These aren’t technically words, but I’m always grateful that Wikipedia has a listing for nearly every name and place in the Lord of the Rings. It really adds a lot of depth to the story, knowing what all those names mean. I mean it was great the first time, but at times I felt like I was skipping and ignoring half the book!
As I was proofreading a story at the newspaper that I work at, the word “ambit” popped up. I had never seen it before. It means “scope” or “sphere of influence.”
Damn judges and their fancy talk.
Can’t remember which word I didn’t last know the definition of, but today I looked up quixotic to see if it had a second pronunciation of kee ho tic. It didn’t.
My world just reeled beneath me. I had no idea that it wasn’t pronounced “kee-ho-tik.”
Oh, and the latest word I had to look up is “neoplasm,” which is a tumor.
Not that I’ll remember either of these things tomorrow.
RR
louche - shady, disreputable, questionable
I see I’ve duplicated Andy L’s word, that’ll teach me to skim! I just finished a Robert Tannenbaum marathon, and he used the word in several of his books.
Last one I needed to look up, or last one I actually did?
I think the last term I looked up was studding-sails. I’ve been reading Aubrey Maturin, and there are enough sailing-specific terms that I often won’t bother looking them up if I can get the intent from context. I’ll store up the more memorable ones and wiki them as a group. Of course, most of the time, they’re names of sails or rigging or whatnot, but I’m turning into a sailing junkie anyways.
“cosplay”
Hah. The X-Files had a two part episode called Provenance/ Providence several years ago. Provenance was the one I had to look up because until then I thought people where spelling Providence wrong the very few times I encountered it.
The last word I had to look up in Japanese would be the last time I read anything. I’m constantly learning new words and filling in the (gaping) holes in my vocabulary.
In English, though, I ran into several archaic words when reading Raymond Chandler a couple of months back.
Levantine |ləˌvøntən| |ˌlɛvənˈtaɪn| chiefly archaic
adjective
of or trading to the Levant : the Levantine coast.
noun
a person who lives in or comes from the Levant.
Oh, thank you, Oxford. That was extremely helpful…not!
That’s more like it.
Cool. I thought it was a monocle thingie.
Medlar – I didn’t have to look it up though, because the author explained that it was a fruit that you don’t eat until it’s rotten.
Compurgator – the author explained this too. It was used in law in medieval times. If you were accused of a crime (civil or criminal), you could pay a compurgator to swear an oath that you were innocent. Get enough compurgators (usually 12) and you’d be off the hook. The compurgator was supposed to know the accused, that he was of good character, but sometimes they were just strangers looking to get paid.
Something else I didn’t know was that defendants in criminal proceedings weren’t allowed a defense.
I’m watching these guys burgle somebody’s house to get evidence and I’m thinking “Just get a search warrant, why don’cha!”
Possibly you’re thinking of a lorgnette, although that has two lenses.
More likely thinking of a loupe.
Valetudinarian – an invalid
Also cenotaph, which I knew was some kind of memorial, but didn’t know was “a monument built to honor people whose remains are interred elsewhere or whose remains cannot be recovered.”
I’d seen Wizard of Oz lots of times when I was a kid, but never noticed until a couple of years ago:
This usage doesn’t line up too well with the definition… perhaps Oz didn’t know what it meant either?
Ah ha! Of course.
It sounds like something in between ‘valedictorian’ and ‘salutatorian’.
I’m not sure of the last time I resorted to a dictionary while reading a book, but the quickest was Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess. It began "I was in bed with my catamite… "
The last few things I’ve looked up were from the Warehouse 23 basement. The only one I can remember offhand was ‘Thaumaturgical’.
While reading Edgar A. Poe’s William Wilson, I encountered the word “lustrum.” The context made it clear that it was in reference to some period of time, but it wasn’t until I looked it up that I knew that was a primarily British term meaning a period of five years.
Japesome, from the cover of an old Black Adder VHS.