Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by Bermudaonion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy. I run into new words while I read ALL THE TIME, so I decided to start keeping track and sharing them with you. #vocabnerd!
Here are three of my favorites new-to-me words from recent reads. All definitions from Dictionary.com.
1. uxorious. "Men capable of being uxorious." (From Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn)
adjective
doting upon, foolishly fond of, or affectionately submissive toward one's wife.
(That's a great word!!)
2. ungulate. "Assuming you're talking about the incident last August and I didn't somehow miss an ungulate attack?" (From Feed by Mira Grant)
adjective
1.
having hoofs.
2.
belonging or pertaining to the Ungulata, a former order of all hoofed mammals, now divided into the odd-toed perissodactyls and even-toed artiodactyls.
3.
hooflike.
3. petards. "There will always be people for whom hate is easier when it's not backed up by anything but fear. And I will always do my best to hoist them by their own petards." (From Feed by Mira Grant)
Idiom
hoist by / with one's own petard: hurt, ruined, or destroyed by the very device or plot one had intended for another.
What are your new words this week?
Welcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday! It really helps me to pay more attention and look up the words I don't know.
ReplyDeleteThose are good words!
Joy's Book Blog
Three interesting words, I knew ungulate.
ReplyDeletehttp://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2012/10/wondrous-words-wednesday_17.html
Welcome to WWW - thanks for playing along. I know I've looked ungulate up before but I didn't remember it - hopefully I will now that I've seen it again.
ReplyDeleteI love uxorious!
ReplyDeleteI've never come across Wondrous Words Wednesday... great idea.
Haha, I figured the married ladies would enjoy uxorious. :)
ReplyDeleteGood words! Your last one made me laugh, because "petardo" is a type of firework in Italian, and I recently read a book where your idiom would apply to a situation with a firework... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThree great words or terms there. I was familiar with all of them. I've always wondered at hoisting one's petard. I used your post as an excuse to look up petard, I had always assumed that it was a spike or something. Fascinating to see that it's actually a small bomb.
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ReplyDeleteparole, the definition of the word itself has something to do with fireworks, but for whatever reason, when part of this idiom it means something a bit different. Gotta love the English language. :)
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