I had it on my mind last summer to read the classics. I read a few and then got into other subjects. But I saw Wuthering Heights on the Goodwill bookshelves and jumped up and down, figuratively speaking, before I grabbed it and sauntered to the checkout counter as if I didn't have something grand under my arm.
When I began to read it I soon realized that I wouldn't be reading it solo. I would have Mr. Webster on the couch with me as my go-to companion. I enjoyed underlining a word here and there in the paperback and writing its meaning underneath or in the margin nearby. I must say that I read a lot and know a lot of words but Emily Bronte stumped me a time or two.
Here are the words I needed to look up:
1. assiduity: consent or close application or effort; diligence; solicitous
2. sagacity: (I sort of knew what this meant) acuteness of mental judgement
3. copestone: (again, knew it was a stone but what kind?) the top stone of a building
4. asseverated: declared earnestly
5. lachrymose: mournful
6. weather-cocks: a person who readily adapts the latest fads, opinions
7. churl: rude person
8. negus: a beverage made of wine and hot water with sugar, nutmeg and lemon
9. sizar: an undergraduate who receives maintainence aid from the college (Cambridge University and Trinity College)
10. thible: (this word was not in my Webster's) online - a stick or spatula for stirring porridge
11. heterodox: not in accordance with established or accepted doctrines or opinions esp. in theology
12. comminations: denunciations; of condemnation
13. immolation: sacrifice
14. pertinacious: stubborn
15. cockatrice: a legendary monster with a deadly glance, supposedly hatched by a serpent from the egg of cock
So, not to be lachrymose or a churl about this list as to asseverate that you may not know them either, I shall remain pertinacious in my assiduity in attending to learning more words and their meanings.
(c)nancy 7.15.2015
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