Dictionary – Lisa Yin Zhang

Dictionary

Ablution (3/10/20)
Acedia (9/22/21)
- - from Latin acēdia, and this from Greek ἀκηδία, “negligence”, ἀ- “lack of” -κηδία “care”)
Acequia (4/7/20)
- - From Ailes Gilmour
  - A community-operated watercourse used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation
Adamantine (5/25/20)
- - From Léonie Gilmour, “Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo”. The Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 1921. Digital reproduction of original manuscript. [MS_FAM_022_001].
Adjective (5/20/20; obviously known)
- - From Anne Carson, Autbiography of Red (4): “What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs active these names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning ‘placed on top,’ ‘added,’ ‘appended,’ ‘imported,’ ‘foreign.’ Adjectives seem fairy innocent additions but look again. These small important mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.”
Adumbrate (7/17/20; known-ish)
- - Duus, 123. Must have been an SAT word
  - Interesting relationship to “foreshadow.” ad- , umbrate, shadow.
Aegis (8/18/19)
- - Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry, 15.
Ague (12/25/21)
- - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
  - Archaic: Malaria or some other illness involving fever and shivering
Airglow (1/12/22)
- - Airglow (also called nightglow) is a faint emission of light by a planetary atmosphere.
Alkali (8/15/19)
- - “22, A Million was both acid and alkali, like it could fizz up and break apart in your hands,” says Pitchfork.
Allegory
- - (7/7/21): As Walter Benjamin asserts, “the only pleasure the melancholic permits himself, and it is a powerful one, is allegory.”
Amanuensis (1/15/20; known)
Amaryllis (1/25/21; known)
- - The name Amaryllis is taken from a shepherdess in Virgil’s pastoral Eclogues, (from the Greek ἀμαρύσσω (amarysso), meaning “to sparkle”) and also from “Amarella” for the bitterness of the bulb.[9][10]
America
- - (4/14/20) IN: “ah, near to chaos!”
Amphiboly: A form of ambivalent syntax that normalizes the expression of logical fallacies and grammatical anomalies
- - Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (5/5/19)
    - - Cassin: “…makes an error of meaning acceptable even as it arouses conscious suspicion of something off-kilter or terrible wrong within language.”
      - Kant: “obstruction to the apprehension of things in themselves, a grand deception of phenomena”
Ana (12/7/20)
- - a collection of the memorable sayings of a person; a collection of anecdotes or interesting information about a person or a place
  - Middle English, from Medieval Latin, from Greek, at the rate of, literally, up
Anabasis (1/15/20)
- - A march from a coast into the interior, as that of the younger Cyrus into Asia in 401 BC, as narrated by Xenophon in his work Anabasis.
Anahuac (3/17/20)
- - Reading “The Editor’s Guest Book.” Harper’s Bazaar; New York Vol. 88, Iss. 2918, (Jan 1955): 68. for Noguchi research
  - A(tl) + nahuac: “water” + “close to.”
Anamorphic (9/7/21)
- - denoting or relating to a distorted projection or drawing that appears normal when viewed from a particular point or with a suitable mirror or lens.
  - Tacita Dean
Andyomene (2/10/21)
- - Epithet for Venus from Pliny’s Natural History — “Rising from the Sea”. “Rising up” Revolution!
Androgyne (2/10/21)
- - Reading on Becky Koslrud
Androgynon (1/25/21)
- - Tuesday Smillie on Ursula K. Le Guin
Animalcules (8/20ish/20)
- - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 83.
Angel (3/31/20)
- - From Aracelis Girmay’s The Black Maria: “The word ‘angel’ has come to English from the Latin ‘angelus’ & the Greek ‘angelos’ which mean ‘messenger, envoy, or one that announces.’ The Old English word for it was ‘aerendgast’ which means errand-spirit.’”
Angle of repose (11/10/20)
- - The steepest angle relative to a horizontal surface upon which material can be piled before it begins to collapse or slump.
annis mirabilis (3/17/20)
- - Reading about Noguchi
  - Dryden poem of the same name about 1666 London (year of a great fire — could’ve been worse?)
    - - “great”
Anosmia (3/23/20)
- - Apparently, a symptom.
Anthesis (4/26/22)
- - Anthesis is the period during which a flower is fully open and functional. It may also refer to the onset of that period.
Anthoplia (5/21/21)
- - Anicka Yi in Chingu @ 47 Canal
Antic (1/21/20; 10/13/20)
- - Grotesque or bizarre.
  - Antics of a toddler?
  - Etymology: early 16th century: from Italian antico ‘antique’, used to mean ‘grotesque’.
  - “Noguchi “Noguchi delivered an antic discourse on collaborating with Miss Graham, which he has done for 50 years. ‘Now we can let them help us, can’t we?’ he said to Miss Graham.”
  - 10/13/20: “https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/south-wind-a-strange-literary-best-seller-a-hundred-years-later“. Working on Léonie.
Antimacassar (12/25/21)
- - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
  - A piece of cloth put over the back of a chair to protect it from grease or dirt or as an ornament
Appressed (4/26/22)
- - press (something) close to something else.
Aporia (8/18/19)
- - Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry, 62.
Asperity (10/21/20)
- - NYT article on Barbara Kruger, comparing her to Emily Dickinson.
  - Double negative: ab-speros, nor spurning.
  - Aspirant, like a cough outward.
Aspic (12/24/21)
- - Rushdie, The Satanic Rituals
  - A savory jelly, often made with meat stock, such as garnish, or to contain pieces of food, set in a mold
  - Late 18th century, from French, literally ‘asp,’ from the colors of the jelly compared to those of the snake
Art
- - (10/27/20) Asad Raza, video produced for 2017 Whitney Biennial: “If contemporary art is something like the ritual of a secular democratic culture, then it should pose questions to us that we don’t have the answer to immediately and we can’t grasp so easily.”
Artisanage (3/9/20)
Assayer (7/6/20)
- - Found reading 7/9/19 entry
  - To analyze something for specific components
  - To judge the worth of
  - To try, attempt
  - I’ve found I love words that fail
Astragal (3/17/20)
- - Researching Noguchi
Au courant (7/27/21)
- - aware of what is going on; well informed.
    - - “they were au courant with the literary scene”
  - fashionable.”light, low-fat, au courant recipes”
Aviatrix (8/1/19)
- - Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm, 59

Bacchante (2/10/21)
- - Research on Becky Kolsrud; Camille Corot
Balsa (3/2/20)
- - Etymology: The name balsa comes from the Spanish word for “raft”
Baleful (1/20/21; known-ish)
- - From reading on Joyce Pensato on Petzel website
  - Thought it meant something else… I guess from The Office? Like, sleepy.
  - (2/20/21 from 10/22/20): From Paradise Lost notes:“15: baleful. totally diff def than thought. satan’s eyes brim with his own suffering.” I don’t learn… Or I remembered?
Bangle (12/20/21; known)
- - late 18th century: from Hindi baṅglī ‘glass bracelet’.
Barbaric (10/25/20; known)
- - According to footnote, Milton, Paradise Lost, II.4, first conceived of to refer to Asian rulers. Despots.
Barzakh (6/27/22)
- - “Barzakh” means “limbo” in Arabic, but also refers to the state in between life and death, a realm in which a spirit waits but also a physical place that offers relief.
Bearing (6/28/21)
- - Shazia Sikander
  - 1. a person’s way of standing or moving.
    - - “a man of precise military bearing”
  - 2. relation; relevance.
    - - “the case has no direct bearing on the issues”
  - 3. the level to which something bad can be tolerated.
    - - “school was bad enough, but now it’s past bearing”
  - 4. a part of a machine that bears friction, especially between a rotating part and its housing.
    - - Interesting; something which bears friction.
  - 5. the direction or position of something, or the direction of movement, relative to a fixed point. It is usually measured in degrees, typically with magnetic north as zero.
    - - “the Point is on a bearing of 015°”
  - HERALDRY: 6. a device or charge.
    - - “armorial bearings”
      - wtf does “device” or “charge” mean here?
  - ARCHITECTURE: 7. a structural part that supports weight, such as a wall that supports a beam.
    - - the point at which a structural part rests upon a supporting structure, such as the specific area of a beam that rests upon a wall.
Bedstead (2/27/20)
- - “(Always the forward, forward drive…. reading Noguchi’s letters yesterday I was like, I am always itching to read things and do things but I never do anything. I think I just need like a nearby stack of books that might fit my mood. Like, picked up Autobiography of Red again yesterday or two days ago and fuck I’m moved. One book of poetry, one of nonfiction… but I had that in my bedstead on my bedstead ooh bedstead cool word — dict. Put it in now.”
Beech (1/26/22; known)
- - Anglo-Saxon root for “beech” and “book” is the same word, found in book of nice nature walks, source John Eastman in The Book of Forest and Thicket. Vandalism of bark by carving.
Berry aneurysm (1/31/22)
- - Reading on Michael Flanders
Bibelot (5/24/20)
- From Léonie
- late 19th century: from French, fanciful formation based on bel ‘beautiful’.
Billet doux (12/22/20)
- - Chris Kraus, I Love Dick, 25.
Bivouac (3/23/20)
- - Bivouac in the Javitz Center. Strange times.
Bloodlet (8/9/20)
Bonhomie (6/28/20)
Bottomland (4/26/22)
- Pawpaw wikipedia article
Brobdingangian (10/27/20)
- - From Anne Doran, “GENZKEN’S ANARCHIC OBJECTS,” Art in America, January 30, 2014.
Burl (2/25/20; known)
- - a slub or lump in wool or cloth.
  - Etymology: late Middle English: from Old French bourle ‘tuft of wool’, diminutive of bourre ‘coarse wool’, from late Latin burra ‘wool’.

Caesura
Calculation (2/11/21; known)
- - Mel Bochner was fond of saying that the word “calculation,” from the Latin “calcolus,” means “little stone.”
Caisson (3/17/21) Just Kids 67
Calque (3/31/20)
- - From Pushkin’s Wikipedia page: “Whenever he found gaps in the Russian vocabulary, he devised calques.”
  - “Calque” itself is a loanword from the French noun calque (“tracing; imitation; close copy”).[1]
    - - Proving that a word is a calque sometimes requires more documentation than does an untranslated loanword because, in some cases, a similar phrase might have arisen in both languages independently. This is less likely to be the case when the grammar of the proposed calque is quite different from that of the borrowing language, or when the calque contains less obvious imagery.
  - A copy — also something to fill a need
  - Revisit this Wikipedia page
Calypso (8/7/20)
- - The etymology of Calypso’s name is from καλύπτω (kalyptō), meaning “to cover”, “to conceal”, “to hide”, or “to deceive”. According to Etymologicum Magnum, her name means “concealing the knowledge” (καλύπτουσα το διανοούμενον, kalýptousa to dianooúmenon), which – combined with the Homeric epithet δολόεσσα (dolóessa, meaning “subtle” or “wily”) – justifies the eremitic character of Calypso and her island. The word καλύπτω is derived from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-, making it cognate with the English word “Hell”.
Carapace (5/26/19)
- - Louis Menand, “Top of the Pops,” New Yorker, 2010
Caravanserais (12/25/21)
- - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
  - An inn with a central courtyard for travelers in the desert regions of Asia or North Africa
  - A group of people traveling together; a caravan
  - Late 16th century: from Persian Kārwānsarāy, caravan place
Carom (4/18/22)
- - a stroke in which the cue ball strikes two balls successively.
  - Accident; trying to look up “carome”
    - - Oh nvm lol
      - Rendon was part of a spectacular defensive play in an August 15, 2015, game against the San Francisco Giants. A sharp grounder off the bat of Brandon Crawford was deflected off the glove of first baseman Clint Robinson, caroming high into the air.
  - late 18th century: abbreviation of carambole, from Spanish carambola, apparently from bola ‘ball’.
Catabasis (5/6/20)
- - Definitely remember adding this word here…. Today from Poem-a-day, Srikanth Reddy’s “Winter Term XV, from Underworld Lit.”
  - Cata-, from the ancient Greek kata, or downward, prefixed to the intransitive form tf the verbal stem baínō, to go.
  - A trip to the coast, a military retreat, an endless windstorm over the Antarctic plateau, or the sadness experienced by some men at a certain point in their lives, the remission of a disease.
Catechresis (5/9/19 (but earlier in Spivak)
- - Spivak, “Planetarity”
  - “Mrs. Walker would mark as ‘incorrect’ the figurative profusion and uncontrollability of suns in persimmons. But poetic language works precisely by such confusions and by such ‘misnaming,’ whose formal term is catachresis.”
    - - Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry, 67.
Cathectic (3/19/20)
- - Really re-cathect, from a revisiting of “Third World Literature in the Age of Multinational Capitalism,” which is a backformation of cathect, which is a backformation of above.
Cerate (8/15/19, more accurately, June 2018)
- - My own damn paper, The Night Porter.
Cervine (5/20/20)
- - From the New York Daily News, of all places!
Champagne (10/30/20; known)
- - Paradise Lost IV.134: open level countryside
Chanson (5/6/20?)
Chemin de fer (2/4/20)
- - French phrase meaning “railroad” or “the railway”. Literally, “iron path.” Also a tool for Noguchi
Chromatic (12/7/20; known)
- - Both music and art: relating to or using notes not belonging to the diatonic scale of the key in which a passage is written, and relating to or produced by color.
  - Different root than time
Chthonic (1/21/20)
- - from researching Medea
  - “in, under, or beneath the earth”, from χθών khthōn “earth”
  - literally means “subterranean”, but the word in English describes deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in Ancient Greek religion.
  - The Greek word khthon is one of several for “earth”; it typically refers to that which is under the earth, rather than the living surface of the land (as Gaia or Ge does), or the land as territory (as khora χώρα does).
  - The term allochthon in structural geology is used to describe a large block of rock that has been moved from its original site of formation, usually by low angle thrust faulting. From the Greek “allo”, meaning other, and “chthon”, designating the process of the land mass being moved under the earth and connecting two horizontally stacked décollements and thus “under the earth”.
  - Wiki: Other, non-literary traditions guided the vase-painters, and a localized, chthonic presence of Medea was propitiated with unrecorded emotional overtones at Corinth, at the sanctuary devoted to her slain children, or locally venerated elsewhere as a foundress of cities.
Chyron (7/31/19)
- - NYTimes re: second Democratic Debates
Citrine (1/12/22; known)
- - As a color
Claustrale (5/6/19)
- - Jhumpa Lahiri, In Other Words
Codicil (1/14/20; 3/24/20)
- - Isamu Noguchi’s last will and testament
  - “A codicil is literally a ‘little codex,’ a little bit of writing on a small piece of writing material, used to add to or change something about a larger piece of writing.”
Compassion (2/1/21)
- - From Brainpickings newsletter: “Centuries before the advent of Christianity and its central tenet of the golden rule, the Chinese sage pioneered the concept of compassion as a moral guiding principle — an ancient concept subtly yet profoundly different from empathy, which only entered the modern lexicon at the dawn of the twentieth century as a term for projecting oneself into a work of art.”
Compunction (7/1/21; known)
- - James’s house; I said, “Crazy how dogs have no compunction about holding eye contact for extended periods of time.”
  - Middle English: from Old French componction, from ecclesiastical Latin compunctio(n- ), from Latin compungere ‘prick sharply’, from com- (expressing intensive force) + pungere ‘to prick’.
Concomitant (1/22/21; known)
Corpuscle (5/2/19)
- - Léopold Senghor, “Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century”
Cote (10/30/20)
- - Paradise Lost: IV.186:
Coterie (8/15/19)
- - Pitchfork article on Bon Iver, but in general a great word
Comet (10/29/20; known)
- - Comet from Greek kometes, “long-haired.”
    - - From Paradise Lost, II.710
Copula (5/5/19)
- - Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children’s Archive
  - “The metaphoric copula ‘is’ thus becomes embedded and reenacted at the level of syllable and phoneme.”
    - - Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry, 66. (8/18/19)
Corolla (4/26/22)
- - Petals
Corpora arenacea (1/22/22)
- - calcified structures in the pineal gland and other areas of the brain such as the choroid plexus. Function unknown.
  - “Dream sand”
Couchant (12/24/21)
- - Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, 3
  - [Heraldry] (of an animal) Lying with the body resting on the legs and the head raised
Counterpart (3/24/20)
- - Wrote it in article on Léonie; looked it up — a strange definition
    - one of two corresponding copies of a legal instrument : DUPLICATE
    - a thing that fits another perfectly
    - something that completes : COMPLEMENT
    - one remarkably similar to another
    - one having the same function or characteristics as another
Covet (1/26/21; known)
Cresset (10/25/20)
- Milton, Paradise Lost: I.728
Creve coeur (2/3/20)
Cri de coeur (5/10/22)
- - NYT on Mike Hearn
  - a passionate appeal, complaint, or protest.
Crib (6/15/19)
Criticism (5/1/20)
- From art/ agenda: (1) From latinized form of Greek krisis ‘turning point in a disease, that change which indicates recovery or death,’ literally ‘judgment, trial, or selection,’ krinein ‘to separate, decided, judge,’ from Proto-Indo-European root *krei- ‘to sieve,’ thus ‘discriminate, distinguish.’
  - I love “sieve”
Cultivar (9/3/20; known)
Cynosure (5/21/21; sort of known)
- late 16th century: from French, or from Latin cynosura, from Greek kunosoura ‘dog’s tail’ (also ‘Ursa Minor’), from kuōn, kun- ‘dog’ + oura ‘tail’. The term originally denoted the constellation Ursa Minor, or the pole star which it contains, long used as a guide by navigators.
a

Darkling (10/30/20)
- - Paradise Lost, III.39: In the dark. Poetic diction, appears in Keat’s “Ode on a Nightingale,” Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush”
Dea Tacita (9/7/21)
- - Dea Tacita (“the silent goddess”) was a goddess of the dead.
Dear (10/30/20; known)
- - Paradise Lost III.300: both “lovingly” and “expensively”
Decanal (8/22/19)
- - Of or related to deans, deanery, or of the ecclesiastical south side; or, a high-boiling liquid aldehyde CH3(CH2)8CHO found in essential oils (as oils of orrisroot and lemongrass)
  - Found researching the Jacobs School of Medicine at the University of Buffalo
  - From the medieval Latin meaning “chief of ten”
Decoy (2/11/20)
- - Mid 16th century (earlier as coy): from Dutch de kooi ‘the decoy’, from Middle Dutch de kouw ‘the cage’, from Latin cavea ‘cage’. decoy (sense 2 of the noun) is from the practice of using tamed ducks to lead wild ones along channels into captivity.
  - Somehow unrelated to coy: Middle English: from Old French coi, quei, from Latin quietus (see quiet). The original sense was ‘quiet, still’ (especially in behavior), later ‘modestly retiring’, and hence (of a woman) ‘affecting to be unresponsive to advances’.
Deliquesce (4/27/20; 12/24/21)
- - On Monet: “This impression has been compounded by the way some of his most characteristic pictures – such as the Debâcles or thawing rivers – appear to dissolve and deliquesce into pure paint.”
  - Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
  - (Of organic matter)
Décalage (10/21/20)
- - Krista Thompson, “The Sidelong Glance.”
  - Kenneth Edwards: “the traces and indelible effects of the difficulties, mistranslations, and failures involved in forging the idea of diaspora across complex and diverse communities, times, and spaces forms the very weave of diasporic cultures.”
Déconfit (1/20/21)
- - Crestfallen, also “Duck confit is a delicious dish made from duck leg”
  - “In Memory of Joyce Pensato by Marcella Durand – BOMB Magazine.” Bombmagazine.org, April 2009. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/joyce-pensato/.
Depilatory (8/8/20)
- - Kingston, 9.
Denote (9/25/19)
- - Found looking up difference from “connote” for my “饿鬼” story.
Describe (5/20/20)
- - Noticed b/c of Dafen on Scribd: de- scribe. It is written, right?
Demesne (1/20/21)
- - “A Tribute to Joyce Pensato.” The Brooklyn Rail, July 9, 2019. https://brooklynrail.org/2019/07/in-memoriam/A-Tribute-to-Joyce-Pensato.
  - 4/7/22: Domesday Book Wikipedia Page
Detourn; Détournement (11/2/20)
- - 4Columns on kurimanzutto’s Titan: “Rather than replicate advertising’s strategies in order to detourn them (as much critical art in the public sphere has done before), these artists realize that public space is no longer colonized by corporations but has been deserted by them, and that new opportunities might be available as a result.”
  - A détournement (French: [detuʁnəmɑ̃]), meaning “rerouting, hijacking” in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International,[1] and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),[2][3] that was defined in the SI’s inaugural 1958 journal as “[t]he integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those means. In a more elementary sense, détournement within the old cultural spheres is a method of propaganda, a method which reveals the wearing out and loss of importance of those spheres.”[3][4]
  - It has been defined elsewhere as “turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself”[5]—as when slogans and logos are turned against their advertisers or the political status quo.[6]
  - Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was reprised by the punk movement in the late 1970s[7] and inspired the culture jamming movement in the late 1980s.[5]
  - Its opposite is recuperation, in which radical ideas or the social image of people who are viewed negatively are twisted, commodified, and absorbed in a more socially acceptable context.
Devote (10/30/20; known)
- - Paradise Lost III. 208: Absolutely doomed. Given to destruction as by a vow
Diaspora (10/21/20; known)
- - From Krista Thompson, “A Sidelong Glance”: Prefix dia- (“through); sperein (“to sow” or “scatter”). But “dispersal” “seems like a mild and passive way to describe the processes through which the modern African diaspora came to be formed: through transatlantic racial slavery.”
Digitigrade
Dirigible (8/14/20)
- - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 96
Disambiguation (9/21/21)
- - Known from Wikipedia
Disquisition (9/17/21)
- - Artforum on Ei Arakawa
Dissemble (5/10/21; known)
- - Working on BK Rail review of Holton’s “The Lams of Ludlow Street.” Been thinking a lot about people in general, how I don’t understand him. Them. (Breidy.) How they will dissemble to get away from you. As if you — the viewer, the voyeur, the listener, the questioner, (the executioner?) — are trying to assemble something and they are trying to tear it down because if you complete it they’re finished. They’re done for.
Dryadic (1/8/20)
- - “um to ah Anzai on Noguchi Garden.”
Dobros (1/22/21)
- - a type of acoustic guitar with steel resonating disks inside the body under the bridge.
Dolmen (2/18/20)
- - A tall upright stone of a kind erected in prehistoric times in western Europe.
  - mid 19th century: from French, perhaps via Breton from Cornish tolmen ‘hole of a stone’.
Dormer (9/21/21)
- - A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof.[1]
  - The word dormer is derived from the Middle French dormeor, meaning “sleeping room”,[3] as dormer windows often provided light and space to attic-level bedrooms.[2]
Dorsal (10/21/20; known)
- - Merriam Webster word of the day
  - Situated our or directed away from the axis; abaxial
  - Root Latin dorm gave us dossier, bundle of documents labeled on back, and reredos, an ornamental screen or partition wall behind an altar.
Doyenne (1/15/20)
- - “Priscilla Morgan, a doyenne of international culture, longtime official of the Spoleto arts festival and all-around facilitator for artists of many stripes — including the painter Willem de Kooning, the theater composer Jerry Herman and the sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi, who was also her longtime romantic partner — died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan.”
Draft (9/22/21; known)
- - a preliminary version of a piece of writing.”the first draft of the party’s manifesto”
  - a plan, sketch, or rough drawing.
  - COMPUTING: a mode of operation of a printer in which text is produced rapidly but with relatively low definition.noun: draft mode; plural noun: draft modes
  - 2. US: compulsory recruitment for military service.”25 million men were subject to the draft”
  - NORTH AMERICAN: a procedure whereby new or existing sports players are made available for selection or reselection by the teams in a league, usually with the earlier choices being given to the weaker teams.
  - RARE: a group or individual selected from a larger group for a special duty, e.g., for military service.
  - 3. a current of cool air in a room or other confined space.”heavy curtains at the windows cut out drafts”
  - Similar:
    - - current of air
      - rush of air
      - breath
      - whiff
      - waft
      - wind
      - breeze
      - gust
      - puff
      - blast
      - gale
      - blow
      - zephyr
  - 4. the action or act of pulling something along, especially a vehicle or farm implement.
  - 5. a written order to pay a specified sum; a check.
  - 6. a single act of drinking or inhaling.”she downed the remaining beer in one draft”
    - - Similar:
        
        gulp
        
        drink
        
        swallow
        
        mouthful
        
        swig
        
        swill
        
        slug
        
        chug
  - the amount swallowed or inhaled in a single act of drinking or inhaling. “he took deep drafts of oxygen into his lungs”
  - 7. the depth of water needed to float a ship. “the shallow draft enabled her to get close to shore”
  - 8. the drawing in of a fishing net.
    - - the fish taken at one drawing; a catch.
  - VERB:
  - verb: draft; 3rd person present: drafts; past tense: drafted; past participle: drafted; gerund or present participle: drafting; verb: draught; 3rd person present: draughts; past tense: draughted; past participle: draughted; gerund or present participle: draughting
  - 1. prepare a preliminary version of (a document). “I drafted a letter of resignation”
  - 2. select (a person or group of people) and bring them somewhere for a certain purpose.”he was drafted to help with the task force on best safety practices”
  - US: conscript (someone) for military service.”he was drafted in 1938″
  - NORTH AMERICAN: select (a player) for a sports team through the draft.”he was drafted by Winnipeg and traded the following spring”
  - 3. Pull or draw.
  - 4. MOTORSPORTS
    benefit from reduced wind resistance by driving very closely behind another vehicle.
  - Adjective
  - adjective: draught; adjective: draft
  - 1. denoting beer or other drink that is kept in and served from a barrel or tank rather than from a bottle or can.”draft beer”
  - 2. denoting an animal used for pulling heavy loads.”draft oxen”
  - Phrases
    - - on draft — (of beer or other drink) on tap; ready to be drawn from a barrel or tank; not bottled or canned.
  - Origin: mid 16th century: phonetic spelling of draught.

Ebb (7/12/20; known)
- - Working on like the third draft to Léonie. Just struck me as a strange word.
  - Old English ebba (noun), ebbian (verb), of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch ebbe (noun), ebben (verb), and ultimately to of which had the primary sense ‘away from’.
  - Interesting that “of,” which seems a very harmless, almost nothing word, means “away from;” also means close to, or sourced from?
Écorché (2/4/20)
Edema (10/14/20)
- - Liao, Yuwu. The Corpse Walker, x
Éminence grise (10/27/20)
- - Roberta Smith, “.”
Emotion
- - Peter Schjeldahl’s review of Whitney Biennial (10/21/20): Paul Valéry:“man’s mistrust of the clear foresight of his mind.”
Enfeoff (8/23/20)
- - Sung Po-Jen, Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom, poem 18
  - “(under the feudal system) give (someone) freehold property or land in exchange for their pledged service.”
Entropy (2/10/21; known)
- - Cameron Spratley @ James FuentesThe term entropy describes energy that is unavailable for “useful” work, as well as more generally, the inevitable decay and breakdown of life on earth.
Ergot (1/13/21)
- - e-flux article on Diani Policarpo’s Nets of Hyphae
Error (10/30/20)
- - Paradise Lost IV.239: Original sense: “a wandering.”
Eschatological (1/12/22; known)
Etiolate (5/8/19)
- - Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities
  - (1/24/20)
Euphonium (8/1/19)
- - Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm
Excreta (8/1/19)
- - Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm
Extrorse (4/26/22)
- - Pawpaw
  - (of anthers) releasing their pollen on the outside of the flower.

Facture (5/19/20; known since handicraft)
- - Here’s the “F” word you were looking for @frisson.
Familect (6/27/22)
- - Found in email newsletter Natgeo exclusive to subscribers
Farrier (4/15/20ish — check)
- - a craftsman who trims and shoes horses’ hooves.
  - mid 16th century: from Old French ferrier, from Latin ferrarius, from ferrum ‘iron, horseshoe’.
  - Ann Patchett, Bel Canto, 282
Fathom (5/7/21; known)
- - Depths; understanding and literally. Seen from a quote on Minari on Danie Wu’s Twitter.
Fata Morgana (5/8/19)
- - Anne McClintock, “The Angel of Progress”
  - Fata Morgana is the Italian name for Morgan le Fay (meaning “Morgan the Fairy”), a sorceress of medieval legends. This sister of the legendary King Arthur is sometimes portrayed as the ruler of the island paradise Avalon and is said to have had a number of magical powers, with which she caused a great deal of trouble. Among her powers, say some versions of the legend, was the ability to change shape, and she has been blamed for causing complex mirages over bodies of water, especially in the Strait of Messina.
Faute de mieux (3/2/20)
Fell (10/28/20)
- - Paradise Lost, II. 539: Of cruel or vicious character
Fetid (6/26/19)
- - Zadie Smith, Swing Time, 83
Fetlock (1/13/21)
- - From looking up ergot
Ferēns (6/27/22)
- - ferēns (genitive ferentis); third-declension one-termination participle
  - bearing, carrying
  - enduring
  - moving forward
  - creating
  - causing
  - persevering
  - Found on a pretty shitty poem (middle kingdom?!) about Dante’s death in email
Ferule (8/20ish/20)
- - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 70.
Festschrift (6/24/22)
- - In academia, a Festschrift is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the honoree’s colleagues, former pupils, and friends.
  - Found poking around Frieze whiteboards
Fettle (1/11/21)
- - state or condition of health, fitness, wholeness, spirit, or form —often used in the phrase in fine fettle
  - Found looking for synonyms of “robust”
Fissure (1/15/21)
Flak (5/20/20; known)
- - Own article on Cuomo & de Blasio
  - Cool etymology: 1930s: from German, abbreviation of Fliegerabwehrkanone, literally ‘aviator-defense gun’.
Fleuron (2/11/20)
Flotage (8/20ish/20)
- - King, The Woman Warrior, 52.
Flotilla (1/11/21; known)
- - Chamberlain, Colby. “No Need to Walk in. You Could See Everything through the Window from the Street. Atop a Platform, before a Freestanding Wall, Several Items: A Rietveld Chair, a Vitra Stool, Nesting Tables by Superstudio. Hanging from the Wall, a Painting. Standing to the Right, Brancusi’s Endless Column. Also, a Dogor Rather, a Cutout Silhouette of a Dog, Its Two-Dimensional Head Tilted Upward. Everything Was Painted White, with Scattered Dots. Black, Grapefruit-Size Dots.Such Was Margaret Lee’s ‘Closer to Right than Wrong / Closer to Wrong than Right,’ an Ensemble of Facsimiles Fabricated out of MDF And.” Artforum.com, May 2014. https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201405/margaret-lee-46339.
  - ‌
Fontanel (8/20ish/20)
- - a space between the bones of the skull in an infant or fetus, where ossification is not complete and the sutures not fully formed. The main one is between the frontal and parietal bones.
  - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 40.
Foolscap (3/18/21), Patti Smith, Just Kids
Frangible (4/6/21; known-ish)
Freshet (1/21/20)
- - The New Yorker on Noguchi, 1980
Fret (1/13/22; known)
- - be constantly or visibly worried or anxious.
  - gradually wear away (something) by rubbing or gnawing.
    - - “the bay’s black waves fret the seafront”
  - flow or move in small waves.
    - - “soft clay that fretted between his toes”
  - late Middle English: from Old French frete ‘trelliswork’ and freter (verb), of unknown origin
    - - a repeating ornamental design of interlaced vertical and horizontal lines, such as the Greek key pattern.
      - HERALDRY: a device of narrow diagonal bands interlaced through a diamond.
  - each of a sequence of bars or ridges on the fingerboard of some stringed musical instruments (such as the guitar), used for fixing the positions of the fingers to produce the desired notes.
  - provide (a stringed instrument) with frets.
  - a mist coming in off the sea; a sea fog.
Frisson (10/3/19)
- - Pantyhouse as having an exotic “frisson” (Artsy). I am looking for an f-word: how something is made. The indelible process.
Frottage (10/27/20)
- - AiA review of Isa Genzken
  - the technique of creating a design by rubbing (as with a pencil) over an object placed underneath the paper
    - - also : a composition so made
  - the act of obtaining sexual stimulation by rubbing against a person or object
Fundament (2/26/21)
- - Researching Rindon Johnson
  - 2. FORMAL•HUMOROUS: a person’s buttocks.

Galore (1/12/21; known)
- - early 17th century: from Irish go leor, literally ‘to sufficiency’.
Garden (3/25/20)
- - Isamu Noguchi
    - - “A garden is a large and immobile affair which must endure.”
Gardening leave (1/8/21)
- - Reading about Graydon Carter
Gazal/ Ghazal (12/24/21)
- - Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, 3
  - A form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. May be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain
Geminate (12/24/21)
- - Rushdie, The Satanic Verses,
  - Consisting of identical adjacent speech sounds, esp. consents; doubled
  - Late Middle English: from Latin geminates, past participle of geminate, ‘double, pair with,’ from genimnus, twin
Generic (10/22/21; known)
- - That it is a derivation of “genre”
Glaucous (9/3/20)
- - Researching Sung Po-Jen’s Guide to Capturing the Plum Blossom
  - “Glaucous (from the Latin glaucus, meaning “greyish-blue or grey”, from the Greek γλαυκός glaukós) is used to describe the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, as well as in the names of birds, such as the glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus), glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens), glaucous macaw (Anodorhynchus glaucus), and glaucous tanager (Thraupis glaucocolpa).”
Glozing (10/30/20)
- - Paradise Lost, III.93: make excuses for.
  - “the demeanor of Mathews is rather glozed over”
  - ARCHAIC: use ingratiating or fawning language.
  - ARCHAIC: make a comment or comments.
Gossamer (12/11/20; known)
- - : a film of cobwebs floating in air in calm clear weather
  - In the days of Middle English, a period of mild weather in late autumn or early winter was sometimes called a “gossomer,” literally “goose summer.” People may have chosen that name for a late-season warm spell because October and November were the months when people felt that geese were at their best for eating. “Gossomer” was also used in Middle English as a word for filmy cobwebs floating through the air in calm clear weather, apparently because somebody thought the webs looked like the down of a goose. This sense eventually inspired the adjective “gossamer,” which means “light, delicate, or tenuous” – just like cobwebs or goose down.
Grommet (11/9/20)
Grotesque (10/30/20)
- - Apparently the first usage in English according to OED. Of a landscape: Romantic, picturesquely irregular. Author thinks it’s suss although his usage to suggest “hairy” hillside qualifies as possible instance of original meaning
Growth
- - (4/14/20) IN: “the constant transfusion of human meaning into the void.”
Gyrification (9/30/21)

Hepcat (11/6/20)
- Glenn O’ Brien on Richard Prince: “HE’S A HEPCAT WHO REMOVED HIMSELF FROM URBAN BOHEMIA TO EXPLORE AMERICA FROM A RUINED RURAL LANDSCAPE IN HOLLERING DISTANCE OF THE BORSCHT BELT.”
Heteronym (2/1/21)
- Hyperallergic: “The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa used 137 aliases, or heteronyms, as he called them, to manifest his many writerly personae.”
“Historical Poetics” (Saidiya Hartman)
- “Historical poetics” is a term used by Saidiya Hartman to describe her methodology of utilizing archival documents and images to construct a history that was either forgotten or erased.
History (10/26/20)
- Akhatar, Ayad and Shahzia Sikander. “The Incantatory Power of Ayad Akhtar and Shahzia Sikander.” The Nation. September 15, 2020. AA: History is substantially the account of the movement of objects and bodies. Trade, slavery, migration, colonial occupation—these are underlying currents of modernity. But history is also the record of dressing up these fundamental interests with ideological dross.
Hocket (2/1/22)
- - a spasmodic or interrupted effect produced by dividing a melody between two parts, notes in one part coinciding with rests in the other.
Homo faber (2/18/20)
Horrid (10/28/20; known)
- Horrid means “bristling” and derived from same root as hirsute.
  - From Paradise Lost, II. 710
Hoydenish (6/24/20)
- A high-spirited, boisterous, or saucy girl.
- From earlier hoyden, a rude youth, probably from Dutch heiden, heathen, boor, from Middle Dutch; see kaito– in Indo-European roots.
- From Susan Sontag’s article

Im ein ani li, mi li (3/28/220
- - It translates as “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” But it is incomplete without the next two lines: “But if I am only for myself, what am I? (And if not now, when?)”
  - This and the other question you have put, are about a saying from the Mishah – Pirkei Avot (“Fathers’ Chapters”). This one is from chap 1, article 14. First the Hebrew source, then English transliteration, then English translation, then explanation.
  - הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי:
  - Hu haya omer: Im ein ani li mi li, ukhsheani le-atsmi ma ani, ve-im lo akhshav eimatai.
  - He used to say: If not I/myself for me who is (there) for me, and when I am for myself what am I, and if not now, when.
Imago (4/30/19)
- - Adorno, The Culture Industry
Inbedment (1/22/20)
Inclusion (12/22/20)
- - In mineralogy, an inclusion is any material that is trapped inside a mineral during its formation. In gemology, an inclusion is a characteristic enclosed within a gemstone, or reaching its surface from the interior.[1]
  - According to Hutton’s law of inclusions, fragments included in a host rock are older than the host rock itself.[2][3]
Increate (6/10/21)
- - Something not yet created. A freelancer at theGuide.art on Hardy Hill @ 15 Orient.
Incunable (12/18/19; 6/22/20)
- - Incunable is the anglicised singular form of incunabula, Latin for “swaddling clothes” or “cradle” which can refer to “the earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything”.[4] A former term for “incunable” is “fifteener”, referring to the 15th century.[5][6]
Integument (4/30/19)
Inscape (1/8/20)
- - Relation to Gordon Matta-Clark?
Intention
- - (4/14/20) IN: “It comes from outside, it goes inside and out again; it’s not something that is simply from the inside to the outside, it’s a kind of dialogue — you find out”
Inure (6/28/21)
- - late Middle English inure, enure, from an Anglo-Norman French phrase meaning ‘in use or practice’, from en ‘in’ + Old French euvre ‘work’ (from Latin opera ).
Irrealis (1/25/21)
- - Irrealis mood: “In linguistics, irrealis moods (abbreviated irr) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contrasts with the realis moods.”
  - Many languages with irrealis mood make further subdivisions between kinds of irrealis moods. This is especially so among Algonquian languages such as Blackfoot.[1]
Irriguous (10/30/20)
- - Paradise Lost IV.255: Well watered
Irrupt (8/19/19)
- - “By ‘irrupt’ I mean irony’s ability to interrupt and disrupt discourse.” Dorothy J. Wang, Thinking its Presence, 116

Jalopy (6/11/19)
- Unknown origin! From MoMA
Juvenilia (4/22/20)

Kakistocracy (8/9/20)
- - government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
  - “the danger is that this will reduce us to kakistocracy”
  - a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.plural noun: kakistocracies
    “the modern regime is at once a plutocracy and a kakistocracy”
Kamikaze loggia (9/17/21)
- - Reading on Ei Arakawa and Gela Patashuri: “ reflects the spontaneously developing architecture of 1990s Georgia, vernacular extensions of Soviet blocks, where scrap and found materials were often utilised to expand and transform terraces and balconies.”
Kathexis (1/18/20)
- - louis menand on bellow
  - the concentration of mental energy on one particular person, idea, or object (especially to an unhealthy degree).
  - 1920s: from Greek kathexis ‘retention’, translating German Libidobesetzung, coined by Freud.
Kriss (8/23/20)
- - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 120.
Kuklaphobia (9/15/21)
- - Artforum on Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys

Labile (5/24/21)
- - Working on Louise Bourgeois @ Jewish Museum
Laminar (8/1/19)
- - Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm, 43
Lap (10/30/20)
- - Paradise Lost IV.254: hollow among hills. Milton antedates by nearly a century OED’s earliest quote of this usage
Lenticular (1/22/21)
- - “Eyes and other lenticular entities, for instance, often appear in his works.”
  - “Pace Gallery | Irving Penn: Photographism.” Pacegallery.com, 2021. https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/irving-penn-photographism/.
Lèse-majesté (9/25/19; 2/5/22)
- - Merriam-Webster word of the day
  - Harold Rosenberg in Semicolon
Lieu (5/19/20; known)
- - Means “place.” Don’t think I knew that exactly.
Lilith (10/14/20; known)
- - lilith or lilit (translated as “night-creatures”, “night-monster”, “night-hag”, or “screech-owl”)
  - Made from the same clay as Adam, not a rib
Lilliputian (1/8/21)
List (11/25/20; known)
- - From Ed Ruscha’s Wiki: “In the photo-realist painting Brave Men Run In My Family (1988), part of the artist’s “Dysfuntional Family” series, Ruscha runs the text over the silhouetted image of a great, listing tall ship”
  - Definitions (Merriam Webster)
    - - list verb (1)
      - : to make a list of : ENUMERATE
      - : to include on a list : REGISTER
      - : to place (oneself) in a specified category
        
        lists himself as a political liberal
      - : to become entered in a catalog with a selling price
        
        a car that lists for $12,000
      - archaic : ENLIST
      - : to tilt to one side (verb 2)
      - especially, of a boat or ship : to tilt to one side in a state of equilibrium (as from an unbalanced load)
      - — compare HEEL
      - : to cause to list
        
        The shifting cargo listed the ship.
      - : a deviation from the vertical: TILT
        
        The ship had a heavy list to starboard.
        
        also : the extent of such a deviation
      - (noun 3) : a band or strip of material: such as
      - : LISTEL
      - : SELVAGE
      - : a narrow strip of wood cut from the edge of a board
      - : an arena for combat (such as jousting)
        
        entered the lists against the bull
      - : a field of competition or controversy
        
        The candidate entered the political lists.
      - : STRIPE
        
        The horse had a list along its back.
      - obsolete : LIMIT, BOUNDARY
      - (verb 3) : to cut away a narrow strip from the edge of
      - : to prepare or plant (land) in ridges and furrows with a lister
      - archaic : PLEASE, SUIT
      - archaic : WISH, CHOOSE
      - archaic
      - : INCLINATION, CRAVING
      - (verb 5) archaic : LISTEN
      - archaic : to listen to : HEAR
  - History and Etymology for list
    - - Noun (1) and Verb (1): French liste, from Italian lista, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German līsta edge
  - Noun (2) and Verb (2): origin unknown
  - Noun (3) and Verb (3): Middle English, from Old English līste; akin to Old High German līsta edge, Albanian leth
  - Verb (4): Middle English lysten, from Old English lystan; akin to Old English lust desire, lust
  - Noun (4): Middle English, probably from lysten
  - Verb (5): Middle English, from Old English hlystan, from hlyst hearing; akin to Old English hlysnan to listen
Listlessness (4/24/20; known)
- - There is something about the cadence of this word that has always intrigued me. Always say/ spell it wrong the first time.
Lithotomy position (6/10/21)
Loess (8/23/20; known)
- - Sung Po-Jen, Guide to Capturing the Plum Blossom, 36.
Lop (1/8/20; known)
- - Unknown origin. Sounds like the thing.
Lösung (4/8-10/20)
- - Google Translate (sans umlaut): Solution; watchword, password, motto.
  - With: solution, resolution, revolving, key, cancellation
  - Coetzee, Disgrace (142): “What is being asked for is, in fact, Lösung (German always to hand with an appropriately balance abstraction): sublimation, as alcohol is sublimed from water, leaving no residue, no aftertaste.”
Louver (3/25/20)
- - Isamu Noguchi designed one
  - Etymology: Middle English lover, from Anglo-French
    - - a roof lantern or turret often with slatted apertures for escape of smoke or admission of light in a medieval building
      - an opening provided with one or more slanted fixed or movable fins to allow flow of air but to exclude rain or sun or to provide privacy
      - a finned or vaned device for controlling a flow of air or the radiation of light
      - a fin or shutter of a louver
Lucarne (9/21/21)
- - When a dormer appears on a church or cathedral spire
Ludic (1/11/21)
- - Rubino, Emile. “Margaret Lee: What You See Is What You Mean.” Conceptual Fine Arts, December 8, 2020.
Lumen (6/22/21)
- - the SI unit of luminous flux, equal to the amount of light emitted per second in a unit solid angle of one steradian from a uniform source of one candela.
  - the central cavity of a tubular or other hollow structure in an organism or cell.
  - Root: Latin: Both “light” and “opening”
Lunation (7/19/21)
- - Exhibition title of Lily Wong and Ian Faden @ Harpers
Lunatique (4/10/20)
- - Old NYT review of Lichtenstein. Full phrase “chien lunatique” — beware of dog.

Manubrium (6/14/19)
- Doyenne, doyenne of desserts
Manse (1/13/21)
Mar (12/7/20; known)
- Old English merran ‘hinder, damage’, of Germanic origin; probably related to Dutch marren ‘loiter’.
- Was really popular in the mid to late 1950s; dropped again
Marronage (6/27/22)
- - “Marronage, the process of extricating oneself from slavery.” Relating to groups of runaway slaves who became ‘Maroons’ in the swamps of the southern states of The USA. And other places.
  - Email newsletter
Matraquage (12/25/21)
- - Milanovic, Global Inequality
  - Used in the sense of ideological bludgeoning
Matutinal (4/13/22)
- Mid 16th century: from late Latin matutinalis, from Latin matutinus ‘early’.
- Will Fenstermaker: “Maybe “matutinal” instead of “generally light” if you want a $10 word”
Maudlin (5/26/19, in gen)
Menhir (2/18/20)
- A tall upright stone of a kind erected in prehistoric times in western Europe.
- Etymology: mid 19th century: from Breton men ‘stone’ + hir ‘long’.
Meteorous (10/28/20)
- Hanging or aloft. Greek authors termed this to describe ships appearing suspended in air form afar.
Midden (6/3/21)
- David Hammons, Day’s End
- late Middle English myddyng, of Scandinavian origin; compare with Danish mødding ‘muck heap’
Miraj (10/26/20)
- AA: Just to clarify, miraj is the tradition of the Prophet’s alleged miraculous journey into the celestial realms, all of which took place over the course of a single night. Interestingly enough, some have seen the tradition of miraj as part of Dante’s inspiration for his Divine Comedy.
Mise-en-Abyme (1/12/22; known-ish)
Moiré (4/24/20)
- Lichtenstein
Mucilaginous (2/3/20)
Mullion (9/21/21)
- A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively.[1]
Murmuration (10/12/20; known-ish. I knew the starling thing. The other I’m sure at least vaguely.)
- BK Rail on Howardena Pindell: “Murmuration is the act of murmuring and also the term for a swarm of starlings. Your abstract work, especially the basrelief works on paper incorporating circles punched from paper and thread, reminds me of the energy of crowds, and things in nature like rustling leaves. I think of collective consciousness: we’re little dots that bounce up against other dots. The numbers you sometimes write on the hundreds and thousands of paper circles in these works also seem to me to have a kind of biblical significance—the number of the living. Of course, you can think of the millions of slaves and those minds that never got to express themselves fully. Is this too metaphorical a reading? Pindell: No.”
  - “Rail: Again, I think of murmurations—the constant flow of words and ideas we’re all exposed to every day and also the microaggressions that come at people of color.”
Mythopoesis (12/9/21)

Nectariferous (4/26/22)
- - Pawpaw
Nickelodeon (6/27/19)
- - Disappearing Spoon, 50
Nightglow (1/12/22)
Niveau (4/30/19)
- - Adorno, The Culture Industry
Nom de plume (9/3/19)
- - Artsy article about Dr. Seuss
Noontide (10/24/20)
- - Paradise Lost
Nostrum (12/25/21)
- - Milanovic, Global Inequality
  - In medicine, one that is not considered effective, prepared by an unqualified person
  - Special usage: a pet scheme or favorite remedy esp one for bring about some social or political reform or improvement
  - Origin early 17th century, from latin, “Something of our own making,” neuter of noster, our
Numinous (2/3/20; 10/26/20; known)
- - Shahzia Sikander in conversation with Sadia Abbas and Ayad Akhtar, September 30, 2020
Nut Graf (11/9/20)
- - I swear I’ve never seen this before. Article by Smarter Living Editor Tim Herrera on how to pitch

O’erwatched (2/20/21)
- - Paradise Lost: II.288 Sleep deprived
Obverse (12/24/21)
- - Milanovic, Global Inequality
  - The side of a coin or medal bearing the head or principle design
    - - Special usageL the design of inscription on this side
  - The opposite or counterpart of a fact or truth
  - Biology: narrower at the base or point of attachment than at the apex or top
  - Origin: Mid 17th century: turned toward the observer.

Obiter dictum (9/22/21)
- - Latin, “Other things said.”
  - a judge’s incidental expression of opinion, not essential to the decision and not establishing precedent; an incidental remark.
Obloquy (5/28/20)
- - Researching Wu Zetian for pitch
Ob·jet trou·vé (1/11/21)
- - “Margaret Lee: What You See Is What You Mean | CFA.” Conceptual Fine Arts, November 11, 2020. https://www.conceptualfinearts.com/cfa/2020/11/11/margaret-lee/.
Offing
- - (3/30/20) Noguchi
  - the part of the deep sea seen from the shore
  - the near or foreseeable future in the offing
  - Shame, 103: an itchy palm means money in the offing
Orchidaceous (10/11/20)
- - NYT review of Vida Americana
Orotund (2/9/20)
- - (of the voice or phrasing) full, round, and imposing.
Osmian (2/16/20)
Otherwhere (2/8/21)

Pablum (6/29/19)
- - mid 17th century (in the sense ‘food’): from Latin, from the stem of pascere ‘to feed’.
Pachyderm (12/21/21)
- - In NYer article on Jamie Raskin as guy of the year
  - noun: pachyderm; plural noun: pachyderms
  - a very large mammal with thick skin, especially an elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus.
  - mid 19th century: from French pachyderme, from Greek pakhudermos, from pakhus ‘thick’ + derma ‘skin’.
Palanquin (A couple days before 8/20/20)
- - Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior, e.g. 77 but also before and after
Palimpsest
Palinode (5/12/20)
- - a poem in which the poet retracts a view or sentiment expressed in a former poem.
  - Found in reading on Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red.
  - Etymology: late 16th century: via Latin from Greek palinōidia, from palin ‘again’ + ōidē ‘song’.
Panicle (9/3/20)
- - A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence.[1] The branches of a panicle are often racemes.
Panjandrum (2/9/20)
- - late 19th century: from Grand Panjandrum, an invented phrase in a nonsense verse (1755) by S. Foote.
Paradisiacal (5/13/20; known)
- - From Selby Gardens’s Lichtenstein exhibition description
Paroxysm
Patina (2/4/20)
- - mid 18th century: from Italian, from Latin patina ‘shallow dish’.
Pectin (9/3/20; known-ish)
- - Pectin (from Ancient Greek: πηκτικός pēktikós, “congealed, curdled”[1]) is a structural acidic heteropolysaccharide contained in the primary and middle lamella and cell walls of terrestrial plants.
Pendant (2/26/21)
- - Researching Rindon Johnson
  - an artistic, literary, or musical composition intended to match or complement another: ”the triptych’s pendant will occupy the corresponding wall in the south transept”
  - Hanging downward; pendent: ”pendant flowers on frail stems”
Per stirpes (3/24/20)
- - From the will of Isamu Noguchi
  - “by branch,” not by head.
Perdition (9/7/21; known-ish)
Perfection
- - (4/14/20) IN: “imperfection is a guiding tool”
Perfidy (1/22/21; known)
Peroration (9/22/21; known but not actually)
- - the concluding part of a speech, typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience.
  - “he again invoked the theme in an emotional peroration”
Perquisite (10/12/19)
- - From “Wesley Yang on Asian-Americans, Political Correctness, and the Struggle for Recognition”
  - Another term for “perk” and yet also “Historical: a thing that has served its primary use and is then given to a subordinate or employee as a customary right.” Becoming continuously unpopular.
Personne (8/12/21)
- - Christian Boltanski; “Personne means both “person” and “nobody” in French”
Pharaoh (6/14/21; known)
- - “Middle English: via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek Pharaō, from Hebrew par‘ōh, from Egyptian pr-‘o ‘great house’.”
Photograph (5/19/20; known)
- - “For Monet, then, painting is essentially photo-graphic (writing with light); it remains from start to finish a matter of, to use Maupassant’s word again, “printing”-making a copy of the other as color, as light. “A painter,” as Jean-Luc Nancy remarks, “does not paint things in light, but the light of things, their luminous presence” (1995, 351).” From Chang, Briankle G. “Deleuze, Monet, and Being Repetitive.” Cultural Critique no. 41 (1999)- 184-217, 193.
Pinafore (6/26/20)
- - Zadie Smith, Swing Time, 76
Pissoir (11/22/19)
- - I like that it sounds simultaneously classy and not
Piste (1/5/21)
- - Guardian newsletter
Plenipotentiary (1/29/21)
- - Reading Paul Chan interviews
Politesse (1/22/21; known)
Porringer (7/6/20; reading 7/9/20)
- - alteration of Middle English potager, potynger, from Anglo-French potageer, from potage pottage
Post Festum (4/30/19)
- - From Marx, Capital.
Postlapsarian (10/22/20 – 1/15/21ish; Paradise Lost)
Prevaricate (4/24/20)
- - Latin praevaricatus, past participle of praevaricari to act in collusion, literally, to straddle, from prae- + varicare to straddle, from varus bowlegged
  - Coetzee, Disgrace (171)
Prodigal (4/8-10/20; general)
- - Coetzee’s Disgrace
Prolepsis (2/3/20)
- - the representation of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so, as in he was a dead man when he entered.
  - https://frieze.com/article/materializing-%E2%80%98six-years%E2%80%99
Psyche (5/11/20)
- - From Carol Ockman’s tour of Dali’s Gardens at the
Psychopomp (1/15/20)
- - (in Greek mythology) a guide of souls to the place of the dead.
  - From Greek psukhopompos, from psukhē ‘soul’ + pompos ‘conductor’.
  - “It refers to Hermes the psychopomp, who leads away the spirits of the slain suitors.”
Puny (10/22/20; known)
- - Paradise Lost II.63*: from puis né, later born
Pyroclast (12/7/20)

Quern (1/24/22)
- - Grindstone. Found in 101 Objects which describe the world or something.
Quick (4/24/20; known)
- - “to the quick”. Most recently in Coetzee, Disgrace (182)
  - to come: “seed that does not quicken, contra naturam”: Coetzee, Disgrace (190) (entirely accidental)
Quincunx (1/8/20)
- - Angkor Wat. For planting an orchard! Die.
  - “The quincunx as a tattoo is known as the five dots tattoo. It has been variously interpreted as a fertility symbol,[9] a reminder of sayings on how to treat women or police,[10] a recognition symbol among the Romani people,[10] a group of close friends,[11] standing alone in the world,[12] or time spent in prison (with the outer four dots representing the prison walls and the inner dot representing the prisoner).[13]”
Quinquennial (8/12/21)
- - Christian Boltanski

Ramp (plant) (4/26/22; knownish)
- - The name ramps (usually plural) is one of the many dialectical variants of the English word ramson, a common name of the European bear leek (Allium ursinum), a broad-leaved species of garlic much cultivated and eaten in salads, a plant related to our American species. The Anglo-Saxon ancestor of ramson was hramsa, and ramson was the Old English plural, the –n being retained as in oxen, children, etc. The word is cognate with rams, in German, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, and with the Greek kromuon, garlic […]. Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (1904) lists as variants rame, ramp, ramps, rams, ramsden, ramsey, ramsh, ramsies, ramsy, rommy, and roms, mostly from northern England and Scotland.[3]
Rasterize (1/22/20; known)
- - Hannah Miletek, Artforum but in general good word
Revolving (10/30/20; known)
- - Paradise Lost IV.31: Deliberating. Characterizes Satan’s mental processes as circular, often viciously so (rolling, recoil)
Rhadamanthine (3/2/22)
- - Reading on Louisa Matthiasdottir
Rictus (12/9/21; half-known)
- - early 19th century: from Latin, literally ‘open mouth’, from rict- ‘gaped’, from the verb ringi
Rufous (6/24/20)
- - From Susan Sontag’s archive

Sabre (10/13/20)
- - Apparently Hungarian in origin
Sacrament (1/25/21; known)
- - In a NYT Cooking email
  - Middle English: from Old French sacrement, from Latin sacramentum ‘solemn oath’ (from sacrare ‘to hallow’, from sacer ‘sacred’), used in Christian Latin as a translation of Greek mustērion ‘mystery’.
Sacred (10/30/20; known)
- - Paradise Lost III.208: Sacred: Absolutely doomed. dedicated to a deity for destruction
Salvo (12/14/20; known)
- - Interesting the two definitions (thinking about American predilection for guns)
  - : a simultaneous discharge of two or more guns in military action or as a salute
  - 1
  - : a mental reservation : PROVISO
  - 2
  - : a means of safeguarding one’s name or honor or allaying one’s conscience : SALVE
Sangfroid (8/15/19)
- - https://hyperallergic.com/508918/cabinets-of-curiosities/
  - (7/18/20) Duus, 143.
Saturnine (7/7/21; mostly known)
Scoria (1/13/20)
- - A cindery, vesicular basaltic lava, typically having a frothy texture.
  - via Latin from Greek skōria ‘refuse’, from skōr ‘dung’. The geological term dates from the late 18th century.
Sedge (10/24/20)
- - Paradise Lost: sedge: atumnal transition from leaves of vallombrods to red sea of exedos. hebrew name for red sea sea of sedge
Seek, sought (11/2/19)
- - “Old English sēcan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zieken and German suchen, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin sagire ‘perceive by scent’.”
  - Interesting that it is not exactly see, sight—rather, something instinctual
Sempiternal (12/25/21)
- - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
  - Eternal and unchanging
Senescence (7/4/19; I think known (6/23/20)
- - From NYer article on basketball (I think the one with Zion Williamson? The photo that Jack tried to put on a shirt).
Serendipity (3/2/20; 10/16/20)
- - From Wikipedia: “He first noted use of “serendipity” in the English language was by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754. In a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann, Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a lost painting of Bianca Cappello by Giorgio Vasari[2] by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.”[3] The name comes from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence Sarandib by Arab traders.[4] It is derived from the Sanskrit Siṃhaladvīpaḥ (Siṃhalaḥ, Sri Lanka + dvīpaḥ, island).[5]”
  - Computer scientist Jaime Teevan has argued that serendipitous discovery is promoted by such personalization, writing that “people don’t know what to do with random new information. Instead, we want information that is at the fringe of what we already know, because that is when we have the cognitive structures to make sense of the new ideas.”[12]
  - Serendipity is a design principle for online activity that would present viewpoints that diverge from those participants already hold. Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein argues that such an “architecture of serendipity” would promote a healthier democracy. Like a great city or university, “a well-functioning information market” provides exposure to new ideas, people, and ways of life, “Serendipity is crucial because it expands your horizons. You need that if you want to be free.” [13] The idea has potential application in the design of social media, information searches, and web browsing.[14][15]
  - William Boyd coined the term zemblanity in the late twentieth century to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: “making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design”.[16] A zemblanity is, effectively, an “unpleasant unsurprise”. It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip).
    - - Pale Fire?
  - Also found serendipitously by me — linked in the balsa article for some reason
  - 10/16/20: Breidy and I talking about “serendipity” the restaurant. Violently: “How’s serendipitous!”
Sessile (4/26/22)
- - Pawpaw
  - (of an organism, e.g. a barnacle) fixed in one place; immobile.
  - “parrotfish inadvertently graze upon sessile invertebrates when cropping algae”
  - BOTANY•ZOOLOGY
    (of a plant or animal structure) attached directly by its base without a stalk or peduncle.
  - early 18th century: from Latin sessilis, from sess- ‘seated’, from the verb sedere .
Shim (3/31/21)
- - Gordon Hall @ Hesse Flatow
Sidereal (10/24/20)
- - Paradise Lost. Keep reading “side-reel”
Skeuomorph (2/2/21, but known, from Sympathy)
Slipstream (4/20/20)
Sobriquet (8/30/19)
- - Looking up the definition/ etymology of the word “Zephyr” for Iris Chang article. In the “Did you know?” section—I did not.
  - “Today, zephyr is also the sobriquet of a lightweight fabric and the clothing that is made from it.”
Sombrero (10/13/20; known)
- - Literally, “shadower.”
Soothsayer (1/22/21)
Space
- - (4/14/20) IN: “the continuum of our existence”
Speak (1/22/20; Obviously known)
- - Frantz Fanon: ”to speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax… to grasp the morphology of this or that language.., .but… above all to assume a culture.”
Squall (12/18/19)
- - Snow squall warning today
Squib (1/20/20)
- - a small firework that burns with a hissing sound before exploding.
  - a short piece of satirical writing.
  - a short news item or filler in a newspaper.
  - a small, slight, or weak person, especially a child.
  - Origin: early 16th century (in squib (sense 1 of the noun)): of unknown origin; perhaps imitative of a small explosion.
Stereotype (4/14/20)
- - A relief printing plate cast in a mold made from composed type or an original plate.
Still (1/21/20)
- - Verb; adverb
Strigine (3/19/21)
- - Relating to owls! Looking for the word for Niki de Saint Phalle
Study (2/11/20)
- - Noguchi’s definition: Inward seeking with distance and silence alone.”
Suasion (5/6/21)
- - Scottt Rothkopf on Paul Chan in Artforum
Sublation (5/5/19)
- - Lacan: “the elevation of an object to the status of a Thing,” in context of Emily Apter discussing Badiou’s Plato’s Republic
Sublingual (6/8/20)
Subterfuge
Succint (12/9/21; known)
- - late Middle English (in the sense ‘encircled’): from Latin succinctus ‘tucked up’, past participle of succingere, from sub- ‘from below’ + cingere ‘gird’.
Superannuate (4/24/20; 11/2/20; known-ish)
- - Coetzee, Disgrace (175)
  - (11/2/20): 4Columns: :The less successful works in TITAN don’t get how neglected public space has become (the payphone is simply a metonym for its superannuation).”
Supernal (12/24/21)
- - Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, 16
  - Or of relating to the sky or the heavens; celestial
  - Of exceptional quality or extent
Suspicious (4/26/20)
- - Breidy
Surfeit (8/20ish/20; known-ish)
- - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 74.
Surrexit (8/19/19)
- - Latin; “He is risen” (wow!). From the Wikipedia page from “Quem quaeritis?”
Surveil (12/7/20; known)
- - Rises above the veil?
Suzerainty (5/27/20)
- - From Léonie. “Suzerainty of her sex.”
Sybarite (5/25/20)
- - From Léonie Gilmour’s “The Lady of an Emporium”
  - (10/21/20) Press release for Cecily Brown @
Symbol (5/25/21; known ofc)
- - Louise Bourgeois: “it is something that pretends to be something else”
System/ symptom (2/11/21)

Takallouf (3/29/20)
- - Shame, 104: Untranslatable
Take (5/19/20)
- - “As Paul Virilio says, any take (mental or instrumental) is simultaneously and inescapably a time take, a conquering of things’ exposure against the limited depth of time (91). By taking in light, by taking in the luminosity of things in light, the painter-knowingly or not-graphs time. The painter is as much a photo- grapher as a chrono-grapher.”
    - - From Chang, Briankle G. “Deleuze, Monet, and Being Repetitive.” Cultural Critique, no. 41 (1999): 184-217, 194.
Talkstory (8/20-ish/20)
- - Kingston, The Woman Warrior, 19 and otherwise
Teamster (1/25/21; sort of known)
Tender (6/11/19)
- - “i am thinking about the word tender. to tend to. tender money; how did it become a softness, a 柔?”
Tephra (12/7/20)
- - Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism.
  - The word “tephra” and “pyroclast” both derive from Greek: τέφρα tephra means “ash”,[4] while the word pyroclast is derived from the Greek πῦρ (pyr), meaning “fire”,[5] and κλαστός (klastos), meaning “broken in pieces”.[6]
Testator (3/24/20)
- - Will of Isamu Noguchi
Thane (10/22/20)
Thatch (4/30/19)
- - Related to “integument,” to cover
Thrum (1/22/21; known)
- - (in weaving) an unwoven end of a warp thread, or a fringe of such ends, left in the loom when the finished cloth is cut away.
    - - any short loose thread.
  - Old English thrum (only in tungethrum ‘ligament of the tongue’): of Germanic origin; related to Dutch dreum ‘thrum’ and German Trumm ‘end piece’. The current sense dates from Middle English.
  - late 16th century (as a verb): imitative.
Time
- - (4/14/20) IN: “That which completes all things”
  - (1/25/21): Robin Wall Kimmerer, on Anishinaabe conception of time: “not a river running inexorably to the sea, but the sea itself — its tides that appear and disappear, the fog that rises to become rain in a different river.”
Tisane (6/10/21)
- - Researching for Daniel Gibson, “Ocotillo Song” @ Almine Rech
Topos (5/5/19)
- - Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability
Tout court (2/10/21; seen but not known)
- - Research on Becky Kolsrud
  - “with no addition or qualification; simply.”
  - literally, “very short”
Transom (9/21/21; knownish)
- - a transverse horizontal structural beam or bar, or a crosspiece separating a door from a window above it.
  - Also, transom of a ship
  - The phrase “over the transom” refers to works submitted for publication without being solicited. The image evoked is of a writer tossing a manuscript through the open window over the door of the publisher’s office.[8] Similarly, the phrase is used to describe the means by which confidential documents, information or tips were delivered anonymously to someone who is not officially supposed to have them.[9]
Trireme (1/19/22)
- - an ancient Greek or Roman war galley with three banks of oars.
  - Frank O’ Hara poem
True (1/21/20)
- - Bring (an object, wheel, or other construction) into the exact shape, alignment, or position required.
  - “true a plane of limestone.”
  - Etymology: Old English trēowe, trȳwe ‘steadfast, loyal’; related to Dutch getrouw, German treu, also to truce.
Tureen (1/26/21; known)

Ukiyo-e (5/28/20; known)
- - “Floating world” “World of illusion”
    - - Léonie Gilmour
Ulterior (4/19/21; known)
- - Working on Momus – Paul Chan
  - 1: going beyond what is openly said or shown and especially what is proper
    - - ulterior motives
  - 2a: FURTHER, FUTURE
  - b: more distant
  - c: situated on the farther side
Umbel (4/26/22)
- - In botany, an umbel is an inflorescence that consists of a number of short flower stalks (called pedicels) which spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs.
  - The word was coined in botanical usage in the 1590s, from Latin umbella “parasol, sunshade”.
  - The secondary umbels of compound umbels are known as umbellules[2] or umbellets.[3] A small umbel is called an umbellule.[3] The arrangement of the inflorescence in umbels is referred to as umbellate, or occasionally subumbellate (almost umbellate).
  - Related words:
    - - Umbellule
      - Umbellet
      - Umbellate
      - Subumbellate
Unary (3/4/21)
- - Researching Mapplethorpe
Unbidden (10/26/20; known)
- - Akhatar, Ayad and Shahzia Sikander. “The Incantatory Power of Ayad Akhtar and Shahzia Sikander.” The Nation. September 15, 2020
Uptempo (9/9/21; known)
- - Researching Velvet Underground’s “Loaded” for Marcel Dzama write-up
Uremia (7/31/19)
- - Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm
Utter (2/20/21; known)
- - Thought of while revisiting Paradise Lost for notes. Interesting — actually thought of before, while reading. Sigh.
  - III.143: “making exterior, bring out, as in the utter — exterior — darkness of line 16 (that’s when the thought occurred to me (this is some shit I would write a paper on and get an A- in)))
  - Old English ūtera, ūttra ‘outer’, comparative of ūt ‘out’; compare with outer.
  - late Middle English: from Middle Dutch ūteren ‘speak, make known, give currency to coins’.

Vane (3/10/20)
- - Etymology: “The word vane comes from the Old English word fana, meaning ‘flag'”
Vinculo Matrimonii (3/24/20)
- - Isamu and Yoshiko’s divorce
Vinculus faciebat (9/20/21)
- - Highline interview with Ei Arakawa: “High Line: Courbet made his Trout while imprisoned for his role in the Paris Commune, for which he sought to reopen museums and salons free of government restrictions, institutions, and rewards driven by capitalism and the State. His painting is inscribed “vinculus faciebat,” or “made while in chains.” Why take this imprisonment context out of doors? Does his quest for “free” art relate to how you see en plein air art?”
Virago (5/21/20)
- - “a domineering, violent, or bad-tempered woman.”
    - Now it means shrew. Of course it became hystericized.
  - Etymology: Old English (used only as the name given by Adam to Eve, following the Vulgate), from Latin ‘heroic woman, female warrior’, from vir ‘man’. The current sense dates from late Middle English.
    - From “man”
  - From a Monet letter: “I take this opportunity to give you the address of the rose grower (…) and also the name of the rose bushes that you admired (…): the one climbing in front of the house; Crimson Rambler, and the one on stem: Virago.”
Viridity (3/19/20)
- - Merriam-Webster’s word of the day. Seems a little cruel. Wonderful light here from the desk.
Vitae (8/1/19)
- - Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm

Watchword (4/24/20; known)
Water
- - (4/14/20) IN: “the flow, the gravity, the spiraling water, the blood stream”
  - Should probably include the Joyce definition too
Welkin (10/28/20)
- - Cloud/sky
  - Paradise Lost, II.538
Whelk (10/26/20)
- - Looking up synonyms for “Streaked”
  - a predatory marine mollusk with a heavy pointed spiral shell, some kinds of which are edible
Whilst (1/24/20)
- - “Whilst” is the grammatical form of unanticipation. Whilst hanging up the washing, whilst reading the newspaper, whilst pausing at the stop street, whilst peeling a peach—the visitor calls, the world changes.”
  - Intrigued by this formulation, I asked Kentridge about whilst, and this was his response: Whilst is the strange grammatical form used in the official records of mine accidents—specifically in the gold mines, but I presume in other mines too. Functionaries of the mines—clerks, shift bosses—were trained to report on all accidents using this form. There would be the description of an ongoing activity, and then the rupture of the accident. Such as: “Whilst drilling at the rock face, there was a rock burst which crushed the miner’s leg.” “Whilst walking from the mine headgear to the compound, the miner was hit by a truck.” And so on. So that the mine register had a long litany of sentences, each beginning with the word whilst.
  - Whilst is a subordinating conjunction that signifies temporal simultaneity: two activities going on side by side; diverse experiences, perceptions, or actions occurring at the same time. However, by associating whilst with the agency of death and dispossession, Kentridge introduces a violent disjunction into the time scale of simultaneity. This process is visible in the examples Kentridge gives of the uses of the term whilst: An ongoing activity carried out with the expectation of timely progress and customary closure is suddenly ruptured beyond recognition. Whilst announces the normal order of the day—its idealized linear progress, its round-the-clockness—and then confronts the quotidian with a sudden reversal of fate that forever disrupts its duration and durability. The ongoing narrative ends whilst the story of suffering begins; life as we know it is tragically broken. Whilst introduces a scalar disjunction between the temporal unfolding of the everyday and the instant caesura of emergency. The continuity of the diurnal is not confronted with a reversal or refusal of time; it is abruptly brought up against the severance of time’s causal chain, a cutting-out of the engine of everyday life. The everyday is now in a state of crisis; the diurnal is driven by death; the ongoing is gone. Continuity comes face-to-face with the seizure of time in iterative, pulsating patterns.
Wintertide (2/23/21)
- - Researching Asia Week NY

Zenith (3/17/20)
- - Late Middle English: from Old French or medieval Latin cenit, based on Arabic samt (ar-ra’s) ‘path (over the head)’.
  - Pick-up: (after): Radio Nurse manufactured by Zenith
Zephyr (8/30/19)
- - Recalling the train we took, the ease of it. Finishing this article. At first difficult, then sweeter.
Zibaldone (2/3/20)
- - A zibaldone is an Italian vernacular commonplace book. The word means “a heap of things” or “miscellany” in Italian. The earliest such books were kept by Venetian merchants in the fourteenth century, taking the form of a small or medium-format paper codex.[1]
  - The word may also refer specifically to the best-known such book: the Zibaldone di pensieri by Giacomo Leopardi, often called simply The Zibaldone.[2][3]
Zoetic (11/17/20)
- - Looking up synonyms for “animate”

Homonyms/ Slides

Groan/ Grown (7/7/21)
- GROAN: Old English grānian, of Germanic origin; related to German greinen ‘grizzle, whine’, grinsen ‘grin’, also probably to grin.
- GROWN: Old English grōwan (originally referring chiefly to plants), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch groeien, also to grass and green.

Thesaurus

Palmful/ Handful/ Handshake (7/7/21)