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CANOROUS [can-OR-uss]
(adjective)
Melodious; musical
"The dull life at Oxford was varied by the occasional visit of a mesmeric
lecturer; and one youth caused peals of canorous laughter by walking
round in a pretended mesmeric sleep and kissing the pretty daughters of the
dons."
--Thomas Wright, The Life of Sir Richard Burton (1906)
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CLINQUANT [KLING-kunt] (adjective)
Glittering, but in a false or cheap way, like tinsel
"No, there are too many of these fine sparks you talk of who perhaps may be very clinquant, slight, and bright and make a very pretty show at first, but the tinsel-gentlemen do so tarnish in the wearing, there’s no enduring them."
--Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso (1676)
I once had a cat that liked to eat the tinsel (of the “icicle” type) off the Christmas tree. Maybe he had an iron deficiency. Anyway, he always threw it up later, in a clinquant hairball, which was both pretty from a distance and disgusting close up--like many things. (TWITO, page 32)
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EJULATION [ej-yoo-LAY-shun]
(noun)
A wailing; lamentation
“‘Eleven years of solitary confinement!’ is the ejulation of Mr.
Dickens, forgetting the crime for which the man was imprisoned!”
--Joseph Adshead, Prisons and Prisoners (1845) (TWITO, page 44)
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COSMOTELLURIAN [cos-mo-tel-OO-ree-an] (adjective)
Pertaining to both heaven and earth
"So, feet on the ground, head in the stars, eh?" said Mr. Dolty. The astronomer smiled patiently and said, "I think of myself as a cosmotellurian investigator." (TWITO, page 35)
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