This is a little early because Blogger sucks today and says everything is a bad request.
I am so excited to have some great words this week! These are from a book I just finished, The Physic Book of Deliverance Dane. I really enjoyed this one - look for a review next week.
1. maleficium - A curse which was anciently annexed to donations of lands made to churches and religious houses, against those who should violate their rights.
"Interestingly, research into the kinds of maleficium - her tongue tangled on the Latin word, sending it out with one or two extra syllables,"
2. Henbane - poisonous fetid Old World herb having sticky hairy leaves and yellow-brown flowers
3. Moonwort - Seedless vascular plants of the genus Botrychium, sensu stricto. They are small, with fleshy roots, and reproduce by spores shed into the air.
"...alighting on some obscure flowers that she knew only form horticulture books: monkshood, henbane, foxglove, moonwort."
4. Simulacrum - a vague representation; semblance; image; likeness.
"The interior assembled around her out of the gloom, a perfect simulacrum of a first-period, pre-1700 house,"
5. Cordwainer - An individual, usually a shoemaker, who works in Cordovan leather.
"...and Goodman Pakfrey a cordwainer, who was forever volunteering for town committees."
6. Steeplejack - A steeplejack is a craftsman who is prepared to scale tall buildings and in particular church steeples to carry out general repairs.
"SAMUEL HARTLEY, it read. STEEPLEJACK."
7. Antinomian - related to the doctrine that faith frees the Christian from the obligations of the moral law
"A small number of cases all within a few yearsof one another seemed to correspond with the Antinomian crisis,"
There are more, but I think I'll save them for next week. What new words did YOU learn this week?
12 comments:
Those are some great words!
Sounds like that's a book you have to read with the dictionary open next to you!
Ooh, lots of good words! I like the excerpt that goes with the first word; I think I would have done the same! As for cordwainer, I think that the definition you gave is the origin of the word, but that cordwainer is used fairly interchangeably with shoemaker.
I hope you weren't up at 5 AM!
I usually write these up the night before and schedule them to post early in the morning. For some reason, Blogger was acting up last night and posted it immediately, but the timestamp is still 5:00 am. Weird.
All of the definitions I saw for cordwainer involved making shoes or other leather goods. I don't think I'm likely to see it on a sign over a shoestore these days! Still, it's great to know what these old words mean.
You always find great words. I think you must read tougher books than I do. Thanks for playing along.
Great words. That must be some book! I look forward to reading your review.
I'm almost done with The Physick Book. It is so good that I really don't want to finish it! I agree that there are lots of new words in this book. All good ones.
Great words this week. I particularly enjoyed Steeplejack.
My words are here
Going to remember all these? ;)
I felt my brain expanding with each one of these!!!
All of these were new words to me!
I've never heard of any of these words, but the book is sitting on my shelf.
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