Difficult Words Beginning with "R"

My sources for these words are an online dictionary of difficult words and some rooting around the Unabridged and the OED. Many of these words may not appear in the Collegiate,* but that is not my interest these days; I simply want to learn all the words I can. So, here are the first 28 "Rs;" except for the first two, they come from the "ra's."

Reclame, reseau, radiopaque, raga, rais/reis, raisonne, ralliform, ramekin/ramequin, ramage, ramentaceous, ramfeezled, ramie, ramoneur, rampion, ramson, rana, ranee/rani, rangiferine, ranula, ranunculaceous, rapparee, rappee, ras, rasorial, ratafia, ratten, ravelin and ravissant.

[The following words, from the preceding list, appear in the Collegiate: reclame, reseau, radiopaque, raga, ramekin/ramequin, ramie, rani/ranee, ranula, rapparee, rappee, ras, and ratafia. Of these 12, only 10 could be used in a bee. This ratio, about 1/3, of words to in the Collegiate to words that I think are helpful/useful, is confirmed in other lists, too.]

Words with More than One Spelling

You will note that three of them can be spelled at least two ways in the Unabridged. Let's comment first on those. Ramekin is attested about twice as frequently as ramequin, though both are given in the Unabridged. It is either a cheese preparation made with eggs and bread crumbs or the (usually) fluted dish for an individual portion of such food. As this article says, ramekins, typically from 2 to 8 ounces, are commonly used to serve creme brulee, molten chocolate cake, moimoi, and souffle. Moimoi, by the way, doesn't make it into the Unabridged or OED, but is a Nigerian dish of steamed bean pudding. Make sure you differentiate the Moimoi from the Mau mau--the latter was a revolt...

Well, let's move to rais/reis (pronounced "rise"). Both the OED and Unabridged have both spellings. The Unabridged lists it under rais and defines it as a "Muslim ship's captain" or a "Muslim chief or ruler." The OED, maybe just to be contrary, lists it under reis and defines it as "the captain of a boat or vessel" or a "chief or governor." The "Reis Effendi" was the title of a officer of state in the Ottoman empire. The Semitic word standing behind it means "head"--and is identical in Arabic and Hebrew. Too bad we can't use the word in the Bees, then, because of its multiple spellings. But, hark, there is also a word only spelled rais, pronunced RISE, which means "a Mongoloid people of Nepal who speak Kiranti." However, the Wikipedia article calls these the "Rai" or "Khambu" people, one of Nepal's oldest indigenous ethnolinguistic groups, comprising more than 600,000 people in the most recent national census. What are they called? Well, for the purpose of a spelling bee they are the rais. But, they are called Rai in the OED.

Well, let's finish this hopeless task with ranee/rani. The OED has it as ranee, a Hindu queen. The Unabridged has it as rani or ranee and defines it similarly.

Words With One Spelling (Phew!)

Reclame, pronounced ray KLAM, is either publicity or notoreity not based on "real value or achievement" (Unabridged) OR showmanship ("his energy, his experimental verve, his reclame"). So, it is either the publicity itself or the verve/nerve that seeks the publicity. But the first Unabridged definition isn't that helpful. What is notoreity based on "real" value? If there is one thing we have learned in America during the celeb-boom of the 1980s-today it is that people often have "value" in the sense of publicity for no reason that can readily be determined. The concept of "real value" is itself value-laden. Thus, let's just say that reclame is either the showmanship itself or the result of it--publicity.

Reseau, pronunced ray ZO, was originally a "plain net ground used in lace-making," but is much more popularly known as a "network or grid, esp. one superimposed as a reference marking on photographs in astronomy, surveying, etc." There are several references online to a "reseau grid." This nice web page gives a picture of a reseau plate in a camera, which provides a means of correcting images for the effects of film distortion. The Hasselblad Lunar Surface Data Camera was apparently used by the first American lunar astronauts. You learn something new...

Something radiopaque is the opposite of radiolucent. The former is opaque to X rays or other forms of radiation. An example? A metal object. If a child swallows a coin, such an image is easily seen on an X ray because it is radiopaque. I wish I knew this word 20 years ago; I could have said to my kids, "Don't eat that coin; it will be radiopaque in your stomach!"

Raga, derived from the Sanskrit word for "color, passion, melody," is one of the ancient traditional melodic patterns of Hindu music or an improvisation on the notes of a traditional raga. E. M. Forster knew the word. In his Passage to India, he wrote: "The song is composed in a raga appropriate to the present hour, which is the evening." There is so much we don't know, isn't there? Even those who think they know music well might come up short in understanding this word.

Raisonne, pronounced ray SONE, is derived from the French word for "reason," and means "reasoned out" or "logical" or "systematical." I am a little stunned that the Unabridged doesn't have the word, even though it has the popular raison d'etre, a reason or justification for existence. Thackeray used the term in the mid 19th century: "French Cookery is not...approfondi or elaborately described, but nobly raisonne." Not sure what he means by that, but he is trying to distinguish between something "thorough" and something "reasoned out" or "systematic." Got me. But a "catalogue raisonne" is a book that contains all the works of an individual artist, including photographs of the words, provenance for each work, condition reports of every work, etc. Who will compile a catalogue raisonne of our lives?

Finishing Up with Ralliform and Ramage

Ralliform is a quite rare word, appearing in the Unabridged but not the OED. There are very few Google references to it, but it is defined as "relating to or resembling the rail, a marsh bird." I sort of wonder what can be ralliform except a rail, but I hope that someone has figured this one out. In order to be ralliform must an object be like the rail in all particulars? Just the bill? the feathers? the shape of the abdomen? Well, you see my problem. Let's leave that word here and finish with ramage. An obsolete meaning of ramage is "untamed" or "wild," but it is also used to describe the collective branches of trees (from the Latin ramus, meaning "branch"), the corporate descent group which includes members of both maternal and paternal lineages (anthropological meaning), or, relating to birds (hawks): "having left the nest and begun to fly from branch to branch." I even saw a reference to "ramage" as a "cry of birds" such s in teh sentence "grew from the ramage of birds to the hurry of wind." We can have people who are "ramaged"--i.e, frenzied or crazed; horses can become wild or "ramaged," but then you can have simple references to "ramage" hawks--who have left the nest. The name Ramage is a common British surname. The basic concept seems to be something that "branches off," either from sanity, the nest or a system of ancestors.

Here is enough for another day. I look forward to joining you tomorrow...

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