Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.
My first word is from the excellent Rain May and Captain Daniel that I recently reviewed.
1. Ferengi (Noun)
The Ferengi at the supermarket told her.
The character who writes this sentence is quite obsessed with Star Trek, so I figured it was a Star Trek reference. But it wasn't one that I knew. Off to Google:
The Ferengi are indeed a fictitious extra-terrestrial race.
The rest of my words today come from Michael Scott's The Alchemyst.
2. Travertine
Vast and sprawling, built entirely of white travertine marble, and accessible only by a private road, it occupied a sixty-acre estate surrounded by a twelve-foot wall topped by an electric fence.
A white, tan, or cream-colored form of limestone, often having a fibrous or concentric appearance. Travertine is formed through the rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, especially at the mouth of a hot spring or in limestone caves, where it forms stalactites and stalagmites. |
3. Necromancer
4. Scrying
He had mastered necromancy and sorcery, astrology and mathematics, divination and scrying.
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirit of a
deceased person, either as an apparition or ghost, or to raise them bodily,
for the purpose of divination. (wiki)
Scrying. To see or predict the future by means of a crystal ball. (the free dictionary)
5. Nathair
Huge flocks of nathair swooped across the skies and the bushes, and tall grasses were alive with unseen crawling, slithering, scuttling creatures.
A snake, serpent or adder. Scottish gaelic. (Wiktionary). It is also apparently a boys name in Scotland.
6. Sigils (Noun)
Unlike in her previous prison, she couldn't see any magical wards or protective sigils painted on the lintel or the floor.
i) A seal; a signet
ii) A sign or an image considered magical. (the free dictionary)
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| Photo credit |
7. Virescent (adjective)
He snapped his fingers and sent a sheet of virescent fire blazing into the fog.
1. Becoming green.
2. Somewhat green; greenish.
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| Virescent green metallic bee |
I knew a few of those words. I can't imagine naming anyone Nathair after reading its meaning!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what are the odds that the Ferengi would come up not once but twice in the same Wondrous Words Wednesday. I just read someone else's link to their list and . . . well, statistically speaking, I didn't think I'd see another Star Trek reference today let alone one that is so specific.
ReplyDeleteNathair is wonderful - I don't think I've ever seen that one before.
ReplyDeleteMy words are here.
All new to me, Louise, but lovely and interesting words. I like the reference to Star Trek.
ReplyDeleteWow, all new, except Ferengi. I'm a serious Trekkie from way back (though I own no uniforms and have never made it to a convention).
ReplyDeleteI hope NOT to encounter a Ferengi in the street to-night ! Great words and difficult ones for me !
ReplyDelete