WWW OR for those in the know Wondrous Words Wednesday is a meme hosted by Kathy over at BermudaOnion's Weblog the aim of which is to encourage us to share, well, Wondrous Words on .... (yeah!, you guessed) ... a Wednesday.Participated in by several of my blogger buddies, you can see Suko's latest WWW post here and Yvonne's here but in the meantime here are my latest wondrous words.
From Katharina. Nun. Rebel. Wife by Anne Boileau (my review of which can be found here) ...
Wanhope ...
noun ... anguish or despondency
adjective ...despondent
Accidia ...
noun ... spiritual sloth; apathy; indifference
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory ...
Lickspigot ...
noun (obsolete) ... a tapster aka a bartender
... A woman who performs fellatio
- Hmm! A little confused by the use of this word given the context of 'In this time of waiting Elizabeth is a complete lickspigot' - pg 125
Dropsical ...
adjective ... affected with or characteristic of dropsy; oedematous; turgid; swollenFarthingale ...
noun ... a hoop skirt or framework for expanding a woman's skirt, worn in the 16th and 17th centuries
10 comments:
Oh my! Isn't it funny how some words stick and others fall to the wayside? Great post!
Lickspigot! That one makes me laugh just reading it let alone when I know the definitions.
I was rather excited about lickspigot and thought I'd use it to describe myself since I pour beer from time to time at the business my husband and son own and then I read the second definition. I don't think I'll be using it after all. lol
Hi Tracy,
I haven't participated in this great meme for some time now, but I have come across a couple of words recently, which will form a good basis for my next WWW post.
The word I definitely knew was farthingale, the two I might have had a good guess at were dropsical and wanhope.
The words I definitely didn't know anything about were my personal favourite of the post accidia, and lickspigot, which totally confused me, especially when you quoted the phrase in which it was used - I can't begin to imagine what Elizabeth might have been doing with her spare time!!!
The chances of me using any of these in casual, everyday conversation - NIL!
Great post and an excellent choice of books, thanks for sharing both :)
Yvonne
xx
I love this post. I will be looking for more WWW and maybe I will join in.
sherry @ fundinmental
I always love seeing this meme! The only word I could have put a definition to is accidia, though I've seen it spelled "acedia". Farthingale and dropsical both are familiar words, but I couldn't have defined them. I'm still laughing at Kathy's and Yvonne's comments about lickspigot!
Fun post, Tracy. I'll watch for those first two when I read that book, which is waiting in my Kindle.
Great post. I love old and obsolete words. I think that my favorite one that you highlight here is Lickspigot. I will try to use it in my everyday conversation:)
Tracy,
I only knew dropsical, or dropsy, actually. Absolutely wondrous, obsolete words! Merci for the mention! :)
Tracy,
I enjoyed your post very much, as
well as that I visited Kathy's Suko's
and Yvonne's posts.
From your own post, "wanhope" reminds
me of the word which we know in Dutch
as "wanhoop" (the noun) and its verb
"wanhopen", and I was already familiar
with "dropsical" and "farthingale".
Raven
I like wanhope, sounds perfect. :D
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