Day 96 - Wondrous Words Wednesday [3]

An idea I saw on bermudaonion's blog where we can share some new words we've come across in our readings. These are listed in the order I found them, color coded for whatever book they are from.

1. rapier - a small sword, esp. of the 18th century, having a narrow blade and used for thrusting.

First word up in Eragon. It was used to describe one of the elves in the very beginning of the book. Weird choice to compare him to a sword *shrugs* : "His build was slim but strong, like a rapier."

2. precipitous - extremely or impassably steep.

I immediately thought of the word precipice and with good reason. I'm sure that's the root word now (= Kind of a duh moment : "In late evening he arrived at the edge of a precipitous ravine."

3. corpulent - large or bulky of body; portly; stout; fat.

I knew from the rest of the description that this wouldn't be a nice word : " The skin around his jaw was dry and corpulent, filled with lumps of hard fat, like cold butter gone rancid."

4. irascible - easily provoked to anger; very irritable.

Used to describe Brom in Eragon. Very understandable considering what a grump he can be : "The old man was irascible at times, but he never seemed to mind taking time for Eragon."

5. gulag - the system of forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union.

This was the first word I found in the e-book French Bred I'm reading for review. The main character (and author) Fred thinks a girl that he slept with is talking badly about him with her friends : "By morning, I’d have to resign myself to exile in the far reaches of Siberia, suffering in my personal gulag away from the snickering masses."

6. effeminate - (of a man or boy) having traits, tastes, habits, etc., traditionally considered feminine, as softness or delicacy.

This one was used to describe Fred by his friend's grandmother. She tells Fred and his friend Caroline she better not catch them doing anything they shouldn't be. She's a real hoot! : "I didn’t live this fucking long to listen to my granddaughter play the one cord fiddle with her effeminate friend."