Thursday, 27 March 2008

Words of the Week #3

Thank you all for your kind comments yesterday, they are very much appreciated . Hopefully I will get my head back in one piece at some point!

Anyway, this week's "Words of the Week" are:

Dwelling in or under the earth; also, pertaining to the underworld

comes from khthón, the Greek word for earth

Inkhorn \INK-horn\
1. Affectedly or ostentatiously learned; pedantic.
1. A small bottle of horn or other material formerly used for holding ink.

derives from the name for the container formerly used (beginning in the 14th century) for holding ink, originally made from a real horn. Hence it came to refer to words that were being used by learned writers and scholars but which were unknown or rare in ordinary speech.

Peregrination \pehr-uh-gruh-NAY-shun
A travelling from place to place; a wandering.

comes from Latin peregrinatio, from peregrinari, "to stay or travel in foreign countries," from peregre, "in a foreign country, abroad," from per, "through" + ager, "land."

Crapulous \KRAP-yuh-lus\
1. Suffering the effects of, or derived from, or suggestive of gross intemperance, especially in drinking; as, a crapulous stomach.
2. Marked by gross intemperance, especially in drinking;

Crapulous is from Late Latin crapulosus, from Latin crapula, from Greek kraipale, drunkenness and its consequences, nausea, sickness, and headache.

Tintinnabulation \tin-tih-nab-yuh-LAY-shuhn\
A tinkling sound, as of a bell or bells.

derives from Latin tintinnabulum "a bell," from tintinnare from tinnire, "to jingle."


  1. 3 or 4 am is my bad time too. I doh ope whatever the problem is can be sorted soon. taek care.

  2. Due to the tintinnabulation in my ears and my crapulous stomach, I find myself unable to continue my peregrination to my chthonic friends. There. Was that sufficiently inkhorn?

    Thanks for making me smile.

  3. I love your words. I love words. I belong to AWAD, and I have a chalkboard over my computer desk. (It's actually a dry erase marker board, but chalkboard sounds much more romantic.) When I learn a new, wonderful, usefull word, up it goes. Corybantic, for example. Chthonic is so going up there! As is Crapulous. Although I fear this may be an inkhorn practice.


  4. Angela, I really hope that you're able to put an end to those 3 am moments. They are just the worst.

    A dog to snuggle up with can't possibly hurt though, right?

  5. Very good Sandy and Patience, very good!!

    Thank you FP and RC, your kind words mean a lot. And no, having a dog to snggle doesn't hurt at all!

  6. I've heard of the last three but not the first two. In reference to your previous post, and please don't take offence, but how old are you? Because I was exactly the same way before I finally pulled my head out of the hole and had a blood test or two to confirm that I was going through the menopause. Once I was able to admit that to myself, life got a lot easier.

  7. Wakeup, I'm 43, which puts me in the prime pre-menopausal category doesn't it?

  8. Crapulous! I love it! The spell check does not though. I think it will go quite well for me as a backup word when Im feeling Crumpy and all.

  9. Crapulous is an ace word :]

