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!
I had to return to my Word-a-Day calendar this week.
1. pulchritude – “The tennis player may not have won many championship, but her pulchritude gained her a starring role in many glamorous advertising campaigns.”
To me, this word doesn’t sound anything like what it means. Pulchritude is a noun that means physical comeliness.
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2. retrodict – “The technology enables scientists to retrodict solar events and activities of the distant past.”
Retrodict is a verb that means to utilize present information to explain a past event. This word was formed in the 1950s by combining the prefix for backwards (retro) with the ending of predict.
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3. colporteur – “Colporteurs from the mission traveled from village to village.”
A colporteur is a peddler of religious books.
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What words do you want to celebrate today?
‘Pulchritude’ is definitely one that doesn’t sound anything like what it means!
Interesting words — I had heard colporteur as just a traveling bookseller. Some of the dictionaries say that it doesn’t necessarily mean religious books only. But it’s a good word!
My post today is wordless again. I hope you are in a warmer place than I am!
best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I had definitely seen pulchritude before but couldn’t define it. The other 2 I had never heard of.
Clueless on all three!
I really did recognize pulchritude.
I’m with you on pulchritude- it sounds ugly, or like something that smells bad! Now, retrodict makes sense!
I like retrodict although I think we do the opposite most often. Maybe that’s why the word is obscure.
THose are sure new to me
I agree about pulchritude. Who came up with that term?! I’d forgotten its meaning. The other two words were new-to-me. Great words this week, Kathy!
I would have guessed that pulchritude was something to do with fighting…