Vocabulary, part trois

Effulgent  - Shining forth brilliantly/radiant

The sound of a million voices suddenly crowds my head and interrupts my thoughts.  An effulgence, terrible in its glory, adds to the confusion and the clamor of it all becomes so great that I stumble off the landing.

And when the hour is right, I will walk outside and say to the effulgent moon, "Thank you for coming; you're right on time."

Cloaca (pronounced Clo-ay-ka)- A sewer/cesspool.  Or, the common duct in fish, reptiles, birds and some primitive mammals that serves as the anus as well as the genital opening. 

I was cast out of my home, abandoned on the side of the road.  After a few nights of wandering, I stumbled upon the cloaca of the city, the place they like to pretend doesn't exist.

When I woke up, hours later, I found myself face to face with the cloaca of a swan.  I decided to stare into it, in the hopes of reading the future in this bird's anus.

Trenchant - Incisive or keen - as language or a person; cutting

Gandhi's words left no room for any more excuses from the British.  The trenchant speech had done its work, and all that was left to do was wait and see if the truth would prevail.

Shakespeare, at his most trenchant in As You Like It, holds nothing back as his characters mischaracterize the concept of love in every way imaginable.

Haughty - Disdainfully proud, snobbish, supercilious

And as for the last of the children to enter the factory, Veruca Salt, she was both haughty and filthy rich; in just these two characteristics, she embodied things most admirable about the human race.

Okay, well, while Dan thought her pleasant enough, I, myself, found her to be haughty and woefully out of touch with what we've been trying to accomplish in this organization.

Askance (adverb) - 1. With suspicion, mistrust, or disapproval; or, 2. With a side glance, sideways, obliquely

She looked askance at her partner; I wonder how helpful he'll be, she wondered, when the days grow shorter and the temperature colder than anything in his experience.  For all his proclamations, he had yet to prove himself in any substantive way.

As I sat, I noticed askance that she was sitting at the far end of the table.  

Gelid - Very cold, icy

The crisp gelid air that touched our bare skin brought proof enough that our lives had been spared.

After cooking the pasta for over three minutes in the microwave, I was less than ecstatic about finding a large hunk of gelid penne pesto in the middle of my bowl.

Delectation - Delight, enjoyment

There was a hint of delectation in her eyes, and I, much relieved, saw that she was enjoying the party.  

I have fond memories of the delectation I once found in eagerly anticipating the next great event in my life.  Especially when I was much younger, with so few years in my experience, a surprise hiding 3 weeks out of sight provided enough raw material for my imagination to revel in its mystery and build it to a mythical height.

Diaphanous - Very sheer and light; almost completely transparent or translucent

A light, diaphanous veil fluttered mildly in the breeze coming off the ocean.  I had no thoughts of what lay on the other side; rather, I watched and breathed and listened, wondered about the mystery of there being no mystery at all.

I considered for a while and decided to by the more diaphanous curtain.  I hate feeling claustrophobic when I take a shower.  

Tawny - Dull yellowish brown

She had left a bunch of stuff in the attic, mostly boxed up except for the huge piles of old tawny packages which held our family pictures and old documents.

My desk is mostly a rich dark brown except for the few spots that time has worn away to leave a mild tawny.

Cant - Insincere conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals and piety; 2. The phraseology of a certain class, era, group, etc.

I'm tired of the cant that is constantly being vomited up by politicians on either side of the aisle.  I'm not disgusted, really, just tired.

This particularly priest was well-known in his principle role as the church fundraiser.  He believed in the morals he preached little more than the most cynical trader on wall street.  His homilies, cant as they were, were easily seen through and readily dismissed.

Comminate - To threaten with divine punishment or vengeance

The anti-gay marriage protest, bringing wrath upon their elected officials, deluded themselves into thinking they had the power to reenact the commination of the pharaoh.

As one walked through the small town, one would ultimately find the idyllic scene broken at the approach to the small chapel which held a loud, offensive, comminating preacher and a terrified congregation, lost of its critical faculties.

Maladroit - Unskillful, awkward, bungling, tactless

And here we find Edgar, maladroit, having been asked to help clean the house, he mops the floor in dirty sneakers and washes the dishes with laundry detergent.

How did we end up on the street?  Outside, not in.  Counting snowflakes instead of enjoying the Chandlers' Christmas party?  Well, one maladroit comment from Theodore left all the partygoers with gelid (!) hearts and daggers in their eyes.  We left promptly.

Mien - Air, bearing, or demeanor

Our server's mien teetered on the edge between crazy and dangerous.  Mabel and I ate quickly, left a hefty tip, and got the hell out of there.

The effortlessness and compassion that radiated out of her performance bespoke a gentle, kind mien, a defining bit of her personality that was later confirmed in our early conversations.

Rapine - (ra-pin or ra-pahyn) The violent seizure and carrying off of another's property; plunder

The rapine alone that accompanied the soldiers' arrival in the small town was enough to discredit the idealistic cant spewing out of the army's talking heads on television.

America, with its long history of manifest hypocrisy and rapine, was, not surprisingly, gearing up for yet another war.

Cupidity - Excessive desire, esp. to possess something; greed; avarice

The future of mankind will be entirely dependent on the extent of man's ability to overcome the cupidity that is rampant in our current societal structures.  

Her features were marred by an irrepressible cupidity; she could not live without the complete satiation of her ever-increasing desires.

Lambent - Running or moving lightly over a surface; dealing lightly and gracefully with a subject, brilliantly playful; softly bright or radiant

The lambent moves of the ice skater, embodying fluidity and grace, impressed the audience, watching on their TV sets.

When discussing the plays of Arthur Miller, however, our host came alive.  Her conversation, witty and lambent, entranced us all.

Through the fog, the nearing coast could hardly seen.  We thought all was lost until a soft point of light, lambent and lovely, appeared out of the nothingness.  

Vocabulary, cont.

Gormandize (both transitive and intransitive) - To eat greedily or ravenously

The body, a large amorphous heap of fur, with roughly defined face and arms, was found dead at the scene of the crime; witnesses report that approxamitely 1 hour before the murder, he was seen and heard gormandizing one T. Count's prized cookie collection. Lawyers for Mr. Count were unavailable for comment.

There's Charles, in the corner of the restaurant. Do you see him? He's hard to miss. This is where he squanders his family's fortune; he destroys his health every night, gormandizing until dawn.

Unctuous - Characterized by excessive moralizing or piousness, esp in an affected manner; smooth, suave and oily

Father Brown, expostulating on one or another of his favorite Catholic talking points, was sure to scare up the cash needed to close the budget gap. Unctuous to his very core, the priest, even still, believed every word he said.

How do these people even get on television? Who cares to hear their unctuous screeds, demonizing the underground conspiracy of homosexuals and communists?

Peevish - 1. Cross, querulous, or fretful, as from vexation or discontent

2. Showing annoyance, irritation, or bad mood

3. Perverse or Obstinate.

Sometimes I get a peevish response from her. She doesn't like some of my jokes, I think.

Peevishness rises to the surface and pushes my closest associates still farther away from me. They know that something lies at the bottom of my bad temper, but I dare not let them get close enough to find it out.

Orison - A prayer

Orisons rise from the lips of a scattered species.

She need not speak for the orisons I find in her eyes.

Serried - Pressed together or compacted

A tin of serried sardines sits half-eaten on the dining table. The stench, four weeks building up, is overpowering. I die a little for the few minutes I spend amid the decay.

We wait outside for her to emerge from the backstage doors. Our bodies are serried to an extent which makes it difficult to breathe. I will realize much later that I might as well have gotten the autograph of the girl standing next to me; I could have left an hour earlier with at least one signature.

Incipient - Beginning to exist or appear; in the early stages

The decision in Brown v. Board of Education revealed to the nation's consciousness the incipient civil rights movement. One year later, Rosa Parks and the bus boycott proved that the times were changing.

Our incipient romance was riddled with cliches. My knack for conversation (whatever it may or may not have been) turned quickly into a knack for saying things I knew to be true only because I had seen them writ large on a movie screen.

Bevy - a large group or collection

[A bevy of DVDs filled the closet. I watched three of them this year. ] - This is the best thing I've written thus far in my blog.

A bevy of journalists crowded the press secretary. Would or wouldn't he acknowledge the will of the people? Of what use is representative democracy

Contumely - Insulting display of contempt in words or action

The contumely of jazz musicians is legendary. I've encountered it less than I would have expected, the attitudes of hack trumpet players having been a poor presage of reality.

I was determined to keep any sort of contumely from my thoughts and actions. If I were to succeed in that one thing then I could not possibly be defeated.