Welcome back, wordy friends!
Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.
Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from my recent reads. All definitions from Dictionary.com.
1. mysophobia. "Besides, there is some mysophobia in society. Nobody wants to talk about it." (from Evil Water by Inger Wolf)
noun
a dread of dirt or filth.
In this part of the book, the characters were discussing infanticide. So I think they were referring to the fact that people, in general, do not like discussing unpleasant subjects.
2. importunate. "There was something unpleasantly arrogant about him, and he didn't find it hard to imagine that she had thought him importunate." (from Evil Water by Inger Wolf)
adjective
1. urgent or persistent in solicitation, sometimes annoyingly so.
2. pertinacious, as solicitations or demands.
3. troublesome; annoying: importunate demands from the children for attention.
I've heard this one before, but couldn't place the exact meaning.
3. crake. "He had a voice like a little crake with him, and so funny it sounded against the basso of my father that I was bound to push my fist in my mouth not to be rude." (from How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn)
noun
any of several short-billed rails, especially the corn crake.
And apparently a "rail" in this sense is a type of small grassland bird. Did anyone else immediately think of the book
Oryx and Crake when they read this word?
I love how you give a little explanation after each word. I, too, had a sense about importunate, but I'm glad you clarified. I like mysophobia the best. Thanks Kelly!
ReplyThanks Julia! I have all sorts of ridiculous thoughts when I see new words, so I figured it was best to share them. :)
When I saw crake, I thought it was cake so I had to do a double take. Crake is new to me and I'd never heard a bird called a rail either! Great words today!
ReplyThanks! That is funny about cake/crake.
I like the word importunate, we all come across that once in a while.
Replyhttp://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/04/wondrous-words-wednesday.html
So true!!
Hi Kelly,
ReplyThe only one of your words that I haven't come across before was mysophobia. Mysophobic has now been written in capital letters on a post-it note and stuck in front of me where I sit in my office, just so that I never forget it. Hubbie thinks that it sums me up in a word and that it is hilarious, as I am always going around behind him cleaning up and clearing away imaginary (in his opinion) mess and dirt!
Thanks for sharing some great words this week,
Yvonne
Haha, I think my husband wishes I was a little more mysophobic...
YES! I thought of Oryx & Crake immediately!!! Doesn't he live in a tree during part of the book? Like a bird???
ReplyYes good point! Didn't even think of that.