Saturday, January 21, 2006

Neoteric Mot Juste: #1

One of the things I would like to do on this blog is to have a word for the day. Ever since . . . well, I can’t remember when it started, but for a very long time I have had an interest in words, and for a while maintained my own dictionary of obscure words I found by scouring old dictionaries and books on the topic. Of course, with such an interest, I couldn’t just name this entry “Word for the Day,” could I? So I turned to a book I just found, The Thinker’s Thesaurus by Peter E. Meltzer, which as the subtitle proclaims, offers Sophisticated alternatives to common words, and found the word and phrase entitling this post. Neoteric, as the student of Latin and Greek would surmise, means of recent origin. (Of course, many if not most of the words to be found in this section in the future are not strictly of recent origin except in the recesses of my cranium!) Mot juste signifies the idea of just the right word or phrase (from the French mot, word, and juste, right).
Check back soon for verbicide.

2 comments:

Jen said...

Andrew you make me laugh. :)

Anonymous said...

Andrew, you actually scour old dictionaries?!? Dude, just remember we have to understand what you're saying!?! :)

Here's a word I learned today. Anyone know what asciety means? (as in the asciety of God)