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Meme of the time: four lads in jeans, Birmingham 2019
Word of the week: Aside from the literal outer layer of the ray-finned slippery fish, this evocative, slightly suggestive 19th-century slang means very tight trousers, while this week’s bonus word, excruciators, points to the experience of wearing very tight shoes
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The Green Man
Word of the week: Two lesser known and very similar adjectives from the Latin word heder – hederaceous meaning resembling ivy, while hederigerent describing that which is dressed with or bedecked in ivy
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Dip yours here …
Word of the week: An evocative noun in reference to old-fashioned desk ink wells dipped into by quills or ink pens – an inkhornist is a pedant of words, while the phrase smelling of the inkhorn refers to be being excessively pedantic with language or grammar. But how does it shape up in song?
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Loweswater in the Cumbrian Lake District
Word of the week: A poetic word taken from the Latin lacus and French or Italan lacustre, this shimmering liquid of an adjective means relating to, formed in, living in, or growing in lakes, lake-like or positioned by a lake
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Rucklety-tucklety cloth
Word of the week: This beautifully strange, rhythmic, rhyming, onomatopoeic English word hails from the 18th century, meaning crumpled or gathered up, often pertaining to cloth or clothing, and deriving from the word for crease – a ruckle
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Umbriphilous bluebells …
Word of the week: An adjective describing that which loves the shade, whether person, plant or otherwise, from the Latin, umbra, for shade and related to other derivatives, such as umbraphile, one who loves eclipses
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Vorlus-snorlus numbers
Word of the week: A strangely poetic, archaic Gloucestershire term meaning haphazard, pertaining to a a person who acts at random, possibly a corruption of the Latin term nolens volens, meaning neither willing nor unwilling, related to the word willy-nilly
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Callithumpian band
Word of the week: An evocative adjectival form of callithump, commonly used from 1836 in the American mid-West, describing a parade or band of noisemakers, but also originally an 18th-century British dialect noun for a group who made a rumpus on election days in southern England
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Dance craze: depiction of the first quadrille in England at Almack’s in 1816
Word of the week: A sprightly, sociable18th- and 19th-century dance form that sprung from folk contredanses, it comprises four couples in rectangular formation and was all the range in polite society in the Victorian age in Europe and colonies, and is linked to American square dancing
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Three recent books that are more than relevant to the current word
Word of the week: About whom could this apply right now? It's a word for extreme, foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance that tends to lead to a fall, and a dangerous thing in the head of someone with power who refuses to acknowledge it.
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Autumn is a kexy time of year …
A small part of a myriander …
Word of the week: It sounds like an exotic name, a form of wandering, or a term for many items, but this beautiful late 17th-century word pertains to an army of 10,000 men, a phrase spanning history and personal metaphor
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A Seagull S6 acoustic guitar with a beautiful burnt umber finish
Word of the week: Strong in sound and pleasing to say, this week’s word is a dark brown with a hue of yellow or red, depending on type, but does it ever show its true colours in song?
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Adam Ant stands and delivers what could be described as a vectarious number
Word of the week: It is neither triumphant nor relating to mathematical space, but while sounding thoroughly splendid, it's an obscure 17th-century adjective meaning belonging to or associated with a wagon or carriage
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The yapok, an unusual marsupial with webbed hind feet, but more finger-liked clawed front feet
Word of the week: With dense marble pattern fur and webbed hind feet, but front claws, this lesser known semiaquatic South American water opossum is an unusual hybrid – and the only marsupial to have pouches in both sexes
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But what happens after 22 miles?
Word of the week: Usually our entries are historical obscurities, but this verb is not yet in the formal lexicon, has only entered language via online circulation, yet has still inspired recent music and its definition harks back to great traditions
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David Bowie could certainly be described as epalpebrate in this still from The Man Who Fell To Earth
Word of the Week: It's an obscure adjective from the late 19th century to describe a person lacking something we all take for granted, but definitely notice when they are missing – eyebrows
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Short-tailed gymnure
Word of the week: Survival concerns? Maybe be more gymnure. Small, elusive and nocturnal, it's not a rat, nor a shrew, but a furry hedgehog, a Galericinae from the Erinaceidae family, with acute senses, especially of smell, and likely resembles the earliest form of mammal
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Almost murklins time …
Word of the week: Not to be confused with the pubic wig worn by prostitutes of old and other diseased ridden individuals (the merkin), this rare adjective from the 16th and 17th century simply means ‘in the dark’, an umbrella term to accompany activity
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Masterpiece of building by the Baya weaver bird
Word of the week: A delightfully evocative noun that suggests neatness and cosiness, this obscure 17th century word from the Latin means nest and the building of, which can be connected not just to birds, but animals and even humans
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