Your ANFRACTUOSITY is confusing me!

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's....

ANFRACTUOSITY (noun)

The quality of having many many twists and turns

"There are chance anfractuosities of ruin in the upper portions of the Coliseum which offer a very fair imitation of the rugged face of an Alpine cliff."
--Henry James, Italian Hours (1909)

Speaking of Henry James, he's a pretty anfractuous writer, in my reading experience. Even the title of perhaps his most famous work, The Turn of the Screw, is twisty. And here's a typically anfractuous Jamesian sentence: "He fairly caught himself shooting rueful glances, shy looks of pursuit, toward the embodied influence, the definite adversary, who had, by a stroke of her own, failed him, and on a fond theory of whose palpable presence he had, under Mrs. Newsome's inspiration, altogether proceeded." If you can parse that, you’re a better ex-English major than I am. (TWITO, page 14)

Are we keeping you up? Don't OSCITATE!

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

OSCITATE [OSS-it-ayt] (verb)

To yawn or gape

"There are persons whose physical constitutions are so delicate that mere thoughts of taking snuff (and medicines generally) produce the same effect as inhaling the powder itself: now, if the imagination of the reader has a similar influence over his system, he can have no disposition to oscitate while finishing the chapter; on the contrary, the greatest obstacle to his progress will arise from a disposition to sneeze."
--Thomas Ewbank, The Spoon (1844) (TWITO, page 104)

Ahh! Don't make me SPANGHEW like that!

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

SPANGHEW [SPANG-hyoo] (verb)

To throw or jerk violently, to cause to fly into the air, to jump like a toad or frog

"Damien enjoyed sneaking up behind Mildred, tapping her on the shoulder, and watching her spanghew." (TWITO, page 139)