YvonneThis week, I am entirely indebted to fellow bloggers for the words I am sharing, so I do hope that they don’t mind too much and take it as the compliment which is intended. There are links to all mentioned posts 🙂
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1. – I came across my first word, at the home of fellow blogger Linda, over at ‘A Book Addict’s View’, where it appeared in her regular ‘Teaser Tuesday’ post, when she featured the book ‘Vermilion’ by Molly Tanzer.
PSYCHOPOMP
Gunslinging, chain smoking, Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp, Elouise “Lou” Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she’s too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that.
PSYCHOPOMP –
A psychopomp is a guide, whose primary function is to escort souls to the afterlife, but they can also serve as guides through the various transitions of life. The term originates from the Greek words pompos (conductor or guide) and psyche (breath, life, soul, or mind). Stories of psychopomps are widespread throughout the mythological tales, religious texts, sacred narratives, and real-life stories of people around the world.
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2. – This word was featured in Hila’s regular ‘Week In Seven Words’ post, over at ‘The Sill Of The World’. Hila takes words which she feels best describes certain aspects of her week.
ARIOSE
A lovely duet as the sun sets and candles flicker on the table.
ARIOSE –
Characterized by melody; songlike.
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3. – This wasn’t the original word I set out to search, when I came across ‘Random April Photos’, fellow blogger ‘Kelly’s Thoughts & Ramblings’, latest post. However the original word crawdad, appears to simply be a variation on the word crayfish, depending on which side of The Atlantic you live. Now this word, found during my original research, was completely new to me…
ASTACOLOGY
ASTACOLOGYÂ –
Is the investigation and analysis of crayfish
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a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we have encountered in our reading. It is hosted by Kathy, over at ‘BermudaOnion’s Weblog’.You can either stop by and leave a link to your own ‘mystery’ words of the week, or just browse the eclectic mix of words that others have discovered, there is always a great selection.
Don’t forget that Kathy and the rest of us, all love to read your comments as well, so that we can visit and share your words of the week!
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I’ve never heard of a psychopomp and would never have guessed its meaning. I guess I need to expand my horizons and read something in one of those genres. Ariose sounds like what it means. Who knew there’s a word for the investigation and analysis of crayfish? You were a great word detective this week.
Hi Kathy,
Genres containing psychopomps etc. are not normally my reading of choice, so it was only by chance that I happened upon the word … I can’t believe that just about everything has to have a label these days – a sign of the times I guess 🙂
Whilst my rudimentary knowledge of biology was good enough that a knew your featured word calyx, it was definitely not good enough to recognise astacology. Like you say, who knew there would even be a word to describe the study of crayfish!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and for continuing to host this interesting meme 🙂
Who knew there was a word for the study of crayfish?! And thanks for the thorough description of psychopomp – I would have blown it off as some kind of new hip term the teens are using. Far from it, apparently!
Hi Julia,
Actually, I just noticed another new word in that quote about the psychopomp – ‘gueng si’, which is the Cantonese translation of the Chinese ‘Jiangshi’ …
“A jiangshi, also known as a Chinese “hopping” vampire, ghost, or zombie, is a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore.”
This is definitely reading material which is well outside of my area of comprehension or interest!
Thanks for visiting today, I always value your time and comments 🙂
All new words to me! And despite knowing crawdad, crawfish, crayfish, and mudbug are all interchangeable terms for the same creature, I had no idea there was word for the study of them.
Good job on stumping us this week!
Hi Kelly,
There you go again … I knew all the *c* words, but ‘mudbug’ …. really! 🙂
I do often wonder who thinks up all these job titles and do we really need them all?
Would the world suddenly come to an end if no-one studied crayfish and if there has to be an astacologist, why can’t they earn their money and study a few more species of water and pond life, to make the job worthwhile?
Thanks for drawing my attention to the word in the first place. Fellow bloggers have taken centre stage this week, for which I am grateful 🙂
All new to me today, thanks for sharing them.
Hi Mary Ann,
I can’t believe just how many new words I come across, in both my reading and exposure to other regular media streams.
Even when visiting the blogs of the various contributors to WWW, whilst I may know some of the great words which are thrown into the mix, there is always something new to learn and be amazed at.
Thanks for taking the time to check out my words this time 🙂
Definitely my favourite word this week – psychopomp.
Like Kathy not a word I would have guessed the meaning of. I was somehow thinking it might refer to someone who like to display psychotic tendencies without being a ‘psycho’.
Hi Tracy,
I can’t believe that one word has been quite so popular!
I assumed that I would be the only person who didn’t know the meaning of this one, given that so many readers are into following genres which would include psychopomps.
There is even a quarterly ‘Psychopomp Magazine’
http://www.joomag.com/magazine/psychopomp-magazine-spring-2016/0609974001458854228?short
Thanks for taking the time to visit, I always like reading your comments
Just stumbled upon this post. I love the idea of featuring interesting words from books. I find it fun to look up the meaning behind such words and growing my vocabulary.
Hi Chrystal.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment. I love ‘meeting’ new people and having them visit. It is always good to exchange thoughts 🙂
There are so many excellent regular memes out there, that it is almost impossible to choose just a few from amongst them, as I would love to have the time to contribute to them all.
Wondrous Words Wednesday has always been one of my favourites, as I didn’t realise just how many words I didn’t know, when all the time I believed that my vocabulary was quite good!
Some of my new words come from my reading, which is the literal aim of the meme. However I now always have pen and paper to hand, as I have really started listening to conversations, television programmes etc. and realise just how many new to me words I actually hear and don’t know the meaning of. I must have been ‘tuning them out’ before.
It would be great to have you take part one of these weeks, full instructions are in the post and kathy is a brilliant host 🙂
I’ve not heard of any of these ones before!
Hi Nikki,
As you can see, all of my words this time, were inspired by the posts of fellow bloggers, so it’s not just in my own reading where I come across new to me words.
These days, I always have pen and paper handy, just in case I get wind of a new word or two on the horizon.
Wondrous Words Wednesday is one of my favourite memes 🙂