Now, enjoy a list of vocabulary words I've written down from the books I've read this summer along with sentences I've written to help me remember them.
effluvium: an unpleasant or harmful odor, secretion, or discharge.
The effluvia of baby barf resonated in my living room years after the incident with the slim fast and breast milk mix-up, and I vowed never to store my weight loss beverages in unmarked bottles again.
sylphine: like a sylph (a slender, graceful woman or girl) (this is a pretty archaic word)
At the street corner stood the sylphine silhouette of a woman, but upon closer inspection it was merely a lamp post, so I sat on the curb and wept bitterly.
At the street corner stood the sylphine silhouette of a woman, but upon closer inspection it was merely a lamp post, so I sat on the curb and wept bitterly.
fey: giving the impression of vague unworldliness; possessing supernatural powers
Even though this elusive and fey sophomore strode the hallways clad in flowing black cloaks and spoke to no one, by 4 PM each day she was in her room watching Arrested Development like the rest of us.
crenulate (or crenulated): having a finely scalloped or notched outline or edge (esp. of a leaf, shell, or shoreline)
What a waste of a mollusk, I thought to myself, as the pugnacious six-year-old boy shoved the crenulated shell of a live scallop up my nose.
immutable: unchanging over time or unable to be changed
Winning the lottery doesn't alter the immutable fact that I am sixty-two years old with a thirty year-old son who refuses to move out of my house, let alone get out of his race-car bed frame.
poleax: to cause great shock to someone (or, noun, a sort of battle-ax, and in another verb form, to hack someone with said battle-ax).
Naturally, the DMV worker poleaxed the disoriented and now wide-awake customers when he poleaxed the young man (who made the vacuous decision to remark on the length of the license renewal line) with his recently sharpened poleax.
Naturally, the DMV worker poleaxed the disoriented and now wide-awake customers when he poleaxed the young man (who made the vacuous decision to remark on the length of the license renewal line) with his recently sharpened poleax.
garrote: to kill by strangulation, typically with a thin length of rope or wire
Typically if a violinist instills within his or her audience the urge to garrote said musician with their own violin strings, it is a sign that a career in the orchestral arts is not a plausible one.
exorbitant: unreasonably high
Despite a complete lack of necessity and square footage for a taxidermy Alaskan Grizzly Bear, Calvin purchased it with fervor in hopes of relieving his irrational fear of salmon.
Despite a complete lack of necessity and square footage for a taxidermy Alaskan Grizzly Bear, Calvin purchased it with fervor in hopes of relieving his irrational fear of salmon.
ursine: related to bears
Unfortunately, the soul of this bear was only temporary suspended in ursine limbo and would soon reanimate and acquire a taste for neurotic humans.
Unfortunately, the soul of this bear was only temporary suspended in ursine limbo and would soon reanimate and acquire a taste for neurotic humans.
atavistic: relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral
In an atavistic fit of despair, the starving mime quite literally pounced on the butcher's table of raw meat, startling the previously bored couples and impatient children at the open air market.
purloin: to steal
He managed to consume most of a lamb shank, staining his striped shirt in the process, before the authorities arrived and compelled him to purloin a bundle of meat and sprint into the nearest subway entrance.
Wow, I had more words but I got really tired. Maybe I'll do a couple at the end of every post from now on. Well, because I didn't take a picture today, I should rummage through my hard drive to find something to post for the sake of getting the attention of those who only look at my images...
My portrait of a conservative Circa 2009, that should do it.
zzzZzzZZzzzzzz
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