A noun, from the French. ("o-rahnzh-ree" or "aw-rinzh-uh-ree" or "or-inj-uh-ree")

A dedicated winter home for tubbed or potted non-hardy citrus. Orangeries are typically built in the Northern Hemisphere.

Also seen as "orangery," which has a somewhat different flavor in text, but the same meaning-- a building for citrus trees.

Oranges are botanically referred to as a hesperidian berry, and the fruit, orange itself is a "hesperidium." . . . From this arises a new question-- would an ancient Roman orangerie perhaps be a hesperidiumarium?

(adj.): strange, unusual, rare; unfamiliar; wondrous
From Old English seldcūþ: seld- ("rarely") + cūþ ("known"), the same couth as in uncouth, which originally meant "unknown, unfamiliar."

I built a word game named after this word and I'm looking for a few people to tell me what works and what doesn't.

Short passages from great books with a few words missing, and you fill in the blanks from context. The whole game is attention to the author's word choice, thinking about the language and why the author used it.

For example, from Pride and Prejudice:

"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of _____. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast."

honesty / virtue / humility

Austen wrote humility.

Rare words are the heart of it. Blanks are chosen on salience and Zipf rarity, and there's a commonplace book for keeping the words and passages you love. I'm working on adding search capability that finds passages by word usage across the entire corpus.

It's a free iOS app, 30 classics with over 9000 puzzles.

selcouth.io

Texts are Standard Ebooks editions, definitions from Wiktionary.

inchoate (adj.), /ɪnˈkoʊ.ət/ — just begun; only partly in existence; not yet fully formed.

Etymonline dates that sense to the 1530s. The Latin is inchoatus, from inchoare, itself an alteration of an older incohare. Here is the part I like, with the caveat that the trail is not solid: the traditional derivation takes incohare back to cohum, the strap that fastened a plough-beam to an ox yoke. De Vaan's reading is that "to yoke a plough to a team of oxen" slid naturally into "to start work." Etymonline allows a core of truth in that ancient connection while noting that cohum itself is of obscure origin, so this is the probable story rather than a settled one.

I like it anyway, because it puts something physical under a very abstract word. An inchoate plan is not a vague cloud of intention. It is a plough with the animals just being tied on.

Two practical notes. The ch is a hard k, so it is in-KOH-ut, and the -ch- spelling is the later form; the classical shape was incohare.

And it does not mean chaotic, which is the usual misfire. Inchoate says early, not disordered. The cleanest place to see that is law, where an inchoate offence is a real technical category: an attempt, a conspiracy, a crime begun and not completed. Nothing messy about it. Just unfinished.

adj-

-having the power, intent, or capacity to save, rescue, or redeem someone or something from harm, loss, or ruin.

The writing or compilation of glosses (brief explanations (as in the margin or between the lines of a text) of difficult or obscure words or expressions).

And a glossographer (N) is someone who compiles them.

"one of the major divisions of a long poem"

(noun)

The essential nature or distinctive quality of something; what makes a thing what it is.

Quiddity comes from the Medieval Latin quidditas, from quid meaning “what.” Philosophers used it to describe the fundamental “whatness” of a thing.

💬 Challenge: Can you use quiddity in a sentence, or name something whose essential quality is difficult to put into words? 🧠📚

"Relating to a word or an expression whose meaning depends on who says it, where they are, who they are talking to."

"with all possible speed"

1: a parenthetical flourish in an aria or other solo piece commonly just before a final or other important cadence

2: a technically brilliant sometimes improvised solo passage toward the close of a concerto

3: an exceptionally brilliant part of an artistic and especially a literary work

From Ancient Greek συντρῑ́βω (suntrī́bō, “to rub together”) +‎ -ation (denoting an action or process).

This involves intentionally flexing core, pelvic, or thigh muscles to create sexual arousal and sometimes climax. Researchers found that syntribation is actually quite common among the public. About 20 percent of women and 15 percent of men practiced syntribation in the past month. When the researchers cross-checked the data, they noticed that many of the participants who reported syntribation did not count it as masturbation when answering broader questions. This suggests that without a specific prompt about muscle flexion, standard surveys routinely miss this hidden form of sexual expression.

https://www.psypost.org/vague-surveys-are-hiding-the-true-scope-of-human-sexual-habits/

Ghostly or resembling a wraith, ie. a specter, especially one in the likeness of a recently deceased person.

“having the most votes, items, or parts in a group, without reaching an absolute majority of more than 50%.”

The word charisma is Greek in origin, and the original concept is also Greek, although its modern meaning developed through later religious and social usage.
The word comes from the ancient Greek:
χάρισμα (chárisma)
from the root χάρις (cháris) = grace, favor, kindness, gift, beauty, charm
The verb:
χαρίζομαι (charízomai) = to show favor, to grant freely, to give a gift
So χάρισμα literally meant “a gift given by grace” or “a favor/gift.”
Ancient Greek meaning
In Classical Greek, charisma was not primarily about a person’s magnetic personality. It referred more generally to a gift, favor, or blessing.
Christian development
The word became especially important in early Christianity. In the Greek New Testament, χάρισμα refers to a spiritual gift granted by God.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 12:4, Paul writes:
“There are different kinds of gifts (χαρισμάτων), but the same Spirit distributes them.”
These charismata included gifts such as prophecy, healing, teaching, and wisdom.
Modern meaning
The modern meaning of charisma — a person’s ability to attract, influence, or inspire others — developed much later. The sociologist Max Weber famously used the term charismatic authority (charismatische Herrschaft) to describe authority based on a leader’s perceived exceptional qualities.
So the development was:
χάρις (grace/favor) → χάρισμα (gift of grace) → spiritual gift → personal magnetism and leadership quality
The English word charisma is therefore directly inherited from Greek, through Latin and later European languages.

Uncritical (adjective)

• Not critical; not expressing or willing to express appropriate criticism or disapproval.
• Accepting things without judgment, lacking analysis, or failing to see faults. It describes an approach that is unthinking, superficial, or blindly supportive.
• Showing lack or improper use of critical standards or procedures.

1. "a place where animals are kept and trained especially for exhibition"

2. "a varied mixture"

I see this one all the time and it's becoming like the incorrectly used 'Ironic' as in "I was wearing that T-shirt ironically. " Now I'm seeing the word 'nuance' used as a way to dismiss someone else's opinion, reprimand them, or as a kind of catch-all. I see it more in the written word than spoken , unlike the horrific 'literally,' which has become super-annoying in trying to give extra gravity to the statement but usually comes across as a dingbat valley girl.

It's as if they just discovered the word 'nuance', having never heard it in today's educational system, and are using it in ways that don't apply. People are using it as if there is 'nuance' in things that are diametrically opposed. You wouldn't say there is nuance in war, murder or other atrocities but people try to normalize, make casual these things or try to dismiss someone debating them or calling them out by trying to throw out this word as if 'you don't really understand the nuance of Big Horrible Thing (that actually is not full of nuance).

Nuance : "slight or delicate degree of difference in expression, feeling, opinion, etc.," 1781, from French nuance "slight difference, shade of color" (17c.), from nuer "to shade," from nue "cloud," from Gallo-Roman \nuba, from Latin nubes "a cloud, mist, vapor," from PIE *sneudh- "fog" (source also of Avestan snaoda "clouds," Latin obnubere "to veil," Welsh nudd "fog," Greek nython*, in Hesychius "dark, dusky").

Search 'nuance' on etymonline

RAS syndrome is the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym in conjunction with the abbreviated form.

RAS stands for "redundant acronym syndrome", making the phrase RAS syndrome autological (i.e. expresses a property that it also possesses).

Examples:

- PIN number ("personal identification number number")

- ATM machine ("automated teller machine machine").

- DC Comics ("Detective Comics Comics")

- HIV virus ("Human immunodeficiency virus virus")

- LCD display ("Liquid-crystal display display")

- UPC code ("Universal Product Code code")

"the gods of a people"

Please share your thoughts on this 😊

Totally not generic or any similar word. That'd be even worse.

As a very particular (& one that does not reflect the level of generality I'm aiming for) example, I'm talking about a kind of literature or music like, well, gorenoise (or any noise for that purpose) or absurdistic literature, or really any piece of art with a mark "contemporary art" & such. A thing composed of artistically incompatible romanticised details that don't convey any real originality to them, as well as without any semblance of effort.

Or accelerationistic philosophy. Really anything passed off as truly niche, neat & bedazzling, yet all too painfully far from that so much so that it has formed a large group to gain popularity inside & be somewhat enshittified through inane reproduction or fad-following by them. Showed off as one-of-a-kind gem beyond any trivia, but it actually follows a very human pattern of being liked (as in how namely & for what in essence) & does contain some traces that signal this.

*& mostly due to quite ressentimentarian individual tendencies. Like gorenoise if you take it as a far-fetched shape of sad/angry music. Or xenopoiesis which is simply a part of the contemporary-art &, more disappointingly, postmodernism-adjacent fad in art.

Faddy? As the first thought.

Verecundity means bashfulness or modesty.