Your Custom Text Here
Three-banded tolypeutine
Word of the week: A noun related to the term Tolypeutinae, this is a subfamily of Chlamyphoridae of the armadillo family, consisting of the giant, naked-tailed and particularly the three-banded species
Read more
Sheep are naturally ulotrichous
Word of the week: While it’s entirely natural in animals such as sheep as well as some humans, depending on an individual’s point of view it’s either a blessing or a curse. From Greek words oûlos (crisp, curly) and -trikhos (haired), this adjective means having curly or woolly hair
Read more
A md-19th century illustration of the varsovienne
Word of the week: Our latest etymological move into obscurity originates in around 1850 in Warsaw, Poland, and also known as the varsouvienne or varsoviana – a slow, graceful dance in 3/4 waltz time, which also combines elements of the mazurka and polka
Read more
What stirs? A cup of withershins?
Word of the week: Also variously spelled widershins and widderschynnes, this Lowland Scots dialect word term derived from German means counter-clockwise, literally “against the way”, not only on a clock face, but originally against the perceived motion of the sun in the northern hemisphere
Read more
Chateau Marmont Hotel, West Hollywood, California
Word of the week: It’s something in which many of us may indulge during the thick of winter, planning for holidays via booking websites, this noun meaning the study of hotels, extending also to researching their lore and history
Read more
Cupped unit
Word of the week: A timeless noun emanating from Middle English ȝespen and first used in around 1325, meaning a unit of measurement being the amount of that can be held in two hands cupped together
Read more
That distinctive gingerbread twang
Word of the week: Two alternative spellings, spicily evocative and colourful, they are adjectives pertaining to the Zingiberaceae family of flowering plants that variously bring that distinctive flavour of, and are a rather fancy way of saying – ginger
Read more
A row of aquabobs
Word of the week: Sounding like some water-based children’s TV superhero, it’s actually a particularly apt and descriptive word for wintertime, being an 18th-century English Kent dialect noun meaning icicle
Read more
Broticolous behaviour: raccoons
Word of the week: Mice, rats, spiders, foxes to raccoons, this obscure adjective, connected to the French noun broticole, this relates to any animal and insect species with a tendency to live around and alongside humans and their dwellings perhaps as scavengers, but also showing adaptability
Read more
Laurence Sterne’s acclaimed novel - a prime example of circumbendibus
Word of the week: Not a snaking elongated piece of public transport but still a very evocative 17th-century word for a circuitous, long-winded route or way of doing something or telling a story …
Read more
The Deoch an Dorus pub in Partick, Glasgow
Word of the week: From the17th-century Scottish Gaelic phrase, deoch an doruis (and also with the form deochandorus), this literally means “door-drink” – a toast made with, or to honour, someone about to depart
Read more
Meme of the time: four lads in jeans, Birmingham 2019
Word of the week: Aside from the literal outer layer of the ray-finned slippery fish, this evocative, slightly suggestive 19th-century slang means very tight trousers, while this week’s bonus word, excruciators, points to the experience of wearing very tight shoes
Read more
A flittermouse in action ...
Word of the week: With other variants such as flickermouse and flinder-mouse, this rather charming Tudor-period English noun is a rather evocative and onomatopoeically descriptive one for that quietly sonic-guided night creature – the bat
Read more
A gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow
Word of the week: From the Ancient Greek, γνώμων (gnṓmōn)this pointed noun literally means one that knows or examines, but it is specifically the part of a sundial that casts a shadow as well as referring to other mathematical terms
Read more
The Green Man
Word of the week: Two lesser known and very similar adjectives from the Latin word heder – hederaceous meaning resembling ivy, while hederigerent describing that which is dressed with or bedecked in ivy
Read more
Dip yours here …
Word of the week: An evocative noun in reference to old-fashioned desk ink wells dipped into by quills or ink pens – an inkhornist is a pedant of words, while the phrase smelling of the inkhorn refers to be being excessively pedantic with language or grammar. But how does it shape up in song?
Read more
Jenticulate with the jentacular in the morning …
Word of the week: A tasty noun and an adjective all associated with the first meal of the day - one means to take breakfast, the other, with a variant spelling, describes anything related to that meal. Both derive from the Latin noun ientaculum, meaning a breakfast taken immediately on getting up
Read more
Titania falls under a kalopsian spell in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Drawing by Charles Buchel, 1905
Word of the week: A noun describing distorted perception, meaning the delusion of seeing things as being more beautiful than they are, or through rose-tinted glasses
Read more
Loweswater in the Cumbrian Lake District
Word of the week: A poetic word taken from the Latin lacus and French or Italan lacustre, this shimmering liquid of an adjective means relating to, formed in, living in, or growing in lakes, lake-like or positioned by a lake
Read more
"The Macaroni. A real Character at the late Masquerade", a 1773 mezzotint by Philip Dawe
Word of the week: While distantly linked to the Italian pasta dish, this 17th-18th century adjective means dandified, fancy, or over-the-top, in reference to the flamboyant macaroni hairpiece commonly worn by wealthy young men returning from their Grand Tour of Europe
Read more