What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...
DELIQUIUM [del-IK-wee-um] (noun)
Melting or
dissolution; liquefying; a maudlin mood
"When at length overtaken and reconveyed to the house, deliquium
followed deliquium, and when they
ceased, frenzy succeeded; the dark night of insanity had utterly quenched the
light of reason."
--Reuben Percy, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement,
and Instruction (1834)
"The worship of
Odin astonishes us, -- to fall prostrate before the Great Man, into deliquium of love and wonder over him,
and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of the skies, a god!"
--Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship
and the Heroic in History (1840)
Things melt. The salad left too long in the refrigerator turns to green slime.
A vinyl phonograph disc left in the sun warps disastrously. A plastic carafe
left too close to the stove burner assumes a comical shape. All these things
have happened to me, sad to say. But the worst was during my childhood, when my
parents gave me a chocolate bunny one hot Easter morning. While we attended
some religious rite, we left the confection in the car. When we returned, all
that was left of my sacchariferous hare was a pool of chocolate milk. And yes,
that put me in a deliquium. (TWITO, page 40)
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