- Ailurophile - A cat-lover
- Assemblage - A gathering
- Becoming - Attractive
- Beleaguer - To exhaust with attacks
- Brood - To think alone
- Bucolic - In a lovely rural setting
- Bungalow - A small, cozy cottage
- Chatoyant - Like a cat's eye
- Comely - Attractive
- Conflate - To blend together
- Cynosure - A focal point of admiration
- Dalliance - A brief love affair
- Demesne - Dominion, territory
- Demure - Shy and reserved
- Denouement - The resolution of a mystery
- Desuetude - Disuse
- Desultory - Slow, sluggish
- Diaphanous - Filmy
- Dissemble - Deceive
- Dulcet - Sweet, sugary
- Ebullience - Bubbling enthusiasm
- Effervescent - Bubbly
- Efflorescence - Flowering, blooming
- Elision - Dropping a sound or syllable in a word
- Elixir - A good potion
- Eloquence - Beauty and persuasion in speech
- Embrocation - Rubbing on a lotion
- Emollient - A softener
- Ephemeral - Short-lived
- Epiphany - A sudden revelation
- Erstwhile - At one time, for a time
- Ethereal - Gaseous, invisible but detectable
- Evanescent - Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time
- Evocative - Suggestive
- Fetching - Pretty
- Felicity - Pleasantness
- Forbearance - Withholding response to provocation
- Fugacious - Fleeting
- Furtive - Shifty, sneaky
- Gambol - To skip or leap about joyfully
- Glamour - Beauty
- Gossamer - The finest piece of thread, a spider's silk
- Halcyon - Happy, sunny, care-free
- Harbinger - Messenger with news of the future
- Imbrication - Overlapping and forming a regular pattern
- Imbroglio - An altercation or complicated situation
- Imbue - To infuse, instill
- Incipient - Beginning, in an early stage
- Ineffable - Unutterable, inexpressible
- Ingénue - A naïve young woman
- Inglenook - A cozy nook by the hearth
- Insouciance - Blithe nonchalance
- Inure - To become jaded
- Labyrinthine - Twisting and turning
- Lagniappe - A special kind of gift
- Lagoon - A small gulf or inlet
- Languor - Listlessness, inactivity
- Lassitude - Weariness, listlessness
- Leisure - Free time
- Lilt - To move musically or lively
- Lissome - Slender and graceful
- Lithe - Slender and flexible
- Love - Deep affection
- Mellifluous - Sweet sounding
- Moiety - One of two equal parts
- Mondegreen - A slip of the ear
- Murmurous - Murmuring
- Nemesis - An unconquerable archenemy
- Offing - The sea between the horizon and the offshore
- Onomatopoeia - A word that sounds like its meaning
- Opulent - Lush, luxuriant
- Palimpsest - A manuscript written over earlier ones
- Panacea - A solution for all problem
- Panoply - A complete set
- Pastiche - An art work combining materials from various sources
- Penumbra - A half-shadow
- Petrichor - The smell of earth after rain
- Plethora - A large quantity
- Propinquity - An inclination
- Pyrrhic - Successful with heavy losses
- Quintessential - Most essential
- Ratatouille - A spicy French stew
- Ravel - To knit or unknit
- Redolent - Fragrant
- Riparian - By the bank of a stream
- Ripple - A very small wave
- Scintilla - A spark or very small thing
- Sempiternal - Eternal
- Seraglio - Rich, luxurious oriental palace or harem
- Serendipity - Finding something nice while looking for something else
- Summery - Light, delicate or warm and sunny
- Sumptuous - Lush, luxurious
- Surreptitious - Secretive, sneaky
- Susquehanna - A river in Pennsylvania
- Susurrous - Whispering, hissing
- Talisman - A good luck charm
- Tintinnabulation - Tinkling
- Umbrella - Protection from sun or rain
- Untoward - Unseemly, inappropriate
- Vestigial - In trace amounts
- Wafture - Waving
- Wherewithal - The means
- Woebegone - Sorrowful, downcast
An opportunity to comment on a life very full, with room for improvement, and little time to do it.
Friday, October 9, 2009
100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
Are these them? I prefer the funniest words, myself. But that's just me. Anna? I'm sure you have something to add. Words like these we used to call SAT words.
I found his assertions that certain sounds were beautiful to be spurious. B as a beautiful sound? Is that because the word beautiful has a B? I find words to be beautiful because their meanings are...so beleaguer (besides being a bitch to spell) isn't one of my top beautiful words. Umbrella? Love (isn't that just a little trite)? I have so many nits to pick...but then you suspected as much.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading some other, similar list, but one of the "most beautiful" words on the list was gonorrhea, somehow!
ReplyDeleteI'm proud to say that I knew most of those words. I've been an obsessive vocabulary builder over most of the course of my life. One of my friends even calls me "Mrs. Word" & my manager at the library constantly picks my brain for good, new words.
Lagniappe is a very Louisiana-based word. These days, in this area, it means something more akin to "a little extra," a bonus, of sorts.
BTW, thanks for the anniversary wishes. :)
ReplyDeleteI like that many of them are also French.
ReplyDeleteI have to use 'gambol' and must say you have wuite a lagniappe way to find things to post about - love it!
(don't even know if I used it the right way, oh well...)
I have to admit that "Tintinnabulation" is one of my favorite words to say. Some of the rest on the list - I couldn't even begin to pronounce.
ReplyDeleteAnna - I expected nothing less . . .
ReplyDeleteLana - there's nothing wrong with a verbose vocabulary - and you're welcome
Paw - The language of love, of course French would have a number of beautiful words
C - A fine choice