cathexis and catechu and catkin and spicate inflorescence and cautelous and causerie and catoptromancy

I will "catch up" in this essay. I promise. Let's begin with the listing and brief comment on several words and then conclude with a longer consideration of cathexis/cathectic. Oops. No time for the latter, but no matter.

Continuing with The List

The word catechu is of South Asian origin, either from Malay, Dravidian, or Tamil, and means "any of several dry, earthy, or resinous astringent substances obtained from tropical plants of Asia." Moving to catkin, we have another complex definition. It is a "scaly spike of unisexual flowers, usually deciduous after flowering or fruiting." It is called the catkin because of its resemblance to a cat's tail. I prefer the Century definition, just given, (and the Century has a picture!) to the Collegiate, which speaks of "a spicate inflorescence bearing scaly bracts..." Now tell me, which definition do you prefer?

I really am taken by catoptric, not because of the minimal Collegiate definition, having to do with using a mirror to focus light, but because of the richness of terms derived from catoptric in other dictionaries. We have a catopter, a mirror, catoptrics, catoptrically, and, my favorite, catoptromancy. This is a species of divination by which you let down a mirror into the water for a sick person to look at his/her reflection. If it was distorted, there will be problems; if clear and healthy, the person would likewise become healthy. So, instead of "Mirror, Mirror on the wall," it is "Mirror, Mirror under the water..."

Caudad is, of all things, an adverb meaning "toward the tail or posterior end." Caudal is "pertaining to the tail" and the caudalis, in ichthyology, is the caudal fin. A caudate creature is one that has a tail. Next is a causerie, meaning an informal conversation or chat. One would think that causerie is something in which dilettantes engage, yet who is to say what is causerie and what serious talk? I need to mention a word not in our dictionary, because it immediately called to mind a passage from Shakespeare. The word is cautelous, which means "cautious" or "wary," and is used in Julius Caesar by Brutus as part of his argument of why an oath is not necessary for the conspirators:

"Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,/ Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls/ That welcome wrong" (JC 2.1.).

Back to the Collegiate

Then we have a cavalla, a king mackerel, a cavy, a guinea pig, and a ceiba, pronounced SA ba, a massive tropical tree. A cembalo (CHEM ba lo) is a harpsicord, while a cerceria (ser KER i a) is a trematode worm. A ceorl is a term coming from Anglo-Saxon history (pre-1066) and refers to the free man of lowest rank in Anglo-Saxon England. One who is of highest rank is the ealdorman, pronounced "alderman." Interestingly, the word is pronounced "churl" and, within a few hundred years, we have the word churl appearing in English to mean a "rude, ill-bred person," which is its significance today, even though if anyone uses a word derived from churl it is churlish.

Lowell's comment, that Latin bequeathes to us canorous and not simply sonorous words, is amply supported by this next word: cerulean. Derived from the Latin for "blue" or "greenish-blue," the word is applied to the sea, the sky and occasionally to leaves or a field. It is the color of the cloudless sky, the deep and inviting azure that draws our hearts to the surface of our lives. Cowper could say, "It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity."

From the sublime to the common, then, let's journey to cerumen, which is earwax. Though the Collegiate only lists this term to bring us into the "wax" reality, the other dictionaries have dozens of words, such as ceroma, cerolein, ceromel, ceroplastic and others. My favorites are cerography, the act of writing on wax, and ceromancy, in which one divines from the forms assumed by melted wax when dropped into water.

Finishing Up

Cervalet is smoked sausage and something cervine resembles a deer. Though one usually thinks of the cervix only in relation to a woman's uterus, it literally means a "neck" or the back part of the neck. But cervicide is the killing of a deer rather than somehow killing a cervix. Almost no one knows this and even fewer probably care. Cervisial, however, means "pertaining to beer." I love the words where a very slight difference means a world of difference. I don't want to leave you hanging: I will not say anything about chad. Chaine (accent on the ultima) is a ballet movement, and a chaldron is an obsolete unit of measure. A challis (sha LE) is a soft cloth, while a chamaephyte is a plant. Finally, a chamfer is a groove or bevel and champleve is an enamel decoration, the opposite of cloisonne.

I guess there are two words, champerty and cathexis which I won't quite get to tonight. But, by now, you are getting used to it. Maybe another day....

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