Tapioca Dance

Moxie employees this year received various forms of Moleskines for their holiday gifts. For example, the interior design major received the pocket sketchbook, the two filmmakers received storyboard notebook, and the musician received a notebook that has whatever those lines are to put notes in.

I purchased one for myself as well: the address book. Except I didn’t want to use it as an address book. When I studied in France, one of my grammar teachers told me to get a little pocket address book so that when I came across words I didn’t know, I could easily write them down and we’d go over them the next day in class (there were only two of us in class). So, with my new Moleskine address book (in France they were called “repertoires”), I decided to once again use it for vocabulary, except this time it would be for English words that I came across while reading.

This list only materialized within the last couple months, but I thought, as an end-of-the-year treat, I would share with you what words I have learned. Ready? I hope you’re taking good notes, because there could be a quiz on this later…

agonistic: relating to athletic contests of the ancient Greeks

bolillo: small white bread roll or racist term for a white person

bucolic: rustic, pastoral

caterwauling: crying / screeching (like a cat wailing)

dandled: pampered or pet

deisidaimonia: superstitious religion ??

demesnes: land, property, territory, etc.

effluent: flowing out, like an outflow from a sewer

elegiac: mourning or expressing sorrow for something that is irrecoverably past

florid: flushed with rosy color (or covered with flowers)

flotsam: floating refuse or debris

filigree: delicate and intricate ornamental work, usually made of gold

gravid: carrying developing young or eggs

gestalt: psychology dealing with the whole rather than parts of the whole (I guess I forgot my Psych 1 class from high school!)

hedonism: pleasure or happiness is the sole good in life

inimical: harmful in effect, unfriendly

jape: joke

koan: a riddle in the form of a paradox used in Zen Buddhism - aids meditation

locus: a locality; a center or focus of great activity

miscegenation: mixing of races (like in cohabitation or marriage)

mediagenic: attractive as a subject for reporting by the media

nosh: snack or light meal (Yiddish slang)

ocotillo: a cactus-like tree with red flowers

onerous: burden

peregrinos: pilgrims, travelers (Spanish)

platitudinous: banal remark (like a cliche)

piropo: compliment in Spanish

poultice: soft moist mass usually heated to aid aching body parts

polemic: a controversial argument, esp. one attacking an opinion or doctrine

rubes: unsophisticated people

stropping: flexible strip of leather used to sharpen a razor

sackbut: a medieval instrument resembling a trombone

sui generis: unique - being the only example of its kind

travois: used by Plains Indians - a frame built between two poles, pulled by horses

torpor: a state of inactivity

unguents: healing salve, ointments (French)