I used to think I had a pretty good vocabulary. But, maybe as a result of people having ready access to online thesauruses (okay, thesauri), I seem to be encountering more and more words I’ve never heard before (or, at least, words that I can’t recall ever hearing or reading before). And not just pedantic or esoteric stuff, but good, useful words.
Just a few minutes ago, and in fact motivating this OP, I came across the phrase, “struck by noetic lightning”. It was being used to describe the effect of taking DMT. I had no clue what noetic meant.
Looking it up, I learned that noetic means: of, relating to, or based on the intellect
Good word!
Here’s another example of what I think is a good word that was totally new to me: manqué (pronounced mawn-kay)
Here’s the definition from Dictionary.com
manqué
adjective
having failed, missed, or fallen short: a poet manqué who never produced a single book of verse.
The definition of manqué given by Oxford online is even more specific:
having failed to become what one might have been: he was a creature of suppressed passions, an artist manqué
Another great word that I was surprised I hadn’t heard/read before!
Now it’s your turn. What great word* did you just learn and were surprised you hadn’t encountered before?
*defined as useful and a bit out of the ordinary, and not simply esoteric or archaic
And, please, no one wants to hear someone else exclaim, “Noetic? I knew that when I was in grade 5! You’re just learning it now?”
It was in reference to a photo of Hucksterbee and Kim Davis.
It does remind me of something from The Stand. When the musician gets his wake-up call from another musician-<paraphrasing> “It’s like watching someone who’s shit himself and is walking around, and doesn’t even know it.”
It’s up there with schadenfreude, and I love that word.
The most recent word I’ve learned is “temerarious” (rashly or presumptuously daring). I always figured “The Fighting Temeraire” was named after some person, but perhaps not.
Know it. My dad collected pocket watches. What is cool is that is appears to be realted to Damascus steel, a smithing technique where alternating layers of soft and hard irons are blended to yield a strong, flexible blade that can hold an edge. Damascus steel has a wood-grain look to it, which they are kinda replicating here.
My word is synecdoche - using a component to name the whole. “This old iron” to describe a sword, for instance. A gumshoe for a detective or a blonde for a woman.
I will definitely try to remember this wonderful word when commenting on certain OPs by certain posters!
ETA: Coincidentally, just the other day I came across another borrowed German word - Künstlerroman - I had not heard before. It describes an artist’s, and especially a writer’s, story about his/her growth to (artistic) maturity.