Wondrous Words Wednesday 24/10/12

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.  

This weeks words come from my recent reading of Watership Down. A literary walk through a bucolic Berkshire fields. 

1. Glaucous (Adjective)

Hazel squatted on his haunches and stared at the orderly forest of small, glaucous trees with their columns of black-and-white bloom. 

A grayish, bluish, or whitish waxy coating that is easily rubbed off. 

Glaucous Gull! Picture source

2.  Gibbet (Noun)

'And you, Acorn, you dog-eared, dung-faced disgrace to a gamekeeper's gibbet; if I only had time to tell you-'

A device used for hanging a person until dead; a gallows. 

3. Scut (Noun)

Outside, in the thickening light of the afternoon, with the rain trickling into his eyes and under his scut, he watched them as they joined him. 

A stubby erect tail, as that of a hare, rabbit, or deer. 

4. Stridulated (Verb)

The insects buzzed, whined, hummed, stridulated and droned as the air grew warmer in the sunset. 

To produce a shrill grating, chirping, or hissing sound by rubbing body parts together, as certain insects do. 

5. Susuration (Noun)

But beyond the light movements of birds and the first buzzing of the flies immediately around them, they could hear nothing but the continual susuration of the trees. 

A soft, whispering or rustling sound; a murmur. 

6. Riparian (Adjective)

Along its farther side the riparian plants grew thickly, so that it was separated from the river by a kind of hedge of purple loosestrife, great willow-herb, fleabane, figwort and hemp agrimony, here and there already in bloom. 

Of, on, or relating to the banks of a natural course of water. 

All definitions today from The Free Dictionary.