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.
I often come up against new words whilst reading the newspaper. This first one is from a SMH review of Dave Egger's latest A Hologram for the King.
1. Ludic (Adjective)
The struggle pays off in A Hologram for the King, which rejects the ludic ostentation of Heartbreaking Work and embraces the elegant restraint and limpid observation of Zeitoun to create a novel- part elegy, part black farce-written for a United States that's beginning to realise it on the wrong side of history.
Of or relating to playfulness. From French ludique and Latin ludus. The Free Dictionary.
The rest of this weeks words come from Sonya Hartnett's Life in Ten Houses.
2. Clowder (Noun)
The cats befriend a clowder of ferals, and the novel featured six major feline characters, most of them modelled on real-life cats I'd owned in the past.
A group of cats. Also cludder, clutter, kendle, kindle. The Free Dictionary.
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3. Fag end (Noun)
The northern end of Burke Road, however, was and remains Kew's fag end, its hangnail.
An end of poorer quality, or in a spoiled condition, as the coarser end of a web of cloth, the untwisted end of a rope, etc. The Free Dictionary.
4. Mingy (Adjective)
After Clifton Hill's hard surfaces and mingy spaces, the wilderness of the train line and the messy sprawl of the property's garden seemed exactly what I needed.
i) Small in quantity; meager.
ii) Mean and stingy. The Free Dictionary.
Those are all new to me. I find it interesting that one of the synonyms of clowder is kindle. I think I can remember mingy and use it too!
ReplyDeleteClowder made me think of chowder. Nothing to do with one another....
ReplyDeleteNever heard of these, glad you shared them.
ReplyDeleteMingy - maybe because it rhymes with dingy - sounds mean and stingy. And being a lover of alliteration how could I not love a clowder of cats! I'm going to have to put Life in Ten Houses on my list of books to read. Oh and that picture is to die for! At first glance I thought it was some Aussie birds you posted for Saturday Snapshot then I realized it was all cats! Is it real??
ReplyDeleteI like finding words in newspapers. I like it that journalists try to expand their writing and not rely on the same old stuff.
ReplyDeleteAll new to me, I especially love clowder -- and does kindle really mean a group of cats too? That one I will remember! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteClowder is great, I thought of chowder too! Thankfully they aren't related.
ReplyDeleteThat photo is one I found on the internet Sim, I hope it's real, but I'm not sure.
Hi Louise,
ReplyDeleteI know of 'mingy' and 'fag end', however the first two words are new to me.
I checked out the two books also, however I am not too sure about either of them, so no new additions to my list this week.
Also I really find the picture of the cats, quite awful. I have a real phobia about cats, I am actually scared of them and can't bear to look at them, let alone touch one!!
Nice post apart from the pic.
Yvonne