Ten Favorite Words–Part I
Photo credit: Public Domain Pictures
I love words. I keep a list of my favorites, the ones that draw a mental picture that involves taste and feel as much as sight and sound. Here are my top ten:
abecedirian–means what it says–a beginner.Rudimentary. The abc’s.
bandog–a large and fierce chained dog. This one’s appealing mostly because I love dogs.
caliginous–murky, dark. Say it aloud. It sounds good.
carabinieri–Italian national police force. This has a strength, a foreign power that I’ll probably never get to use because my characters aren’t going to Italy. I might have to plot a trip.
cobble, as in ‘cobble together’. Can’t you just see that 1700′s cobbler tap-tapping at your plan, creating a beautiful mental quilt from scraps of disparate ideas
confluence–a flowing together a coming together of people. ‘A confluence of events’. Comes after you’ve cobbled for a while.
concatenation–interlinked series. MS Excel users know this word. It’s how you cobble together clues and discover a confluence of events. I love problem solving in quirky original ways.
dappled–mottled, spotted. A dappled meadow, or horse. I see the dancing spots of brilliant color
deus ex machina–a powerful image of an unexpected problem-solver. I’ll get it into my writing eventually. So far, it’s sounded contrived.
doppelganger–Alter ego. I know in my writer’s soul I can turn this ghostly double into a problem-solver.
You have to admit, these are cogent and pithy words. Let me know how you use them.
More?
Beautiful Words
Ten Favorite Words (Part I)
Ten Favorite Words (Part II)
Eight Favorite Words (Part III)
Ten Favorite Geek Words (Part I)
Ten Favorite Geek Words (Part II)
Seven More Favorite Geek Words
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, s he is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
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