" The pavement upon which I found myself was in the shade, but the opposite side of the street was awash with sunshine and, brightly mirrored in the glass before me, I saw a woman in a black capote bonnet, stretched out on the ground, while a girl crouched beside her.”
1. Capote
: a close-fitting, cap-like bonnet worn by women and children in the mid-Victorian period.
"A bossy looking dowager swooped in with a vial of smelling salts, but when the application of those beneath the victim‘s nose had no effect, our beldam was obliged to fall back, defeated."
2. Beldam
: an old woman, especially an ugly one; hag.
" Then her gaze fell upon the heap of papers on the table. 'Dearie me, look at this guddle.'.”
3. Guddle
: a state of disorder, confusion or untidiness, messiness
" ‘Now, Ms. Bexter,’ cried Elspeth. ‘If you‘ll excuse me I shall hold my wheesht - as we say here in Scotland - and go and hurry along our tea.’ "
4. Wheesht (Scottish slang)
: a call for quiet or silence; used as an interjection Wheesht! to bring about or continue, the silence of others
: quiet, hushed [haud yer wheesht is to hold one's tongue].
" Indeed, I lingered in front of it - in what the Scots might call a ‘dwam‘ - primarily because that corner of the room happened, just at that moment, to be less crowded. "
5. Dwam
: a stupor or daydream
" Hamilton (now long forgotten) was then a well-established painter of the old-fashioned ‘gluepot school‘: artists so called because of the dark, sticky nature of their preferred medium, megilp, and also, perhaps, because of their subject matter which was often gooey, mawkish and overly moralistic. "
6. Megilp
: an oil painting medium consisting of a mixture of mastic varnish and an oil medium: walnut, linseed, safflower, poppy, black oil. It makes oil paint thin, glossy, and easy to work with a extremely short drying time
Posts
They are all new to me and very interesting.
ReplyDeletehttp://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2012/02/wondrous-words-wednesday_08.html
LOVE weesht and guddle! It sounds like they could be a law firm in a Dickens novel, doesn't it? Great words today!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to adopt guddle. "Dearie me, look at this guddle" sounds so much better than saying "My desk looks like a dump."
ReplyDeleteThe only one I knew is beldam. I'm with everyone else, I love guddle. Dwam is pretty good too! Great words today.
ReplyDeleteGREAT WORDS....the English Language is so interesting.
ReplyDeleteStopping by from Bermdaonion's site.
OLD FOLLOWER.
Elizabeth
http://silversolara.blogspot.com
Fantastic word choices -- all ones I had to google -- I'm thrilled you lifted them up today, if only because I got to revisit G&I again...such a good book! :)
ReplyDeleteTerrific words today! I, too, like the word guddle, and hope to use it soon.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous group of words! The only one I knew was beldam. I too shall try to take up using guddle too. Easy enough to remember, close enough to muddle to make it memorable.
ReplyDelete