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Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Word of the week: What comes around … this week's rather shapely word circles culture in many directions – from medieval French poetry to a 17th-century musical form all the way to modern slang on sport stars to derogatory cars
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How do you recreate this on a record?
Word of the week: An evocative term suitable for hearing the effects of changeable weather, this is a lesser known word for a musical instrument used to recreate the sound of thunder. But how? And who uses it?
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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 Maui Xaphoon in C
Word of the week: It's another word for bamboo saxophone, handily pocket sized, cheaper than its metal cousin being without complex valves, and closer to a clarinet, yet sounding remarkably sax-like using a similar mouthpiece and reed
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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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Sicilian versions
Word of the week: Also known as zuffalo, chiufolo, ciufolo, picco pipe, and as an instrument to teach birds because of its comparable sound, this Italian fipple flute is one of the shortest of that family and has origins in the 14th century
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Johnson and Trump. Both deal heavily in ackamarakus, not always with success
Word of the week: It’s a rare, slang noun that could easily describe the speeches of several prominent politicians – meaningless activity just for show, deceptive nonsense and bluff. But how might it show up in song lyrics?
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It’s all in the mind. A map of the strange theories of the bumposopher, or phrenologist
Word of the week: A delightful looking and sounding noun, and an alternative to bumpologist, this is a humorous, gently derogatory mid-19th-century word for a practitioner in the highly dubious, once-popular pseudoscience of phrenology
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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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Prince’s nimble fingers would certainly have been skilled in diffibulation
Word of the week: It’s a mid-17th century verb that has sexy, or maybe sensible overtones, meaning to unbutton or undo, and as barely as it is in used in the language, so also is also pretty much naked in song lyrics. Or is it?
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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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XTC like to talk about the foppotee, but not always in a derogatory way
Word of the week: It’s a very rare and also pleasant sounding, poetic word that was briefly used in the 17th century, but is in fact derogatory, pertaining to simpleton. It could well describe much behaviour in modern life too. But in songs, is it always wrong to be a foppotee?
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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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Little Richard, great deliverer of hirquitalliency
Word of the week: This obscure 17th-century word, from the Latin hirquitallīre means to acquire a strong voice (from hircus male-goat), but when used, pertains to a bleating, squeaky or full-throated cries of delight. There very well be song good examples …
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Miso soup
Word of the week: A derivative of the French jus for juice, this rarely tasted mid-17th-century word means full of broth or soup, a deliciously evocative adjective that bubbles up a variety of associations, but does it appear in song?
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Cammelia japonica knosps, pushing out like pursed lips, are some of the first to open in the late winter period
Word of the week: Winter may still have a tight grip in the western hemisphere as spring slowly stirs, but this noun is the highly descriptive name for an unopened flower bud, and also the architectural term for bulbish knobs of a similar design
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A 3D LED music-themed lamp
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, late-Victorian word some might imagine to be associated with pugilism, but more obviously, and yet poetically means the shimmeringly fragile and hopefully beautiful art of lamp care and decoration
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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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