Welcome back, wordy friends!
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.
Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from my recent reads. All definitions from Dictionary.com.
1. diaspora. "Ending the diaspora requires people with a variety of skills and the motivation to use them." (from God Grew Tired of Us by John Bul Dau)
noun
1. (with initial capital letter) the scattering of the Jews to countries outside of Palestine after the Babylonian captivity.
2. (with initial capital letter) the body of Jews living in countries outside Israel.
3. (with initial capital letter) such countries collectively: the return of the Jews from the Diaspora.
4. any group migration or flight from a country or region.
5. any group that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland, especially involuntarily, as Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Certainly an appropriate word for the many Sudanese who fleed the country throughout the war.
2. caliphate. "(Spoiler) was the apex of a holy pyramid that had begun when Osama bin Laden initiated a call for victory in the name of Islam and the Wahhabi caliphate." (from The Intercept by Dick Wolf)
noun
The rank, jurisdiction, or government of a caliph.
And a caliph is (after I looked it up) a spiritual leader of Islam.
3. vertiginous. "It is vertiginous following her." (from Indiscretion by Charles Dubow)
adjective
1. whirling; spinning; rotary: vertiginous currents of air.
2. affected with vertigo; dizzy.
3. liable or threatening to cause vertigo: a vertiginous climb.
4. apt to change quickly; unstable: a vertiginous economy.
I guess I should have been able to figure this one out from the root (vertigo)...didn't realize it until I saw the definition!
I learnt diaspora a few years ago, it's a great word, very useful. Vertiginous is a great word too. Calliphate was new for me too.
ReplyDeleteDiaspora is familiar to me but I couldn't define it. I am going to try to remember it now. The only word I knew is vertiginous and that's only because I suffer from vertigo from time to time.
ReplyDeleteNew words for me today.
ReplyDeletehttp://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/03/wondrous-words-wednesday_13.html
I've posted on vertiginous too! And thanks for doing the extra step of telling us what a caliph is (and admitting to your own need to look it up!)
ReplyDeleteDiaspora was the only one I knew. The other two are quite the mouthful.
ReplyDeleteCaliphate was new to me. I'm not sure I'll ever have use of it!
ReplyDeleteAll these words are very new to me (which has me thinking that I should read outside of my usual category). For some reason, I particularly like vertiginous.
ReplyDelete