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 came from The Queen: A Life in Brief by Robert Lacey.
1. recrudescence – “‘It was even possible to see,’ wrote the radical old Estonian, who had chosen to live as a beggar in London’s East End for a time while researching his classic work of reportage, Down and Out In Paris and London, ‘the survival, or recrudescence, of an idea almost as old as history, the idea of the King and the common people being in a sort of alliance against the upper classes.’”
Recrudescence means a new outbreak after a period of abatement or inactivity: renewal. I like this word but doubt I’ll use it – it’s too hard for me to pronounce!
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2. tumbril – “As usual, it was the Murdoch press that most menacingly evoked the tumbrils.”
A tumbril is a farm tipcart or a vehicle carrying condemned persons to a place of execution. In this case, the author meant the latter meaning, but only in a figurative sense.
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What words do you want to celebrate today?
I went to London with my words this week too! I know recrudescence- it’s not that hard to say if you practice. I think I’ve heard of tumbril before,but am not sure.
I know it’s not quite the same thing, but tumbril reminds me of the cart from that scene in Monty Python…”Bring out your dead!”…ha! Great words this week
Lovely. I just might practice recrudescence.
I’m writing my post now. (warning – it’s long.)
I bet you heard tumbrils a lot during your Paris days! It was a staple of the executions during the revolution! …bringing in bodies, carting off heads….
Great words, Kathy … you stumped with both!
I doubt you’ll have much occasion to use tumbril either! LOL!
Two interesting words this week, Kathy. They both sound Briitish to me although I can’t exactly say why.
Both of your words were new to me too. I doubt that I would find an opportunity to use either of them, but if I come across them in a book, now I will know them. Thanks.
Thanks! for again sharing these interesting words.
http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/01/wondrous-words-wednesday_30.html
I should read this book just for the vocab words! Both new to me as well.
I agree with you completely about recrudescence, I like it but it’s so difficult to pronounce I probably won’t use it…although, the more i think about it and say, the easier it becomes and I really like it!
Tumbril wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be! It’s two meanings are pretty divergent, one is so sort of depressing and the other is just basic. Very interesting!
Thank you!
Hi Kathy,
A couple of great tongue-teasers this week, just so typical of the ‘upper crust’ English vocabulary!
I did actually know ‘Tumbril’, however ‘Recrudescence’ was new to me. Like yourself, I doubt that I would ever have cause or opportunity to use it, however it is definitely a word to impress should the occasion arise.
An interesting post this week, thanks. I hope that you are / have enjoyed the stay with your mother and that she had a lovely birthday. Safe trip home,
Yvonne
I knew tumbril since my husbands grandfather was a farmer and I hear all the old stories. The other one I’ve never heard of.
Just loving the first one
Nice vocab words! Something tells me I’d need to have a dictionary handy while reading that book.
The first word is quite special!
you picked a couple of words that are completely foreign to me today! excellent choices
These are both words that I can’t imagine using, but it’s good to know the definitions of them, in case I ever come across them! Thanks, Kathy!
Recrudescence… what a word! I love it. I want to try really hard to use it, but this seems like a toughy. Hmm…
Recrudescence – Just has too much of a pretentious sound to me! Tumbril though sounds like much more fun!
the words sounded familar but the meanings made me realize they were not. Would love to use tumbril.
Wow I love this feature so much! It is now my mission to use tumbril in every day conversation (figuratively, of course).
I would seriously think that with all of the reading I would do that I would know these words…right?? No dice!
recrudescence is a cool word
It’s been over fifty years but, didn’t *tumbrils* roll in A Tale Of Two Cities?