Word of the week: An adjective with origins in the late 17th century meaning pointing or heading off in all directions – particularly as in the point of a compass, sometimes pertaining to geographical structure, or such as with an exploding firework
Read moreWord of the week: spanwhengle
Word of the week: This colourfully archaic English verb, thought to have origins in the Leeds and immediate Yorkshire area, means to shake or knock something violently
Read moreWord of the week: tooth-music
Word of the week: A tasteful word in a sense – but not, unfortunately, referring to any form of gentle, dental, melodic xylophone-style playing, but simply an 18th-century dialect word for chewing or mastication
Read moreWord of the week: umbriphilous
Word of the week: An adjective describing that which loves the shade, whether person, plant or otherwise, from the Latin, umbra, for shade and related to other derivatives, such as umbraphile, one who loves eclipses
Read moreWord of the week: vorlus-snorlus
Word of the week: A strangely poetic, archaic Gloucestershire term meaning haphazard, pertaining to a a person who acts at random, possibly a corruption of the Latin term nolens volens, meaning neither willing nor unwilling, related to the word willy-nilly
Read moreWord of the week: warzle / warzlement
Word of the week: An evocative Old English-origin dialect word for sycophantic flattery, pertaining to sly persuasion for favours, it derives from two old English words – wær meaning cautious, and sealm meaning speech
Read moreWord of the Week: zenzizenzizenzic
Word of the week: We return to the alphabet’s end with a word that’s as wonderfully weird, yet buzzily beautifully in sound as it is obscure and obsolete – an antiquated mathematical term meaning the eighth power of a number x, where x is multiplied by itself 8 times
Read moreWord of the week: aubade
Word of the week: An evocative, poetic French word adopted into English language in the 17th century meaning a song or poem set, or performed, at dawn or evoking daybreak, most often about lovers separating – and the flipside of a serenade
Read moreWord of the week: nai
Word of the week: This Romanian 17th-century panpipe is a mainstay of traditional folk and classical music, wide in range and resonant, it is made up of at least 20 pipes made of bamboo or reed in the diatonic scale of C or G, and emits a clean, distinctive sound
Read moreWord of the week: cümbüş
Word of the week: A 20th-century hybrid of oud and banjo, this Turkish instrument, meaning fun or revelry, has a wooden bowl for resonance, giving it rounder, less tinny sound, comes in fretless and fretted forms, and was created by Zeynel Abidin Cümbüş, who unusually renamed himself after his instrument
Read moreWord of the week: melochord
Word of the week: A postwar milestone and highly influential in electronic instrument evolution, the melochord is a monophonic keyboard created by German pioneer Harald Bode (1909–1987) in 1947 and based on vacuum tube technology
Read moreWord of the week: Omnichord
Word of the week: Out latest instrument in the series is was first released in 1981 by Suzuki, including a touch plate called SonicStrings, preset rhythms, auto-bass line function, and sets of single buttons for playing major, minor, and 7th chords in different keys
Read moreWord of the week: damascene
Word of the Week: Craft, art, flower, a city and people, it’s a word used in different parts of speech, meanings and associations, it has a certain musical beauty to its sound but is surprisingly rare in song lyrics
Read moreWord of the week: emberlucock
Word of the Week: It’s a bewildering world, and this wonderful sounding evocative verb, attributed originally to translated François Rabelais from 1469, indeed means to confuse, and its four syllables trundle musically with a form of crash-bang rhythm
Read moreWord of the week: floccinaucinihilipilification
Word of the week: One of the longest in English, it’s the action or habit of estimating something as worthless or unimportant, but is it worth exploring this through the prism of song lyrics? Perhaps …
Read moreWord of the week: gnathonic
Word of the week: It’s an adjective to describe the act of flattery, often false and deceitful, toadying, fawning and that done by a sycophant, but where does it come from and how might it show up in song?
Read moreWord of the week: hubris
Word of the week: About whom could this apply right now? It's a word for extreme, foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance that tends to lead to a fall, and a dangerous thing in the head of someone with power who refuses to acknowledge it.
Read moreWord of the week: ibex
Word of the week: From the genus Capra, or mountain goat, a species that survived the ice age, these specialist climbers have huge horns and spreading feet for death defying climbs and ascents, but how might they have inspired songwriters?
Read moreWord of the week: jecorary
Word of the week: A rare and archaic word from the late 17th century, and an alternative adjective to hepatic, from the French jécoraire and Latin jecur, it means relating to the liver, but not necessarily organ songs
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