nadir-

I should be embarrassed, but: Sectarian

don't be, I just saw entrenous [spelled as one word] and went to look it up..

tumescent

you so don't want to know the context

Why is the context any worse than the word?

bespoke

Cloaca
Bugger
Queue

Most of the words I learn come from books. There are many words I still don't know how to pronounce properly. And I've made pretty interesting mistakes based on context clues (or lack thereof). I used to think "bemused" was a synonym for "amused," for example. For years.

It was probably in the same paragraph as turgid.

sanguineous - and why aren't people including definitions with thier words - some of them ARE hard!

sanguinous

www.dictionary.com
it's free.

...

oops - in my hast if forgot - bloody, of or related to blood

i did. but it takes to long, why not have the courtesy to write definitions?

Download Firefox; top-right corner, search bar. Set it to dictionary.com. Takes 2 seconds.

pow! biff! and pbbbbbbbbt(motorcycle sound).
yes my friends, pulp comics have made me into the cultured man you see today

Don't forget "tmp."

meh?

tmp?

"Tmp" is the sound a manga character makes when landing after a jump, of course.

hey! who's line is it anyway?

ugh! manga? how could you???

said who???
(though the onomatopeas in many of mine were in Japanese, and I tend to dismiss reading them)

Hm. Not sure I want to discuss this here...

i have it
still too long - i am a bit of a comp freak - obsessed with speed!!

Try Answers.com - it's quicker.

thats not the prob - its easier to just read than to go to another site (even with tab browsing)

salvifically.

Chimerical is the only word that I remember conscientiously looking up while in middle of reading.

Abu Gharib

Shim has used that word several times on h.com. Makes BL swoon.

Apotheosis
Orgiastic

(extra credit if you can guess which book I just finished reading)

I was thinking cancer. (And of course the other association goes without saying)

I first read the word in an opinion piece on ^

BTW, if you have AIM, just add smarterchild to your buddy list and send him an IM, such as define tumescent and he'll return the result. You can also do much more with him, get news, stocks, weather, lotto, trivia and just waste time. It's all good.

(Boston Tea Party?? )

A book on Greek mythology? Dionysys? (sp?)

I am gone.

Great tip! Thanks!

Indeed, and it was his recent use of it that sparked that memory.

no prob!
(score: +2 points on my ego board)

How about including the sentence it was used in..?

"One of the strategies of this book involves the side-by-side comparison of the dual migrations. This stereoscopic view yields a host of new insights about each of the groups and their experiences."

Lacuna.

"South Africa is thus the only country in Africa south of the Mediterranean littoral which has a military potential comparable to that of a medium-sized power in Europe or North America"

Your post reminds me of another word I learned from a book: the Levant.

"Oldfield played a vital role in cooling down Turkish fury over the tergiversations of Wilson and Callaghan."

I'd seen this word before, but never looked it up.

mosheshmeal
.

"But anyone who considers the basic drives of man to see to what extent they may have been at play just here as inspiring spirits (or demons or kobolds) will find that all of them have done philosophy at some time..."

I feel gloatful (that should be a word, but I don't think it is).

My new word:
Litost.