cribriform and criobolium and taurobolium and criant

Now that I have dispatched of crepiness, I can move on to crepitant/crepitate. Really, they occupy the same world as crepiness, and mean to crackle or to make a crackling sound. From an 1873 publication, "There came close to my ear a curious crepitant rattle." One might make a crepitant retort to someone. These essays, at best, should creptitate with insight. One might use the verb crepitate to describe the crackling sound made by a building just before collapse. From Harper's Magazine in 1888: "The immense hall rises,--oscillates,--crepitates,-- crumbles into ruin."

Actually, I found the original meaning of crepitate, and you might not like it, but in the interests of full disclosure, here it is. The OED has definition 1: "to break wind." Cockeram defines it in 1623 as "to winde or fart." And, the word crepitus, to be sure, means "rattling," but an 1882 attestation for crepitus ventris has it mean "the breaking of wind." Here is the Victorian-era definition. "Crepitus, term for the discharge upwards, or rejection downwards, of gas or flatus from the stomach or bowels." Yep, sounds like a fart to me. You know, they say you can't teach Latin to teenagers. Give teens to me for a week, and I will have them speaking, and sounding, Latin like you never believed possible.

I think I can be more brief with crepuscular. It means "of, relating to, or resembling twilight" or "occurring or active during twilight." Crepuscule, going back to the 14th century, means "twilight." The unabridged doesn't shed any more light on the term, though the OED has a few more words derived from it and several quotations. The one I liked best was from 1860: "[The law is] at best, a crepuscular labyrinth." I think that if my Latin students of the preceding paragraph become obscure in anything they do, I will have them write on the board, twenty times, "I will not lead you down crepuscular labyrinths anymore." They would Ace the SAT, no question at all. "He could scarcely limn the intruder's features, shrouded as he was in the crepuscular light."

The List, with Comments

There is no greater confirmation of the truth that Latin bequeathes to us not simply sonorous but canorous words when you look at crescent/crescive. Seomthing that is crescent grows or increases in size. The verb, an inceptive, emphasizes the process of growth, and so it is almost as if you see the thing grow right before your eyes. Crescent hopes are hopes that grow. Shakespeare has it, in Antony and Clepatra, "My powers are Cressent, and my Auguring hope Sayes it will come to th' full." It is a great word to describe trends or tendencies, and thus I am surprised that it is not more prevalent in American English. "What makes LeBrun James such a wonder is that his basketball skills are crescive." I suppose something is crescent until it crests, and then decline follows. But, let's rediscover this beautiful word as we try to encourage others to plan for the future. Their futures are bright; their days are not crepuscular; their strength is crescent. I wish there were a verb "to cresce," but we will, at least at present, have to settle for "increase." But why? Let's say that her hopes cresced until they crested, and then they foundered. Or something like that.

A cresset is a an iron vessel or basket used for holding an illuminant (as oil) and mounted as a torch or suspended as a lantern. The unabridged has a small cool picture of one. A cretonne is a cotton or linen cloth, named after the place where they were first made, Creton in Normandy. A criticaster is an inferior or petty critic, and a cromlech is a circle of monoliths usually enclosing a dolmen, or mound. One web site refers to the cromlech at Stonehenge, where trilithons are placed in a circular pattern. The site points out that the stones "aren't cut aphazardly," though apparently the spelling on the web page is. Croquignole is a method for waving hair, something about which I have no primary or even secondary knowledge. A crore is 10,000,000 rupees. Can you just imagine bringing a pocketful of rupees and saying "crore me, man!"

My goodness, it would take all of India's population to count it out. Well, it probably is easier than that, but if the Gospel had arisen in India the picture of hell developed there might not be counting sands on the seashore but of rupees to make crores. Finally, a crossopterygian is a subclass of bony fish (appropriately known as Crossopterygii) that have paired fins and other features but, alas, are probably extinct. This won't keep the word mavens in Cheyenne from using the word, however. I actually am betting that the word will be used. It really is much easier to spell that it sounds. To paraphrase Casey Stengel, you just "sound it out."

One or Two More

Back to pure indulgence. I loved learning about cribriform. It has an easy definition: "pierced with small holes," like a sieve, but that is as far as the Collegiate wants to go. The unabridged points us to the Latin cribrum, or sieve, that stands behind it. So, cribral is "sieve-like." Cribration is the act of sifting something, cribrose is another word for perforated or cribriform. I love the quotation given by the OED for the (obsolete, since not attested more recently than the 17th century) verb cribrate. John Donne said, "I have cribrated, and re-cribrated, and post-cribrated the Sermon." I wonder what he might mean by the last word? Donne, apparently, had a liking for this word, as he could also say, "In the cribration and sifting of our consciences..." Because this word has such a visual simplicity to it, I am surprised that we have lost it. Indeed, it is a word that we need. We sift through things. We therefore cribrate. Indeed, often our sifting is part of a thinking process. We cribrate as we cerebrate. What could be better?

Let's close quickly with words in the unabridged but not in the Collegiate. A criobolium (to be distinguished from a taurobolium) was a ritual in the ancient cults of Cybele where blood from a ram, rather than a bull, dripped on the adherent who walked under the sacrifice. Something that is criant is gaudy and attracts attention. It "cries" for attention. I am surprised that the Collegiate didn't pick it up. Finally, to cretify means to make something into chalk, the Latin for chalk being creta. I think the word could easily be revived, possibly as an antonym to crescive. Hopes cresce. Why not have them also cretify? While you are thinking about that one, I will quit for the day.

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