Forcemeat and other new words: Mike's Pretentious Dictionary, Winter 2007

Hello reader...

Since college I have kept a list of interesting words i come across in books I'm reading. I've kept these blankbooks with words in them for years...and they sit there gathering dust like a pretentious dictionary no one wants to use. So...thank you, triple-dub, for allowing me to make my vocab obsession a little more dynamic! Now it's LIVE and ONLINE in REAL TIME BROADBAND. Here is where we discover new terms to impress our friends and add new fuel to our diction...words like "forcemeat"...i can't believe that word exists...

check out words from the following books...the crafted prose of Housekeeping, the perfectly selected wordage of The Corrections, the haughty academic namedroppings of Satyr Square...

xx mike

from HOUSKEEPING by MARYLINNE ROBINSON --

"Lucille ran down the stairs. we heard the slish and moil of her steps in the hall and kitchen"
MOIL: to work hard, drudge...to whirl ceaselessly, eddy...confusion, turmoil, trouble

SLISH: can't find it...could be a joycean made-up word of Ms Robinson's...let's all use it somewhere and force it into the language!

From THE CORRECTIONS by Jonathan Franzen --

"in the morning every process quickened, speeding his meds to their destinations:the canary-yellow spansule for incontinence..."
SPANSULE: My friend Dana Kletter, a supremely talented songwriter and singer, kindly wrote to me with the definition of this word: "combid spansule, form of compazine, an anti-psychotic that also alleviated nausea and has a sedating (to say the least) effect."

"a lunatic dhoti of bunched and shredded diapers hung from his loins"
DHOTI: a long loincloth worn by Hindu women and men.

"the rutabaga smelled carious and was already cold"
CARIOUS: having caries, as in teeth...decayed...

"boiled beets greens leaked something cupric"
CUPRIC: of or containing copper, especially in its bivalent state of cuprous oxide...

"he gave his cheek a styptic dusting of ammonium sulphur chlorate"
STYPTIC: serving to contract organic tissue, astringent, binding

"with their damp hair they looked riparian"
RIPARIAN: situated or dwelling on the bank of a river...a person who owns land on the bank of a natrual watercourse.

"all were colorful philtres over which she waved the wand of her imagination"
PHILTRES potion drug or charm supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love, usually with some specific person.

"[the camera] was mounted on an altazimuth bracket above the back door"
ALTAZIMUTH: an instrument used in determing the altitude and alzimuth of a heavenly body. Azimuth: the arc of the horizon with with the point it crosses with the horizon, measuring a given heavenly body

"all the ferrous molecules paired up and arranged themselves in long twinned lines"
FERROUS iron, esp in the bivalent state.

"her nearer breast pushed out of her t-shirt, the carmine definition of its nipple faintly visible..."
CARMINE: a crimson or purplish red color.

"a Damo-clean oak limb dangled above a dormer, finger wide cracks in the foundation"
DORMER: A vertical window in a projection built out from a sloping roof

"unfamiliar fungal and enteric smells"
ENTERIC: of or pertaining to the intestine

"on the inner wall of the grill a deep-pile carpet of phenolic black greases had emerged"
PHENOLIC: resin formed by the condensation of phenol...(benzene)...formaldehyde...

[cant find the sentence!]
NEWELL: a central pillar or uptright from which the steps of a winding staircase radiate.

from SATYR SQUARE by Leonard Balkan

"lean geometric graveyard slabs or bulbous catafalques all ocvered in text."
CATAFALQUES: a raised structure on which the body of a deceased person lies...

"retpresented by a few majuscule Hewbrew characters on a still almost empty page"
MAJUSCULE: large, as either capital or uncial letters

"right at the moment, duck bones and forcemeat and flour are strewn over half my house"
FORCEMEAT: a mixture of finely chopped and seasoned foods, containing egg white, meat, or fish.

"giorgio seemed to fit somehwere in those wide-open optative spaces."
OPTATIVE: designating or pertaining to verb mood, that has among its functions the expression of a wish.

"The arch itself, with its wide expanse of dentellated molding, blocks my way."
DENTELLATED: a lacelike, tooled pattern

"[after listing how his wine tasting group unfolded in a drama of several acts]...in secret ballot, every taster produced a ranking from best to worst; finally, anagnorisis, when decanters were reunited with bottles, and catharsis, when all identities were revealed.
ANAGNORISIS: the critical moment of recognition or discovery

'How foreign this crowd of Italians is, how arriviste their tastes!"
ARRIVISTE: person who has recently acquired unaccustomed status, wealth or success.

"i was accustomed to this labile turf..."
LABILE: apt or likely to change

"...mere street clientele who wish to conduct workaday vinuous transactions."
VINUOUS: of, containing, or resembling wine

'perfectly caparisoned tiny horses carved out of pecorino..."
CAPARISONED: a decorative covering for a horse....rich or sumptuous clothing

"on the other hand, for a hapax legomenon she packs a big wallop"
HAPAX LEGOMENON: a word of phrase that appears only once in a manuscript or document, or particular area of literature.

"[speaking of medieval citadels being an obsession in 5th grade]...that i can actually idenitfy barbican and parapet and machicolation because of my careful attention to homework in fifth grade"
MACHICOLATION: an opening in the floor between the corbels of a projecting gallery or parapet, as on a wall or int he vault of a passage, through which missiles, molten lead, etc might be cast upon an enemy beneath.

[cant find the sentence...sorta know this word but hey, lets see it defined.]
IMPRIMATUR: an official license to print a pamphlet or book

PASQUINADE:
named after Pasquino...i think they are a kind of graffitti...sharp, salacious rhymes that criticized authority...posted in a public place

[found this word while scanning the dictionary]
SOCIOCENTRIC -- tending to think one's social group is above all others.