New words, at least new to me, encountered in my recent re-reading of Alan Bennet’s The Uncommon Reader.
duff, of very poor quality, of unknown 18th century origin.
invigilate, to supervise students during an examination, from Latin “in” toward and “vigil” to watch.
googly, in Cricket an off break bowled with an apparent leg-break action, (and I still don’t know what that all means. I have long believed that the Brits keep Cricket going just so they can confuse outsiders.) of unknown 20th century origin.
solipsistic, self-centered, from the philosophical view that only the self can be known to exist, from Latin “solus” alone and “ipse” self. A more polite way to say “selfish.”
assiduity, constant close attention to what one is doing, from Latin “assiduitas” to be occupied with. I’ve long known the adjectival form, assiduous, but had never encountered its noun.
chivvied, to repeatedly tell someone to do something, probably from the late 18th century ballad of Chevy Chase, celebrating a skirmish (probably the battle of Otterburn, 1388) on the Scottish border. Originally a noun denoting a hunting cry, the term later meant ‘a pursuit’, hence the verb ‘to chase, worry’ (mid 19th century).
opsimath, a person who begins studying only late in life, from Greek opsimathēs, from “opse” late and the stem “math” to learn.
I recognize “paltry” and “wet” in the following two sentences, but I have to guess at the meanings of “bag” and “butts”: “It was a foul summer, cold, wet and unproductive, the guns grumbling every evening at their paltry bag.” I think this refers to the hunter’s bag of game shot during the day, “the guns” referring to those who shot them. “…while in the wet butts on the hills the guns cracked out their empty tattoo as the occasional dead and sodden stag was borne past the window.” Butt has many meanings in English; one refers to shooting targets and, more specifically, the humped up dirt that surrounds them. Maybe the butts here are little shooting blinds behind heaped up dirt.
condoled, the verb form of the noun condolence, meaning to share sympathy with someone. I’ve never seen the verb form before. From Latin, “con” with and “dolere” to grieve.
divagation, a straying or digression, from Latin “di” widely and “vagari” wander.
“While Sir Claude tried to remember, the Queen had time to notice the thin reef of dandruff that had gathered beneath his coat collar, the egg stains on his tie and the drift of scurf that lay in his large pendulous ear.” Scurf are the flakes on the surface of the skin that form as fresh skin develops below.
I deliciously discovered that a poire belle Hélène is a dessert made from pears poached in sugar syrup and served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. It was created around 1864 by Auguste Escoffier and named after the operetta La belle Hélène by Jacques Offenbach.
And, let me include a handful of gems from the book:
“…that reading was, among other things, a muscle and one that she had seemingly developed.”
“You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.”
“She found, though, that when she had written something down, even if it was just an entry in her notebook, she was happy as once she would have been happy after doing some reading.”
“At eighty things do not occur; they recur.”
