Wondrous Words Wednesday
Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. Feel free to get creative! If you want to play along, grab the button, write a post and come back and add your link to Mr. Linky!
My words this week come from Freeman by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
1. cognomen – “You asked my cognomen.”
Your cognomen is your surname; especially the third of usually three names borne by a male citizen of ancient Rome.
_____________________________________________________
2. patterollers – “We gon’ go after them patterollers, the two of us?”
This word isn’t in my dictionary but, according to ask.com, “Slave patrols (called patrollers, pattyrollers or paddy rollers by the slaves) were organized groups of three to six white men who enforced discipline upon black slaves during the antebellum U.S. southern states.”
_____________________________________________________
What words do you want to celebrate today?
What great words, it must be an interesting book.
It’s funny to think about how aliens would read that first sentence. Like maybe they would translate “cognomen” as “leader” or “boss” or “parent”!
Interesting ones!
Two very interesting words. Ones we may not have an occasion to use in our everyday world. I like seeing them though, because every once in a while I see them used in another book, and recognize them.
These two words are completely new to me. I expect at somepoint I’ll probably come across patterollers…I wonder iff it’s in “Lincoln”, the movie?…either way I’m glad to know it and what it means since it harkens back to a time in this countries history, albeit not one of our more admirable times.
Thanks, Kathy!
I’ve never heard “patterollers” before, or “patrollers” either. Interesting word. Cognomen I knew because of all those Latin classes I suffered through back in college. Sorry — all those Latin classes I enjoyed back in college!
I’ve heard of cognomen before, two good words.
I never would have guess the meaning of those two, but the second one makes a lot of sense once given the definition (isn’t that always the way?).
You stumped me!
I’ve never heard of either of these words but I can imagine being asked for your ‘cognomen’ in some dystopic future where ‘patterollers’ prowl the streets looking for violators. Thanks for sharing! As far as Amy’s question, I don’t recall hearing the word in Lincoln. Maybe in Django Unchained?
Cognomen is one of those words that we should make a new name for. Well, maybe there already is one. It would mean a word that could mean absolutely anything. From the sentence the cognomen could mean anything.
Both words are new to me! Freeman sounds like a heavy book.
Cool ones
These are both words that I was not familiar with, and great ones at that! I might have guessed the second one, but never the first!
Hmmm…two quite unusual words!
Both of your words this week are new to me, Kathy!
Better late than never–I just posted my own WWW. At last!
both words are new for me… and love the first one..
More words I’ve never heard before!
Those are crazy words!!
Cognomen makes sense from my old days of Latin class.
Both are new to me. Cognomen is such an interesting sounding word.
So much for my history classes on Roman Civilization. I never learned “cognomen”, or perhaps it just fell in the memory hole.