cygnet and ogee and apex and cyma reversa and cyma recta and doric cyma and lesbian cyma and spiculate and spicate and acuminate and aculeate and lanceolate and ensiform

Let's continue our romp, or maybe our meander, through the dictionary. I though I was finished with the cu's forever, but I wanted to stop for a moment on the concept of cusp or cuspidate (Latin root means point or spear or javelin). We use the word a lot in everyday speech, seemingly synonymously with "edge," when we say that someone was on the "cusp" of accomplishment or notoreity. I wanted to check into that word, and the Century provided me both with pictures and clear explanations, so here is where we will start. The word cusp has an astronomical (the beginning or first entrance of any house in the calculation of nativities), a geometrical, an architectural and a zoological/botanical meaning. I will only emphazise the geometrical and architectural here.

Sharp Things

A cusp is defined, geometrically, as "a stationary point on a curve, where a point describing the curve has its motion precisely reversed." Nice definition. It is the "turning point" of the curve, the edge that results when the curve goes in a sharply different direction. Then, architecturally, a cusp is the intersecting point of small arcs or foliations decorating internal curves of trefoils or quatrefoils, for example, in medieval tracery. Thus, the sharpest points are the cusps.

This notion of sharpness then informs the word cuspidate (A cuspidor, by the way, has nothing to do with sharpness. Derived from the Latin cuspuere, to spit, a cuspidor is a spittoon.). Cuspidate means "furnished with or ending in a cusp." Then it says "mucronate." And, I have to go to that word. Mucro is even in the Collegiate and is defined as "an abrupt sharp terminal point or tip or process (as of a leaf)." The word seems to be used primarily to describe leaves. "Leaves involute, mucronate, pungent." An 1851 sentence puts a lot of nice descriptive words relating to leaves together: "leaves ovate, cordate (heart-shaped), serrate, mucronately serrate." So, mucro or mucron emphasizes the sharpness or "prickliness" of the object, usually a leaf.

But don't you see that we are now being left with a number of terms for sharp? We can have something that is cuspidate or mucronate. But we also have words such as acuminate, which is defined as "pointed, tapered or tapering to a point, esp. in Natural History." But then one of the usages of acuminate in the OED talks about "lance-shaped, acuminate leaves." But something "lance-shaped" is "lanceolate." So, another word. And, then, there is aculeate, which differs from acuminate in that the former can also carry the notion of a 'prickliness' with it. But the word aculeate is also attested in a humanistic way: "The apothegms..and aculeated sayings of the ancients are inestimable." Or, "a trenchant, pungent, aculeated form of terse, glittering, stenographic sentences." And, what about spicate (in the form of a "spike")? And I thought ensiform had something to do with sharpness, since it is derived from the Latin word meaning sword ("ensis") and is defined as "sword-shaped." Usually those things are not known for their dullness.

Oh, me. What is a person to do, a person who longs for clarity and precision and univocal meanings? I think this is an invitation not simply to use the words that we inherit from others, but to try to apply them creatively to various aspects of the human endeavor and to make up other words as needed to express what we want. So, why not invent a word spiculate, to mean "spiked" or "sharp" or "pointed"? Well, actually, the OED attests spiculate to mean "to pierce or transfix" or "to sharpen to a point." But, do you get my point?

Rounded Surfaces

Too much emphasis on points can make us ignore the fact that rounded or wavy surfaces are often even more alluring that sharp things. In this connection, I am always fascinated by architectural moldings, and one of my favorite is called the cyma. A "cyma" in Greek is a wave, a swell, a billow. In architecture it means a molding which is concave at the top and convex at the bottom, sometimes called the cyma recta or Doric cyma or beak-molding, OR a molding which is convex at the top and concave at the bottom, referrned to as a cyma reversa or Lesbian cyma. Thus the curves created by the two kinds of cyma are "S" curves. Thus the definition can go on to say: "Both kinds of the cyma are also called ogee." O Gee! Another word to learn. The Collegiate has a nice depiction of an "ogee form" but not under the picture of moldings but, rather, when it describes arches.

But ogee is an interesting word, and especially for our purposes on these pages. The two definitions in the Collegiate are seemingly incompatible. It can mean "a molding with an "S-shaped profile," which is now familiar to us as a cyma molding, or it can mean "a pointed arch having on each side a reversed curve near the apex." What makes the ogee an ogee, as it relates to arches, is not the point, which is even more pointed than the neighboring lancet arch, but the way the curves gently reverse themselves as they descend from the pointed apex.

My Swan Song for the Day

I think I have probably done enough damage for one day, so here is my swan song. Oh, a swan is a cygnet. Actually, a cygnet is a baby or young swan. Life wouldn't be complete without a quotation from Shakespeare (I Henry VI), "So doth the Swan her downsie Signets save." Speaking of spelling, the Century has the same quotation, but renders it, "So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,/ Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings." The Century is even kind enough to end its entry with the words "Cynget royal," which is a term from heraldry. More properly it is swan argent, ducally gorged and chained or, which means, in plain English, a white (or silver) swan having a duke's coronet around its neck and a gold chain attached thereto. Very very nice.

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