WORDS, WORDS, AND MORE WORDS

Like my son, Chris, I consider myself a "Wordsmith," but every day I am attacked by individual English words that are unfamiliar.  These words jump out at me from Alexa, The Reader's Digest, The MENSA bulletin, The AARP Bulletin, The New York Times, and other of my reading material.

Some of the meanings for these words can be gleaned from context, some from a relationship to languages I know, and some from a "look-up" in a desk dictionary or a copy of the New Oxford American Dictionary that I down-loaded (uploaded?) to my trusty Kindle.

Of course, if my eyes weren't tired, I could look for words and their derivations in the original OED (Oxford English Dictionary (If I had those heavy 20 volumes.)

I learned early not to waste my time on esoteric words in certain literature works like James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, but words from other works were "fair game."

Here are a few recent additions to my "New Word" file.

FAINEANT - adj. (archaic) Idle or ineffective. (inactive) From French fait="does" + neant="nothing."

HAMARTIA - noun.  A fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine. (From Greek: fault, failure, guilt ... as in Greek tragedy.)

FLAGITIOUS- adj. Grossly wicked, villainous. Criminal. From Latin: flagitium, "Shameful crime."

JOUISSANCE - noun.  Physical or intellectual pleasure, delight, or ecstasy. From French: jouir="enjoy."

TORPID - adj.  Mentally or physically inactive: lethargic.  From Latin: torpere="be numb or sluggish."

I really like "words," the weirder the better, as you can see.

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Go, and embrace some crazy words.