Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Wondrous Words Wednesday (17)




Welcome back, wordy friends!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three of my favorites new-to-me words, from White Dog Fell From The Sky by Eleanor Morse. All definitions from Dictionary.com.


1. veldt. "He lay down in the sun and dreamt troubled dreams, of pursuit, of open veldt that gave no cover or shelter."

noun
the   open   country,   bearing   grass,   bushes,   or   shrubs,   or   thinly   forested,   characteristic   of   parts   of   southern  Africa.

I feel like I've learned this word before (maybe in a high school geography class), but I couldn't place the definition.

2. avuncularity (avuncular). "She thought of asking him to quit the avuncularity."

adjective
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of an uncle avuncular affection.

I didn't expect this fancy-sounding word to have such a simple meaning.

3. aesthete. "Then there was Drew with the bad reputation, and Zachary, the aesthete, and Brandon with the beautiful, sad eyes."

noun
1.  a person who has or professes to have refined sensitivity toward the beauties of art or nature.
2.  a person who affects great love of art, music, poetry, etc., and  indifference to practical matters.

Might be my favorite of the week.  Easy to spot the root of 'aesthetic' in this one.

What are your new words this week?

6 comments:

  1. Avuncularity made me smile....at first glance I read it as a noun!! The humour of my various uncles often made me wish to call out "quit the avuncularity!!"
    I'm new to WWW - I'm loving all this amazing word power and the new book possibilities :-)

    Reply
  2. Veldt is familiar to me but I couldn't define it. There used to be a gift shop in a town we lived in called The Aesthete - they put the definition on their bags, etc, so I did know that one.

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  3. These are all excellent words to know. I was most unfamiliar with veldt, which might be a good one to use in word games.

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  4. all three were familiar for me.. like you,not sure where i read/know veldt from though

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  5. Brona, welcome to WWW! My favorite weekly meme! :)

    Bermuda, what a cool name for a store.

    Suko, yes that would be a great Words With Friends word!

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who was just "mildly" familiar with veldt.

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  6. Yay! I knew all three of your words today, although I do have to think about avuncular every time. White Dog Fell from the Sky is a great title for a book, it sounds intriguing.

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