun meaning “braggart.” Soon afterwards, “rodomontade” entered the language as a noun (meaning “empty bluster” or “bragging speech” and later as an adjective meaning “boastful, ranting”) The noun “rodomontade” is no longer used in English, but “rodomontade” is still with us.
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
5) hastilude \HASS- tuh- lood (oo as in “food”) \ (noun)
: a medieval joust : spear play
Example sentence:
The royal hastiludes were events of great pomp and splendor.
“Hastilude” is a relatively little-known descendent of the Latin word “ludus,” meaning “play, sport.” (Other, more popular relatives include interlude,” “ludicrous,” and “collude.”) In this instance,, “ludus”became “-ludium” and was comined with “hasti-,” from the Latin word for “spear” (“hasta”). The combination led to “hastiludium” in Medieval Latin and them “hastilude” in English. “Hastilude” has served English speakers as a general name for several types of “tourneys” (“tournaments”) involving lance work. The word was used in English from at least the 16th century, although the events it described originated considerably earlier. The plural of “hastilude” is either “hastiludes” or the more Latinate “hastiludia”
6) laudable \LAW-duh-bul\ (adjective)
: worthy of praise : commendable
Example sentence:
Becoming a doctor is a laudable goal, but Kelly doesn’t seem to realize how much work and stress it will take to accomplish it.
Both “laudable” and “laudatory“ come from the word “laud”(meaning
“praise”) , which ultimately comes from the Latin “laud-, laus” (also meaning “praise”). “Laudable” and “laudatory” differ in meaning, and usage commentators wqrn agfinnat using them interchangeably. “Laudable” means “deserving praise, praiseworthy”—as in “laudable attempts to help the poor.” “Laudatory” means “giving praise” or “expressing praise”—as in “ a laudatory book review.” People occasionally use “laudatory” in place of “laudable,” but this use is not considered standard.
7) imprimatur \im-pruh-MAH-toor or im-PRIH-muh-toor\ (noun)
1 : a license to print or publish
*2 : official approval or sanction
Example sentence:
Several doctors on the faculty were reprimanded for using students as subjects for medical experiments without the university’s imprimatur.
“Imprimatur” means “let it be printed” in New Latin. It comes from Latin “imprimere” – to “imprint” or “impress.” In the 1600s, the word appeared in the front matter of books, accompanied by the mane of an official authorizing the book’s printing. Though the Roman Catholic Church still issues imprimaturs for books concerned with religious matters (to indicate that a work contins mothing in condlict with the church’s teachings), there have been other authorities for imprimaturs as well. For example, when Samuel Pepys was president of the Royal Society, he placed his imprimatur on the title page of England’s great scientific work, Sir Issac Newtons Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in 1687. We began using “imprimatur” in the general sense of “official approval” in the 1600’s as well.
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
8) euphuism \YOO-fyuh-wih-zum\ (noun)
1 : an elegant Elizabethan literary style marked by excessive use of balance, antithesis, and alliteration and by frequent use of similes drawn from mythology and nature.
*2 : artificial elegance of language
Example sentence:
Maude, given to euphuism, exclaimed, “Oh, glorious auroral orb!” and Paul agreed, “Yes, nice sunrise.”
Nowadays, one might be accused of using “euphuism” for its linguistic excess and affectation, but “euphuism” hasn’t always had a negative connotation. When John Lyly employed this verboseform of rhetoric in hid prose works Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and his England (1580), it was, as The Cambridge History of English and American Literature tells us, “a style which appealed irresistiblyu to his contemporaries.” The name of the character Euphues, a “young gallant of more wit than wealth, and yet of more wealth than wisdom” was probably inspired by a Greek word meaning “witty.” The term “euphuism” came into being to refer to Lyly’s (and other writer’s) style a dozen or so years after his works appeared.
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
9) liminal \LIH-muh-nul\ (adjective)
1 : of relating to a sensory threshold
*2 : barely perceptible
Example sentence:
In the background of the painting, a liminal figure stands in the murky half-light
“Liminal” descends from the Latin noun “limen,” meaning “threshold.” It makes sense, then, that “liminal” applies to the idea of a sensory threshold, which has the fairly specific definition of “the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced.” (You may have guessed that “subliminal” is related – in Latin, it translates as “below a threshold,” and in English it can parallel “liminal,” describing something inadequate to produce a sensation or operating below a threshold of consciousness.) The “sensory threshold” sense of “liminal” has given rise to extended uses. In addition to the “barely perceptible” sense, “liminal” now sometimes means “transitional, intermediate” (as in “the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness”), though this meaning has yet to find its way into most dictionaries.
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
10) dauntless \DAWNT-luss\ (adjective)
: fearless, undaunted
Example sentence:
Following a cruel defeat by the French, the dauntless young George Washington wrote, “I luckily escap’d with’t a wound tho’ I had four Bullets through my Coat and two Horses shot under me.” (Letter to Robert Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755)
The history of the world is peopled with dauntless men and women who refused to be subdued or “tamed” by fear. The word “dauntless” can be traced back to Latin “domare,” meaning “to tame” or “to subdue.” When our verb “daunt” (a “domare” descendent borrowed by way of Middle French) was first used in the 14th century, it shared these meanings. The now-obsolete “tame” sense referred to the taming or breaking of wild animals (particularly horses). An “undaunted” horse was an unbroken horse. Not until the late 16th century did we use “undaunted” with the meaning “undiscouraged and courageously resolute” to describe people. By then, such lionhearted souls could also be described as “undauntable,” and finally, in HenryVI, part 3, Shakespeare gave us “dauntless.”
11) hierophant \HYE-ruh-fant or hye-EH-ruh-funt| (noun)
1 : a priest in ancient Greece, specifically : the chief priest of the Eleusinian mysteries
* 2 a : a person who explains : commentator b : advocate
Example sentence:
“ Before the finished work can be judged and labeled by the hierophants, the author must first satisfy a publisher that his book is worth publishing.” (G.B. Harrison, Profession of English)
“Herophant,” “hieroglyphics,” and “hierarch” have a common root: “hieros,” a Greek word meaning “sacred.” “Hieroglyphhics” joins “hieros” with a derivative of “glyphein,” the Greek verb for “carve.” “Hierarch” joins the root with a derivative of “archein,” meaning “to rule.” “Hierophant” itself joins “hieros” with a derivative of “phainein,” which means “to reveal” okt “to make known.” The original hierophants were priests of the ancient Greek city of Eleusis who performed sacred rites. In the 17th century, when the word was first used in English, it referred to these priests. By the 19th century, English speakers were using the term in a broader sense. A “hierophant” can now be a spokesperson, an interpreter, or a leading advocate.
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
12) qualm \KWAHM or KWAHLM\ (noun)
1 : a sudden attach of illness, fainting, or nausea
2 : a sudden access of unusually disturbing emotion (as doubt or fear)
*3 : a feeling of uneasiness about a point especially of conscience or propriety
Example sentence:
“This is the third time I’ve caught Lindsey cheating,” said Judy, “so I have no qualms about turning her in.”
Etymologists aren’t sure where “qualm” originated, but they do know it entered English around 1530. Originally, it referred to a sudden sick feeling. Robert Louis Stevenson made use of this older sense in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde : “A qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering.” Soon after “qualm” entered the language, it came to designate not only sudden attacks of illness, gur also sudden attacks of emotion or principle. In The Sketch Book, for example, Washington Irving wrote, “Immediately after one of these fits of extravagance, he will be taken with violent qualms of economy.” Eventually, “qualm” took on the specific (and now most common) meaning of “doubt or uneasiness, particularly in not following one’s conscience or better judgment.”
* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
13) conurbation \kah-ner-BAY-shun\ (noun)
: an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities
Example sentence:
“Los Angeles – the nation’s second-largest city – comprises the urban core of a sprawling metropolitan conurbation. . . . .” (Gary Peters, Focus, Summer/Fall 1998)
When Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist turned sociologist, sat down in 1915 to pen Cities in Evolution, a work on urban planning, he needed a word. How to refer to thickly populated regions usually centered around one huge city? (He had, first and foremost, Greater London in mind.) “Some name, then for these city regions, these town aggregates, is wanted. . . . What of conurbations?” he asked rhetorically early on in his work. For his coinage, Geddes combined the Latin for “city” – “urbs,” already familiar in “urban” and “ suburb” -- with the Latin prefix “con-“ (“together”) and the English noun suffix “-ation.” It turned out that his word suited English speakers fine -- we’ve been using it ever since.
14) burgle \BUR-gul\ (verb)
transitive senses
*1 : to break into and steal from
2 : to commit burglary against
intransitive sense : to commit burglary
Example sentence:
The thief burgled the house while its owners were away on vacation.
“Burglary,” which means “forcible entry into a building especially at night with the intent t commit a crime (as theft),” and “burglar” (“one who commits burglary”0 have been with us since the 16th century. “Burgle” and it synonym “burglarize” didn’t break into the language until the 19th century, however, arriving almost simultaneously around 1870. “Burgle” is a back-formation (that is, a word formed by removing a suffix or prefix) from “burglar.” “Burglarize” comes from “burglar” as well, with addition of the familiar “-ize” ending. Both verbs were once disparaged by grammarians (“burgle” was considered to be “facetious” and “burglarize” was labeled “colloquial”), but they are now generally accepted. “Burglarize” is slightly more common in American English, whereas “burgle” seems to be preferred in British English.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
15) implacable \im-PLAK-uh-bul or im-PLAY-kuh-bul\ (adjective)
: not placable : not capable of being appeased, significantly changed, or mitigated
Example sentence:
My dog Rupert and my cat Oscar are such implacable enemies that I’m often forced to restrict them to separate parts of the house.
“Implacable” comes from the Latin word “implacabilis,” with which it shares the meaning “not easily placated.” Ultimately, it comes from the verb “placare” (meaning “to calm” or “ to soothe”) . “Implacable” adds the negative “im-“ to the root to describe something that cannot be calmed or soothed or altered. The root “placare” also gave us “placate.’ You may ask, what about similar-looking words “placid” and “placebo” ? these words are related to “implacable” and “placate,” but not as closely as you might suspect. They come from the Latin verb “placere,” a relative of “placare”
that means “to please.”
16) etiolate \EE-tee-uh-layt\ (verb)
1 : to bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight
2 a : to make pale *b : to deprive of natural vigor : make feeble
Example sentence:
“Her voice is basically pure and lovely, and . . . . as it rises . . . she doesn’t etiolate the tone by turning off her vibrato.” (American Record Guide Sept. 1, 1999)
When we first started using “etiolate” in the late 1700s (borrowed from the French verb “etioler”), it was in reference to purposely depriving growing celery of light. (The resulting white vegetable was, and still is, considered a delicacy.) The word traces back to the old French word for “straw” -- “esteule” – and is related to the Latin word for “straw” or “stalk,” which is “stipula.” But the term for growing veggies as pale as straw is now more likely to be “blanch,” while “etiolate” is more apt to refer to depriving plants in general of light; when “etiolated,” they are sickly, pale, and spindly. The figurative sense of “etiolate” (“to make pallid or feeble”) first appeared in the 1800s as a natural outgrowth of the original sense.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
17) gauche \GOHSH\ (adjective)
*1 : lacking social experience or grace; also : not tactful
2 : crudely made or done
Example sentence:
“I can’t believe she’d be so gauche as to ask you how much money you earn, “ Courtney huffed.
“Gauche” is one of the several words that come from old suspicions or negative associations surrounding the left side and use of the left hand. In French, “gauche” literally means “left,” and it has the extended meanings “awkward” and “clumsy.” Presumably these meanings come about because left-handed people could appear awkward trying to manage in a right-handed world -- or perhaps because right-handed people appear awkward when they try to use their left hand. In fact, “awkward” itself comes from the Middle English “awke,” meaning “turned the wrong way” or “left-handed.” On the other hand, “adroit” and “dexterity” have their roots in words meaning “right” or “on the right side.”
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
18) aerie \AIR-ee or EER-ee\ (noun)
1 : the nest of a bird on a cliff or a mountaintop
*2 : an elevated often secluded dwelling, structure, or position
Example sentence:
Joe lives in a sleek, 20th-floor aerie with spectacular view of the city.
English poet John Milton put avarient of “aerie” to good use in Paradise Lost (1667), writing “there the eagle and the stork on cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build.” But Milton wasn’t the first to use the term, which comes to us via Medieval Latin and Old French and probably traces to an earlier Latin word for “nest” or “lair.” English speakers had been employing “aerie” as a word for “bird’s nest” for almost a century when Milton penned those words. Eventually, “aerie” was applied to human dwellings as well as bird’s nests. At first this sense referred to dwellings nestled high up in mountains or hills. These days, you’re also likely to hear high-rise city apartments or offices referred to as “aeries”
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
19) obverse \AHB-verss or ahb-VERSS\ (noun)
1 : the side of the coin or currency note bearing the chief device or lettering; broadly : a front or principle surface
*2 : a counterpart having the opposite orientation or force; also : opposite
Example sentence:
Mr. Wright makes me uncomfortable because he clearly doesn’t like me, but with his daughter it’s the obverse -- I get all flustered because she’s so nice.
Heads or tails? If you called heads, “obverse” is the word for you. Since the 17th century, we’ve been using “obverse” for the front side of coins (usually, the side depicting the head or bust of a ruler). The opposite of this sense of “obverse” is “reverse,” the back or “tails” side of a coin. Since the 19th century, “obverse” has also had the extended meaning “an opposing counterpart” or “opposite.” Additionally, it can be an adjective meaning “facing the observer or opponent” or “ being a counterpoint or complement.”
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
20) synchronicity \sing-kruh-NIH-suh-tee or sin-kruh-NIH-suh-tee\ (noun)
*1 : the quality or fact of being simultaneous
2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality
Example sentence:
“Pizza!” answered the twins in synchronicity when I asked them what they wanted for dinner.
“It happens to everyone sooner or later: A certain number pops up wherever you go; an old friend you haven’t seen in 20 years appears the same day you’re looking at their picture in a yearbook; you’re singing a song and turn on the radio -- and he same song is playing.” Such coincidences, here described by Thomas Ropp in the Arizona Republic, March 29, 1999, are examples of synchronicity. The concept is linked to the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung didn’t coin the word (the “simultaneousness” sense of “synchronicity” was already in use), but he gave it special importance in his writings. Jung believed that such “meaningful coincidences” play an important role in our lives. Today, some people even look to synchronicities for spiritual guidance.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
21) proliferate \pruh-LIH-fuh-rayt\ (verb)
: to grow or increase in number rapidly
Example sentence:
As the town became a popular tourist attraction, downtown restaurants proliferated.
“Proliferate” came about in 1873 as a back-formation of “proliferation.” That means that “proliferation” came first (we borrowed it from the French in the 1850s) and was later shortened to form the verb “proliferate.” Ultimately these terms come from Latin. The French adjective “ prolifere” (“reproducing freely”) comes from the Latin noun “proles” and the Latin combining form “-fer.” “Proles” means “offspring” or “descendents,” and “-fer” means bearing.” Both of these Latin forms gave rise to numerous other English words. “Prolific” and “proletarian” ultimately come from “proles”: “aquifer” and words ending in “-ferous” have their roots in the Latin “-fer.”
22) aught \AWT or AHT] (pronoun)
*1 : anything
2 : all, everything
Example sentence:
“It was too early for aught but a few dogs to notice us as we noticed birds.” (Claire Gerber, The Christian Science Monitor, January 8, 1987)
“For aught I know, my lord, they do,” answers the Duke of Aumerle to a question from his father in Shakespeare’s Richard II. Shakespeare didn’t coin the pronoun “aught,” which has been a part of the English language since before the 12th century, but he did put it to frequent use. Plenty of other literary lights have found “aught” to be a useful term over the years, too. Writers living today may be less likely to employ “aught” than were their predecessors, but the pronoun does continue to turn up occasionally. “Aught” can also be a noun meaning “zero,” and in recent years the phrase “the aughts” has been bandied about as a proposed label for the decade that began in the year 2000.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
23) baleful \BAIL-ful\ (adjective)
1 : deadly or pernicious in influence
*2 : foreboding evil : ominous
Example sentence:
“What are you doing here?” I heard someone hiss, and I whirled around to see Sandra giving me a baleful glare.
The “bale” of “baleful” comes from the Old English “bealu” (“evil”) , and the “bane” of the similar-looking “baneful” comes from the Old English “bana” (“slayer, murderer”). “Baleful” and “baneful” are similar in meaning as well as appearance, and they are sometimes used in quite similar contexts – but they usually differ in emphasis. “Baleful” typically describes what threatens or portends evil (e.g., “a baleful look,” “baleful predictions”) “Baneful” applies typically to what causes evil or destruction (e.g., “a baneful secret,” “the baneful bite of the serpent”). Both words are used to modify terms like “influence,” “effect,” and “result,” and in such uses there is little that distinguishes them.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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