agelast /A-jə-last/. noun. One who never laughs; a humorless person. A borrowing from Rabelais’ Middle French agelaste, from Greek agélastos (not laughing).
WORD(S)
A cornucopia—a logocopia!—of awesome words.
malison
malison /mal-i-zən/. noun. A curse. A malediction. The opposite of a benison. From Old French maleiçon (curse, to speak ill).
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dakhma (dokhma)
dakhma (dokhma) /DOK-ma/. noun. A raised circular structure, or tower, upon which Zoroastrians place the bodies of their dead to be consumed by vultures. AKA a “Tower of Silence.” From Persian dakhmak (funeral place).
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acedia
acedia /ə-SEE-dee-ə/. noun. Listlessness, torpor, deep malaise, a distaste for the obligations of life or religious practice, the sin of sloth. As Thomas Aquinas put it, a “sorrow of the world.” See also: weltschmerz. From Greek akēdeia (negligence, apathy)
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chrisom
chrisom /KRI-zəm/. noun. A child’s baptismal robe (originally a face cloth) or, upon death before 30 days old, a burial shroud. Derived from pronunciation of chrism, a sacramental balm or oil. From Greek khriein (to anoint). See also chrisomes (children who die in their first month of life).
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scrivello
scrivello /skri-VEL-oh/. noun. A small elephant tusk weighing “less than 20 lb,” according to the OED or “of a small size commonly used for making billiard balls” by Merriam-Webster. Likely from the Portuguese, a variant of escaravelho (pin, peg).
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parnel
parnel /PAR-nəl/. noun. A prostitute. More specifically: a priest’s mistress (though who’s to say none of those were love matches?). Often seen in the phrase “tender parnel.” Also rendered as pannell, pernel and others. From Pernel, a shortened form of the name Petronilla which was, at one time, a popular feminine form of the name Peter. Beyond that, the etymology is unclear.
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