Tag Archives: Middle Ages

For this week, I’m digging into words from a book that was replete with good ones:

gauds, pl n Pieces of showy finery; a gay trapping, trinket, or the like; any object of ostentation or exultation
page 4, Godric by Frederick Buechner
“We had rabbitfur, goosefeather, beeswax, calfskin, garlic and gauds galore.”
Not gaudy?

perry, n A fermented liquor, similar to cider but made from the juice of pears
page 11, Godric by Frederick Buechner
“She had long legs and hair in a tangle and a gap between her teeth for squirting cider or perry through if ever the whim should take her.”

knout, n A leather scourge used for flogging
page 19, Godric by Frederick Buechner
“I’ve seen a shaft of light aslant through dark, a fierce lance tilted to the heart of things, a flail, a knout.”

goodman, n The man of the house, master, husband, head of a family; an appellation of civility; a term of respect, frequently used to or of a person before his surname: nearly equivalent to Mr. or sometimes to gaffer, sometimes used ironically
page 20, Godric by Frederick Buechner
“‘I planted horns on many a goodman’s brown and jollied lads with tales about it afterward.'”

fettle, v To line the hearth of (a reverberatory furnace) with loose sand or ore in preparation for pouring molten metal
page 29, Godric by Frederick Buechner
“If my lord said harrow, he’d harrow, said tinker, he’d tinker or fettle he’d fettle though he was no villein bound to serve but a man born free as any man and paid the rent of our poor roof with pence.”

More great words on my Words from my reading page.

Books cited here:
Godric by Frederick Buechner [Amazon]*

What new words have you found lately?

* That’s an affiliate link; I am an Amazon Associate and receive a small commission on sales through my affiliate links.

A few fun words that were new to me this week:

postern, adj Situated in the back or at the side; small rear gate, especially one in a fort or castle
page 54, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“Early in the morning of the day before his knighting, even before the dawning, Julian had arisen from bed and crept down to the chapel, where he laid his great sword on the altar, then had slipped out the postern gate into the mists of the new-mown fields.”
Guessing it means back.

irenic, adj Promoting peace, conciliatory
page 57, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“Over their shoulders he dashed, over their succeeding summits — until suddenly the hunter was standing at the high edge of a hidden valley, panting, staring down upon a scene irenic, almost an Eden.”

brockets, pl n Two-year-old red deer with their first horns; a group of the deer family
page 58, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“Oh, how tender in his nostrils was their scent, the various breathings of does and brockets and yearlings, the huffing breath of bucks, the earth-odor ascending from their flanks!”

merlons, pl n The solid portions between crenels in a battlement or crenelated wall
page 68, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“Oh, Lord, how lovely is your snow: snow as white as absolution on the bailey grounds; snow in rounded mounds on the merlons at the top of his father’s tower; snows to bank the grey-black river, snows to keep it sharply bound as, serpent-like, it wound through pure-white fields unto the horizon.”

Previous words posts drawing on the vocabulary of Saint Julian:
First installment
Second installment
Third installment

More great words on my Words from my reading page.

Books cited here:
Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.* [my review]

What new words have you found lately?

* That’s an affiliate link; I am an Amazon Associate and receive a small commission on sales through my affiliate links.

A few fun words that were new to me this week:

minikin, n A very small delicate creature (archaic); a fine mincing lass; a small sort of gut-string formerly used in the lute and viol, and various other stringed instruments: it was properly the treble string of a lute or fiddle
page 33, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“He panted beside his mother, her blue eyes oblivious of the minikin blasphemies at her feet.”

sollar, n Originally, an open gallery or balcony at the top of a house, exposed to the sun; later, any upper room, loft, or garret; an elevated chamber in a church from which to watch the lamps burning before the altars;
page 37, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“He was removed, too, from the wide attic rooms where he’d slept on pallets with the other children of the castle, and was granted a room of his own near the sollar where his parents slept.”

aurochs, n A species of wild ox or buffalo, the bonasos of Aristotle, bison of Pliny, the European bison, Bos or Bison bonasus of modern naturalists
page 50, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“He knew the rotting odor of wolves’ exhalations, the dusty smell of small-eyed bear, the leaf-moldering coat of the aurochs, the vinegar piss of fox — and even the more timid creatures of the forest he could locate by the sound of them: hares, badgers, squirrels, martens, otters.”
Some sort of animal …

wyverns, pl n Two-legged dragons having wings and barbed tails
page 51, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“Pavilions filled the eastern reaches of the field, heraldic colors, banners displaying dragons, wyverns, lions, fishes, harps.”
Ditto.

anchorite, n One who lives in isolation or seclusion, especially for religious reasons
page 54, Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.
“‘An anchorite,’ said the sauce cook, ‘secluding himself to meditate upon five wounds and a crown of thorns….'”

Previous words posts drawing on the vocabulary of Saint Julian:
First installment
Second installment

More great words on my Words from my reading page.

Books cited here:
Saint Julian by Walt Wangerin Jr.* [my review]

What new words have you found lately?

* That’s an affiliate link; I am an Amazon Associate and receive a small commission on sales through my affiliate links.