Interesting and Difficult Words That You Should Know III

When a teacher begins a class or a writer an essay, it is important to begin with something fun or memorable. So, let's begin this last essay for the day with the words crepuscular and crepitate. In Latin the crepusculum is the twilight. The word crepusculum has come into English as a noun: "The twilight too, that long Arctic crepusculum, seemed..disproportionately increased in its duration." Though we usually associate crepuscular with the evening hours, the original use in English referred to the morning twilight which preceded the day. Figuratively speaking, the word crepuscular refers to a state of imperfect enlightenment, such as in the phrase "crepuscular civilization," or "crepuscular insight." Say the word out loud; it carries with it a bit of the dimness which characterizes the word.

But if we move to crepitate, we rely on a different word--crepitare--which means to crackle or snap with a sharp, abrupt, and rapidly repeated sound, or to rattle. Indeed, an ancient instrument resembling the castanets was called the crepitaculum. Something crepitant crackles, but the word crepitant usually refers to the characteristic sound of lungs in pneumonia. One might speak of the "crepitant rales" of a person as s/he struggles to breathe. But, enough of this serious stuff. The OED informs us that the oldest attestation of crepitate, from 1623, is "to winde or fart"; i.e., to break wind. In entomology, to crepitate means, for certain beatles, "to eject a pungent fluid suddently with a sharp report." So, even if the dominant use of the word today is in medicine or to describe something that crackles (bones, fires), I love the fact that for 200 years it only related to farting.

While we are on farting (recall in a previous essay, too, that gong was "ordure"), we sould look at fimicolous. Derived from the Latin fimus, meaning dung, fimicolous is, literally "inhabiting dung." So, rather than bursting into a room and saying, "This look's like a pigsty," a parent would be better advised to say, "Cease this fimicolous living!" The Century informs us also that another old English word for living in dung is fimetarious.

We are not finished on this theme. A woman who is fecund is "fruitful," fertile or prolific in bearing offspring. One also speaks of the fecundity of the earth. Yet, just go up a word or two in the dictionary and you have feculent or feculence. Derived from feculentia, the Latin word from which we get feces (now you see where this is going), feculent means "abounding in impurities," "in the nature of feces or dregs," "thick, turbid, foul, fetid." One can speak of a "feculent or dreggy refuse." The Ganges River, despite its sacred quality to Hindus, is a muddy and feculent river. Enough of this dirt!

Briefer Expositions--the "N's"

Four words beginning with "n" that have fascinated me are nidus, nodus, nisus and nitid. Let's think of visual images, of pictures, and we can't go wrong. A nodus, for example, is a knot (Lat. nodus). Thus, it is a sort of gall or hard lump, a tumor or hump. But it can also have a figurative meaning, even though the OED says it is rare (yet the Unabridged gives this as its sole meaning), as "difficulty" or "complication." From 1728: "In this sense Intrigue is used to signify the Nodus, or Plot of a Play or Romance." "He was beleaguered and beset by what they call the nodus, or difficulty of his situation." We might equate nodus and gravamen--referring to the central part, the "lump" of the issue. Nitid in contrast, means "bright, shining, glossy." The Latin verb behind it, nitere, means "to shine." Poets, or those writing poetic-type prose wax eloquent with the term: "A perfect appearance of the sun...with a most nitid periphery." Or, "The nitid Hues Which speck them o'er." Though the word generally finds its home in botany today, I can see its use throughout our communication.

A nidus is simply a nest. More specifically, and figuratively, a nidus is a "generative source; an origin; a place where some quality or principle is fostered." One can talk about new movements being generated from the "womb of thought," but why not talk about them beging "nurtured in the nidus of a mind acquainted with pain." Finally, a nisus, derived from the Latin meaning "endeavor, effort, tendency," is an effort or impulse or conatus. That last term might not be familiar. A conatus, from the Latin conor, is an attempt to supply a want, an effort. "There is a strong nisus of great minds to put their stamp on the world."

A Few "M's" and Others

We had the word marcescent (mar CESS ent) at a spelling bee last week; the speller, not having heard the term, misspelled it. Yet if you knew that the Latin marcescere meant to wither, fade or decay, you would easily have spelled it correctly. Technically, the term marcescent refers to leaves that have withered but not fallen from trees. Again, however, let's loose the word from its scientific prison, and use it to refer to many things that may appear shriveled or withered. Marasmus, derived from the Greek word, which bequeathed itself to Latin, also means "fading away" or "withering," but refers to a medical condition of severe loss of body weight--especially cased in children by protein-energy malnutrition. The Wikpedia article mentions that, along with cachexia and kwashiorkor (two other great terms to know), marasmus is a form of this kind of malnutrition.

I like the words erose and rugose. They sound so cool to say, and they have to do with similar phenomena. Derived ultimately from erodere, from which we get "erode," something erose has the margin "irregularly incised or indented, as if bitten by an animal." Thus, erose, incised, indented. Great words for an irregularly-shaped surface. One might have an erose or gnawed leaf or an erose sheet of paper. Rugose, however, means "marked by rugae or wrinkles; wrinkled, corrugated, ridgy." One can have rugose skin or leaves. Isn't it fantastic that we can take a few moments to learn words describing the nature of various surfaces? One more word: something rugulose has "small wrinkles."

Ending with Some "Forms"

I still have 15 words from my "list of useful terms," but I will have to put them off to a later essay. Let's close this essay with some words ending in "form." Words so terminating talk about the "shape" of something. Most of the "form" words developed from scientists' desires accurately to describe shapes of animals, plants, leaves, etc. Here are seven that you might find useful: cruciform, colliform, filiform, filiciform, lentiform, heliciform and falciform. Before we get away too far with this, however, we should be aware that there are other ways to express "form" or "shape"--primarily through the suffix "late." For example, something lanceolate is sharp like a spear-head, tapering to each end; something campanulate is "bell-shaped." But if you take the time to learn the Latin words behind the "form," the seven italicized words can become your friends.

Briefly, they mean the following: (1) cruciform is cross-shaped; (2) colliform is like a neck, though this word, on second thought, doesn't seem to be that helpful; (3) filiform is shaped like a hair or thread; (4) filiciform is fern-like, (5) filiciform is like a spiral or helix; (6) falciform is sickle-shaped, curved or hooked; and (7) lentiform, the most wonderful of them all, is "like a lentil or lens." Something lentiform is double-convex in shape. Thus, the word "lentil" and "lens" are derived from the same word. And, we have yet one other English word, lentigo, which derives from the Latin lens, lent- . It is the scientific word for a freckle or pimple. In current usage lentigo describes the small brown hyperpigmented patch of skin usually occurring on the faces or hands of elderly people. But it is all derived from the notion of double-convexity.

If God rested on the seventh day, according to the Scriptures, now it is time for me to rest after that vocaulary extravaganza....

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