~ ~ Wondrous Words Wednesday ~ ~

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion's Weblog where participants share words they encountered in their reading.   Feel free to join in the fun!  Make sure to leave a link to your post over at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

These words are from The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman 

But when asked what the chances were that the defense of a black man from the Bronx would be believed, when the two co-accused black men were pleading guilty to armed robbery, Numbers’ eyes seemed suddenly to brim with sentience. 

1. Sentience   {noun}

1. responsive to or conscious of sense impressions; able to feel, see, hear, smell, or taste

2. aware

3. finely sensitive in perception or feeling

 

His argument was a reminder that without concomitant changes in the law there would have been no grounds on which the local activists could base their fight.  

2. Concomitant   (adj.)

1. existing or occurring with something else, often in a lesser way; accompanying; concurrent

(noun):

2.  a concomitant quality, circumstance, or thing; a phenomenon that naturally accompanies or follows something

 

The lighthouse of history might suggest flashing glimpses of the way ahead but it’s imprudent to count on history for a precise illuminated map replete with synclines and anticlines of the terrain ahead. 

3. Synclines  (noun) Geology

: A fold in rocks in which the rock layers dip inward from both sides toward the axis. 

4. Anticlines  (noun) Geology

: A fold with strata sloping downward on both sides from a common crest.