Five New Words I Learned Recently

February 17th, 2006

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Words

Five New Words I Learned Recently

Lately I’ve been keeping a Writely document to log new words that I learn. Here are the first five:

salvific (from p. 104 of What I Meant to Say)
Having the intention or power to bring about salvation or redemption: “the doctrine that only a perfect male form can incarnate God fully and be salvific” (Rita N. Brock).

armamentarium (from p. 108 of What I Meant to Say)

The complete equipment of a physician or medical institution, including books, supplies, and instruments.
The complete range of materials available or used for a task.

bagetelle (in an email from Josh)

A trifle; a thing of little or no importance.
A short, light musical or literary piece.
A game played with a cue and balls on an oblong table having cups or arches at one end.

vagitarian (from the movie Imagine Me & You)
A slang term for a lesbian.

homologation (from the menu on this ski jumping page)
confirm something: to confirm or sanction the validity of something.

I was reminded to post this list because I recently discovered the Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary.

Comments: 10 Responses so far

Chris
February 17th, 2006
12:36 pm

Bagetelle I’ve heard before, as I’m a musician and have played them before.
Vagitarian I’ve heard for years, and it’s not just a slang term for lesbians. Check out this shirt:
http://www.bewild.com/porstarvagts.html
which is modelled by a male.

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Alex Harford
February 17th, 2006
1:25 pm

Homologation is used quite often in auto racing, usually discussing the production numbers of race cars available to the public so they can be homologated for racing under a manufacturer.

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Richard
February 17th, 2006
2:23 pm

I prefer ‘vaginatarian’ to ‘vagitarian’, because the former is less subtle.

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Matt
February 17th, 2006
9:38 pm

Oddly, Rita Brock came across my radar a lot a year ago as I was organizing a conference on progressive people of faith and how to counteract the encroachment of fundamentalist Christianity in US politics (I almost wrote American until I remembered you’re a blog in Canada which is still in America but not the same one).

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Johnny K
February 18th, 2006
1:22 am

Tsk tsk Darren, you obviously weren’t paying me enough attention way back when. I’m still subscribed, it’s a fun resource.

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James
February 20th, 2006
10:02 am

I just discovered ‘rigadoon’ on Gail Armstrong’s Open Brackets blog (http://openbrackets.com/) and I’m very pleased with it - the phonetics and the spelling and the usage where discovered (’…another potvaliant and fatuous rigadoon.’). I’m not so crazy about its association in my mind to the musical Brigadoon, but its appeal overwhelmes that slight drawback.

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