|
ventripotent ven-tri-PO-tent adjective a huge paunch; a large belly; a powerful appetite 1915James Branch CabellThe Rivet in Grandfather's NeckAfter a little, shaggy, big-thewed ventripotent Pan will grow jealous, and ravish you away from me, as he stole Syrinx from her lover.1918Christopher MorleyShandygaffThis was a copper well lavished; for the publican, a ventripotent person with a liquid and glamorous brown eye, told us excellent gossip about Dr. Johnson and George Eliot, both heroes in that neighbourhood.1919Christopher Morley and Bart HaleyIn the Sweet Dry and DryI sat by the doors that were slatted | And the stuff had a surf like the sea—| No vintage was anywhere vatted | Too strong for ventripotent me! 1920Frederick HamiltonThe Days Before YesterdayI do not speak from personal experience, for I detest the sweet, cloying stuff; but it occasionally fell to my lot to guide downstairs the uncertain footsteps of some ventripotent Kommerzien-Rath, or even of Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways himself, both temporarily incapacitated by injudicious indulgence in Swedish Punch.Labels: Christopher Morley, Christopher Morley and Bart Haley, Frederick Hamilton, James Branch Cabell
|
Permalink: ventripotent
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:
|
|
apothegm A-puh-them noun a maxim; a pithy saying; a succinct remark 1846Nathaniel HawthorneThe Old ManseIt has been an apothegm these five thousand years, that toil sweetens the bread it earns.1877Michel de MontaigneThe Essays of MontaigneHad any one formerly brought me to Erasmus, I should hardly have believed but that all was adage and apothegm he spoke to his man or his hostess.1905Edith Wharton The House of MirthIf you would forgive your enemy, says the Malay proverb, first inflict a hurt on him; and Lily was experiencing the truth of the apothegm.1922James Branch CabellJurgen Besides, a kiss, wherever deposited, as Jurgen pointed out, is, when you think of it, but a ceremonial, of no intrinsic wrongfulness. The girl demurring against this apothegm—as custom again exacted—was, still in common fairness, convinced of her error. So now, says Jurgen presently, you see for yourself. Labels: Edith Wharton, James Branch Cabell, Michel de Montaigne, Nathaniel Hawthorne
|
Permalink: apothegm
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:
|
|
cachinnate KA-kuh-nayt verb to laugh overly loud 1846Nathaniel HawthorneThe Christmas BanquetIt turned out, however, that, with the best possible flow of spirits, our poor friend was afflicted with a physical disease of the heart, which threatened instant death on the slightest cachinnatory indulgence, or even that titillation of the bodily frame produced by merry thoughts.1902Booth TarkingtonThe Two VanrevelsNelson waited upon them at table, radiant, his smile like the keyboard of an ebony piano, and his disappearances into the kitchen were accomplished by means of a surreptitious double-shuffle, and followed by the cachinnating echoes of the vain Mamie's reception of the visitor's sallies…1919James Branch CabellJurgenThen the brown man stamped his foot, and the striking of his foot upon the moss made a new noise such as Jurgen had never heard: for the noise seemed to come multitudinously from every side, at first as though each leaf in the forest were tinily cachinnating; and then this noise was swelled by the mirth of larger creatures, and echoes played with this noise, until there was a reverberation everywhere like that of thunder.1928H. P. LovecraftThe Call of CthulhuThen came the storm of 2 April, and a gathering of the clouds about his consciousness. There is a sense of spectral whirling through liquid gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides through reeling universes on a comet's tail, and of hysterical plunges from the pit to the moon and from the moon back again to the pit, all livened by a cachinnating chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and the green, bat-winged mucking imps of Tartarus.1972Philip Jose FarmerTime's Last GiftThen the lion was bowled over and he and about six hyenas became a rolling, roaring, cachinnating, yelping mess.Labels: Booth Tarkington, H. P. Lovecraft, James Branch Cabell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Philip Jose Farmer
|
Permalink: cachinnate
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:
|
|
efflorescence e-fluh-RES-ens noun a state of flowering; a time of social renaissance; the result of development 1913James Branch CabellDomneiIt is upon this darker and rebellious side of domnei, of a religion pathetically dragged dustward by the luxuriance and efflorescence of over-passionate service, that Nicolas has touched in depicting Demetrios.1919Vicente Blasco IbanezThe Shadow of the CathedralGabriel looked at the garden surrounded by its arcades of white stone, with its rough buttresses of dark granite, in the chinks of which the rain had left an efflorescence of fungus, like little tufts of black velvet.1954William GoldingLord of the Flies...the water. It was clear to the bottom and bright with the efflorescence of tropical weed and coral.Labels: James Branch Cabell, Vicente Blasco Ibanez, William Golding
|
Permalink: efflorescence
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:
|
|
|
BIO
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
RECENT POSTS
