Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wondrous Words Wednesday 11.10.10

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion's Weblog where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. Feel free to join in the fun (please do!) Be sure to leave a link to your post over at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

I thought I'd posted this week's words earlier today - apparently I forgot! Oy!!


The first word is from Sunset Park by Paul Auster

"He therefore concentrates on the local, the particular, the nearly invisible details of quotidian affairs." (p.71)

1. Quotidian ~adj.
:usual or customary; everyday
:ordinary; commonplace


This word is from The Postmistress by Sarah Blake:

"In the months after the president had promised Churchill fifty destroyers, the horizon had been crenellated by these far-off ships." (p.128)

2. Crenellated ~adj.
:A battlement (also called a crenellation) in defensive architecture such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e. a short wall), in which portions have been cut out at intervals to allow the discharge of arrows or other missiles.
:the action of constructing ramparts with gaps for firing guns or arrows


This next word comes from an article in the October issue of Elle magazine, The Sara Era by Rebecca Traister

"Perhaps that's because she senses--correctly, given the perfidy of the campaign that picked her and then leaked nasty stories about her all over tarnation--that party loyalty is not a quality from which she herself is likely to profit."(p.416)

3. Perfidy ~ noun
: the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal; treachery
: an act or instance of disloyalty

1 comment:

  1. I knew quotidian from the French - there's a restaurant in New York, Le Pain Quotidian that I ate at the last time I was there. I should have known perfidy, but couldn't define it. Thanks for playing along!

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