dictionary Archives · I Will Dare https://iwilldare.com/tag/dictionary/ A little bit of heaven & A whole lot of hell Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:49:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 https://iwilldare.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/cropped-medusa2-1-32x32.png dictionary Archives · I Will Dare https://iwilldare.com/tag/dictionary/ 32 32 31365837 Nonplussed doesn’t mean what I thought it meant https://iwilldare.com/2012/01/nonplussed-doesnt-mean-what-i-thought-it-meant/ Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:49:04 +0000 https://iwilldare.com/?p=10564 Once again, I made it my resolution to try to keep track of all the words I have to look up in the dictionary. This would probably be much easier if I used an old-fashioned...

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]]> Once again, I made it my resolution to try to keep track of all the words I have to look up in the dictionary. This would probably be much easier if I used an old-fashioned book dictionary, but do people still do that? I have a dictionary. I got it for my 25th birthday. It’s an amazing, unabridged doozy that weighs like eight pounds. Right now, I believe it’s sitting under the monitor on my desk. Yes, I use it as a monitor stand.

Just like last year, I tried to keep a little note on my dashboard where I would paste each of the words I had to look up for either meaning or spelling. About fifty percent of the time I was trying to catch people using a word wrong, just for my own smug satisfaction.

However, thanks to my friend Steve, I learned that there was a word I’ve been using incorrectly for as long as I have been using it. That word? Nonplussed. Yeah, I always thought it mean unperturbed, undisturbed, chill. Nope, it means “to render utterly perplexed; puzzle completely.” Who knew? I mean, aside from Steve.

Anyway, if you want to see the other words I didn’t know the meaning of, check below.

eminence 11Jan11
monotreme 11Jan11
seminar 12Jan11
provincial 15Jan11
ennui 16Jan11
enigmatic 17Jan11
mitigated 20Jan11
philandering 25Jan11
oeuvre 25Jan11
perpetuity 26Jan11
tazes 28Jan11
circuitous 30Jan11
Expound 01Feb11
slut 01Feb11
slovenly 01 Feb11
sloven 01Feb11
plebian 08Feb11
fatuity 10Feb11
curtsey 11Feb11
scepter 15Feb11
commodity 16Feb11
jeremiad 18Feb11
upholstery 23Feb11
lame 21Mar11
crazy 21Mar11
conscious 02Apr11
flagellation 04Apr11
debaucherous 17Apr11
synecdoche 01May11
ideology 03May11
indignant 12May11
define 16May11
cohort 16May11
panacea 19May11
arcane 24May11
slayed 27May11
prayer 01May11
acrimony 13Jun11
pastime 13Jun11
pretentious 15Jun11
bucolic 23Jun11
entropic 28Jun11
nonplussed 07Jul11
bemused 07Jul11
livid 07Jul11
irreverent 13Jul11
plumb 21Jul11
esoteric 03Aug11
profound 26Aug11
emphatic 05Sep11
hoary 08Sep11
posited 12Sep11
Jodhpurs 21Sep11
tenuous 21Sep11
current 26Sep11
inamorata 30Sep11
synecdoche 30Sep11
nihilism 06Oct11
elicited 17Oct11
jejune 06Nov11
credence 06Nov11
magnanimous 07Nov11
proclivities 11Nov11
dogma 16Nov11
autonomic 29Nov11
ubiquity 30Nov11
whiff 13Dec11
inquest 14Dec11
conflation 20Dec11

Words from Ziggy (dates unknown)
currant
ambivalence
demimonde
idiosyncrasy
nonplussed
peripatetic
bellicose

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]]> 10564 Mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, monosyllabic simpleton https://iwilldare.com/2011/01/mouth-breathing-knuckle-dragging-monosyllabic-simpleton/ https://iwilldare.com/2011/01/mouth-breathing-knuckle-dragging-monosyllabic-simpleton/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:39:33 +0000 https://iwilldare.com/?p=9793 Much to the surprise of everyone, I actually (pretty much) held to my 2010 resolution of writing down the words I had to look up in the dictionary. In 2010, I looked up approximately 105...

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]]> Much to the surprise of everyone, I actually (pretty much) held to my 2010 resolution of writing down the words I had to look up in the dictionary. In 2010, I looked up approximately 105 words. It would probably more accurate to say that I remember to write down the word I was looking up 105 times. I sure I looked up 883 words but forgot or was too busy to write it down the other 778 times.

And for the looky loos who are curious, here’s the words I’ve looked up since I last mentioned the list in April.

laconic 18Apr10
disaffected 25Apr19
disenfranchised
nunchuck 30Apr10
philandering 02May10
acerbic
cuckold
strumpet
calque 04May10
wry 05May10
onus 06May10
spectre 15May10
spinster 17May10
allusions 17May10
abdicate 21Jun10
ancillary 24Jun10
fetish 12Jul10
verisimilitude 24jul10
incipient 02Aug10
veneration 02Aug10
avatar 15aug10
patina 23aug10
practitioners 23aug10
aesthetic 26aug10
erudite 26aug10
acclimatizing 02Sep10
gravitas 02sep10
acclimatizing 02sep10
gravitas 02Sep10
irony 11sep10
berserk 16sep10
mantra 24Sep10
panopticon 27sep10
omnividence 27sep10
synecdoches 29sep10
Absconded 04Oct10
accosted 04oct10
peripatetic 04oct10
saturnine 05oct10
fontanelle 06oct10
gradated 07Oct10
draconian 10oct10
vernacular 10oct10
grace 02Nov10
edifying 02Nov10
alternations 11Nov10
husbandry 14Nov10
extant 15nov10
ensorcelled 16nov10
sylvan 17nov10
dystopian 17nov10
parley 18nov10
acolyte 22Nov10
gauche 24Nov10
protean 29Nov10
solace 06Dec10
comrades 06Dec10
diaspora
accolade 19Dec10

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]]> https://iwilldare.com/2011/01/mouth-breathing-knuckle-dragging-monosyllabic-simpleton/feed/ 2 9793 Well, we have that in common & a fondness for lugubrious https://iwilldare.com/2010/04/well-we-have-that-in-common-a-fondness-for-lugubrious/ https://iwilldare.com/2010/04/well-we-have-that-in-common-a-fondness-for-lugubrious/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:45:25 +0000 https://iwilldare.com/?p=8948 I am in love with Slate’s list of words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary. Circling words would be something I’d do if I still used an old fashioned dictionary. I have a lovely,...

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]]> I am in love with Slate’s list of words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary. Circling words would be something I’d do if I still used an old fashioned dictionary. I have a lovely, fat dictionary. It’s one of those “unabridged” numbers, in fact it’s Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. Sucker weighs like nine pounds and is currently acting as a nice shelf for a bunch of manuscripts that need editing. It lives upstairs in the Fortress of Solitude. It’s entirely too big and bulky to be practical. Plus, well there’s the Internet.

For awhile I’ve longed for an online dictionary that would keep track of all the words I looked up. For awhile I thought I found one. It kept track of all my words and I rejoiced. But then after like a week it forgot all the words, and since then I have forgotten the name of that dictionary. So this year I resolved to write down all the words I look up. This is not the best method for keeping track of the words, but it’s a start.

I look up words for all kinds of reasons. Sure a lot of the time it’s for spelling purposes. But a lot of times it’s definition and not because I don’t know what the word means but I want to know what the subtle nuance is between using that word or some other word I had in mind. Or, I’m checking on some other writer who used the word. You’d be amazed, well probably not, by how many writers use words incorrectly. Like you’ll see annexed on the list here. I saw someone somewhere use it like: I was annexed from something. I don’t know if the writer meant isolated or what. But I had to check myself to make sure there wasn’t some secret hidden meaning before I openly ridiculed the writer in my head.

So yeah. Here’s my list of words. You’ll see that compared to David Foster Wallace I’m a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, monosyllabic simpleton.

incredulity 05Jan10
gullible 06Jan10
incomprehensible 07Jan10
lexicographers 11Jan10
bated 11Jan10
delivered 11Jan10
fulgent 12Jan10
ferocious 12Jan10
fiance/fiancee 17Jan10
eponymous 17Jan10
massacring 17Jan10
complements 19Jan10
megalith 19Jan10
inchoate 21Jan10
cathartic 21Jan10
Elegiac 24Jan10
corollary 25Jan10
ubiquitous 29Jan10
relentlessly 02Feb10
Brachiosaurus 02Feb10
misspelling 04Feb10
verisimilitude 06Feb10
bereft 11Feb10
Usage 12Feb10
recrimination 16Feb10
retribution
touts 17Feb10
ancillary 21feb10
tumuli 22feb10
oblogquy 23 Feb10
bureaucracy 24Feb10
profane 01Mar10
stigmata
annexed 03Mar10
obstreperous 10Mar10
surreptitiously 11Mar10
collateral 14Mar10
intercalary 15Mar10
prognosticating 16Mar10
plaintive 30Mar10
incites
tenuous 01Apr10
winsome 03Apr10
Fatuous 07Apr10
intellect 13Apr10
cognitive

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