Choler - irascibility; anger; wrath; irritability; one of the four humors of ancient and medieval physiology, thought to cause anger and bad temper when present in excess; yellow bile
Termagant - a quarrelsome, scolding woman; a shrew
Mickle - a lot of something
(she's a)Mickletongue - a lot of tongue or someone who runs their mouth a lot ????
Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken
Nidification - the act or process of building a nest
Gelogenic - productive or provocative of laughter
Afflatus - inspiration; an impelling mental force acting from within; divine communication of knowledge
Ephetic - of or pertaining to the office of ephete
Ephete - a member of an ancient Athenian court that tried certain murder cases
Sciolism - a superficial show of learning
Mephitic - offensive to the smell; noxious; pestilential; poisonous
Deliquesce - to dissolve or melt away; to become soft or liquid with age or maturity
Sesquipedalian - having many syllables; given to or characterized by the use of long words
The Household Guide to Dying by Debra Adelaide
Louche - not reputable or decent
Roman a clef - a novel in which actual persons, places, or events are depicted in fictional guise
Encaustic - a paint consisting of pigment mixed with beeswax and fixed with heat after its application; done by a process of burning in or applying heat
Uxorious - excessively fond of or submissive to a wife
Dupatta - a scarf worn in India
Blunderbuss - a short musket of wide bore and flaring muzzle, formerly used to scatter shot at close range; a person regarded as clumsy and stupid
The Room and the Chair by Lorraine Adams
Catawampus - askew, awry
Courtesy of my friend, Barbara Coffman. Thank you, Barbara! You made my vocabulary day!!
Accreted - to make greater by increased growth
Fop - a man excessively concerned with his clothes and appearance
Milksop - a feeble or ineffectual male
The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams
Palimpsest - writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased
Hoi Polloi - the common people; the masses
Lubricious - having a slippery or smooth quality. sexually stimulating; salacious
Apposite - highly pertinent or appropriate
Luthier - one who makes stringed, musical instruments
The Rainaldi Quartet by Paul Adam
Solons - a wise lawgiver
Cognoscenti - a person who has expert knowledge in a subject
Hard Call Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them by John McCain
Sylph - a slender, graceful girl; an elemental being in the theory of Paracelsus that inhabits air
(Alright, Abe definitely gets points for creativity.)
Surfeit - excess, overabundance
Missish - like a miss; prim; affected; sentimental
(Try saying that word three times fast. Go ahead. Try it. I dare you.)
The Dream Thief by Shana Abe
Susurrus - soft whispering or rustling sound
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
Hebetude - stupidity
(The kids and love this one. My sixth grader tells his friends they're full of hebetude and when they ask what that means he says, "Exactly.")
Raconteur - a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly
(I picked this word because it was one that I thought I knew and apparently didn't. I like the correct definition better.)
Sabulous - sandy; gritty
Our Words of the Day
Mealy mouthed - not outspoken or blunt; euphemistic, insincere
Palaver - idle chatter; talk intended to charm or beguile; Obsolete A parley between European explorers and representatives of local populations, especially in Africa
Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams
Brio - enthusiastic vigor
Open An Autobiography by Andre Agassi
Inkhorn Term - any foreign borrowing into English deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious
Slanging Match - a heated exchange of abuse
Calumniator - one who make maliciously or knowingly false statements
Pedant - a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning; a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details
Inchoate - in an initial or early stage; incipient
Conny-catching - Elizabethan British slang for theft through trickery; from "coney", a tamed rabbit raised for the table
Tudor Portraits Success and Failure of an Age by Michael Foss
Iatrogenic - inadvertent adverse effects or complications caused by or resulting from medical treatment or advice
murder suicide by Keith Ablow
Corduroy Roads - muddy roads with rough logs laid over the mud
Hobnob - archaic: to drink sociably, from the phrase "to hob or nob" which was to toast each other over drinks; currently: to associate familiarly
Boodler - a political grafter; see also
Boodle - the lot, crowd; a large quantity, usually of money, bribe or graft
Higgledy piggledy - jumbled, confused, helter-skelter (also a good word); a verse form also known as a double dactyl
A Useful Woman The Early Life of Jane Addams by Gioia Diliberto
Crapulous - marked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking, sick from excessive indulgence in liquor (I learned this word for the first time when the kids and I were doing our Word of the Day calendar last year. It was fun to see it used in a book.)
Tinker's Cuss (as in not give a) - seems self explanatory
Great Gunfighters of the West by Carl W. Breihan
Perserverate - to repeat something insistently or redundantly
A Real Boy A True Story of Autism Early Intervention, and Recovery by Christina Adams
Concatenated - to link together; unite in a series or chain
Saccade - a small, rapid, jerky movement of the eye, especially as it jumps from fixation on one point to another
Brobdingnagian - of huge size; gigantic; tremendous (from Gulliver's Travels, Brobdingnag is the land occupied by giants)
Picaresque - Of or involving clever rogues or adventurers
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Hagiographic - A worshipful or idealizing biography
The Last Hero A Life of Henry Aaron by Howard Bryant
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