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. baize. "Then a match was struck, and I saw the caretaker, with the green baize of his apron torn down the middle..." (from How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn)
noun
1. a soft, usually green, woolen or cotton fabric resembling felt, used chiefly for the tops of billiard tables.
2. an article of this fabric or of a fabric resembling it.
verb
3. to line or cover with baize.
Now all I can picture is a guy wearing the top of a pool table.
2. burnoose. "Then a burnoose my father used to wear that made him look like Rudolph Valentino." (from Indiscretion by Charles Dubow)
noun
1. a hooded mantle or cloak, as that worn by Arabs.
2. a similar garment worn by women at various periods in Europe and the United States.
The visual in my head would probably be clearer if I had any idea who Rudolph Valentino is/was...
3. roustabout. "Unlike most of them, he worked during the summer, one year as a roustabout on the Oklahoma oil fields, another on an Alaskan fishing boat." (from Indiscretion by Charles Dubow)
noun
1. a wharf laborer or deck hand, as on the Mississippi River.2. an unskilled laborer who lives by odd jobs.
3. a circus laborer who helps in setting up and taking down the tents and in caring for the animals, equipment, and grounds.
4. any unskilled laborer working in an oil field.
Definition #4: ding ding ding. This word also reminds me of John Locke in Lost (though I know the word I'm thinking of there is "walkabout"...haha).
I knew roustabout! Wasn't Elvis Presley one in an old movie of his? Thanks for playing along!
ReplyDeleteHmmmm not sure! I'll have to check it out!
DeleteOnly one was a familiar word, thanks! for sharing.
ReplyDeletehttp://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/04/wondrous-words-wednesday_17.html
I am familiar with "roustabout" also. Living and working in NE Wyoming, where the main industry is coal mines and oilfields, roustabout is a word used a lot. Anymore, roustabout are not that all unskilled. The oilfields of today are becoming more and more technical. It's hard work and dangerous these days, the unskilled workers are called "swampers"!!!
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for the inside info! Interesting stuff.
DeleteI like "roustabout" for itself, I'm not sure how "correct" it sounds otherwise. Love your thought on pool table fabric, pardon the slight pun but it does sound fitting.
ReplyDeleteYou found some good ones this week. I knew roustabout because my husband and I love to read and watch Westerns. The other two are new to me as well. Baize was fun.
ReplyDelete