Thursday, May 17, 2012

Word of the Day: iqueme

iqueme (adj)

Pleasing or agreeable.

"Not content with a glossary, the author has woven these relics into a collection of turngiddy tales (in which Teneris the Knight is prominently featured), snirtling telephone conversations with a Miss Fleak ['an insignificant person'], hoful synonym studies, and iqueme poems that cannot fail to confound and amuse."
--Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 3

According to wordnik, this is not a valid Scrabble word, which isn't very iqueme, is it?

I can't figure out how to pronounce it: "eye-cue-me"? "ick-ew-may"? "I-cweem"? If I was an audiobook narrator, I'd be in trouble. It's hard to imagine what sort of book such a word would appear in, though. Apparently, it's Middle English. But that's all the more reason to resurrect it in your daily conversation, gentle readers. Pronounce it however you like, though if you say "I-cweem" someone might think your saying "ice cream":

"That perfume you're wearing is so I-cweem."
"Ice cream?"
"Yeah, you know, delicious."

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