Here are some more words that surprised me this week with interesting meanings.
As a writer and a general word nerd, I find words fascinating. And beautiful and all those lyrical things.
Enjoy!
boughs
- a large branch of a tree
fetters
- LITERARY to keep someone within limits or stop them from making progress (e.g. He felt fettered by a nine-to-five office existence)
- to tie someone to a place by putting chains around their ankles
- chains for a prisoner’s feet (e.g. he saw a boy in fetters in the dungeons)
doggedness
- persistent in effort; stubbornly tenacious (e.g. a dogged worker)
gaudily
- tastelessly showy; ostentatiously ornamented (e.g. gaudy costumes)
- a British celebratory reunion feast or entertainment held at college
juggernaut
- DISAPPROVING a very large, heavy truck (e.g. the peace of the village has been shattered by juggernauts thundering through it)
- a large powerful force or organisation that cannot be stopped (e.g. an advertising juggernaut)
noggin
- head (e.g. we’re still scratching our noggins after figuring out what he’s done)
- a small drinking vessel or measure of alcohol (e.g. a noggin of whiskey)
- end of a loaf of bread (not confirmed)
- ‘blow job’
traversed
- to travel or move through an area (e.g. they traversed the city from clubs to gardens)
cudgel
- a short heavy club (e.g. but critics say Trump is using Christmas as a cudgel in cultural warfare)
chalice
- in Christian ceremonies, a large, decorative gold or silver cup from which wine is drunk
- in magic, a cup representing the element of water
- the cup shaped interior of a flower
- a drinking cup or goblet
vittles (an obsolete or dialect spelling of victual)
- food or provisions for human beings; victuals, food supplies; provisions (e.g. He fixed it so as we could both go in with aperns on and toting vittles)
- to take or obtain victuals
- Archaic. to eat or feed
And that is it on my list of weird and wonderful words.
Please share some of your unique or seldom used words with me on Twitter @ac_west_author
Until next time!
SOURCES
- Cambridge
- Collins
- Dictionary.com
- Longman
- Macmillan
- Macquarie Dictionary
- Merriam Webster
- Oxford Living Dictionary
- Reverso Dictionary
- The Free Dictionary
- Top Meaning
- Urban Dictionary
- Wikipedia
- World Wide Words
- Word Associations
and growin…