My Favorite Words

By Dennis Ford

Words. What would we be without them?

Without words, we could hardly be said to be human—fully human. Without words, there would be no poems. No novels. No scientific treatises. No textbooks. No chapter books. No children’s books. Without words, there would be no discussions. No arguments. No guidance. No praise. No reproof—maybe the absence of reproof is a good thing. Without words, there would be no newspapers. No magazines. No mail. No email. Without words, we wouldn’t be able to sing lullabies to our children. Without words, we wouldn’t be able to whisper sweet nothings in the ears of our lovers—the whispers would literally be nothings.

It’s astonishing to consider that 26 letters produce 450,000 English words. From this vast sea of verbal possibilities, My Favorite Words draws a cupful of words. Useful words. Upright words. Interesting words. Wholesome words. Needful words. Necessary words. Workaday words that any writer would be proud to put in a sentence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781663202499

Dennis Ford

Dennis Ford is the author of nineteen books, including the recent novels Tracks That Lead To Joy and World Without End. He lives on the Jersey Shore, where he walks the beaches and thinks about ghosts.

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Copyright © 2020 Dennis Ford.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-0244-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-0249-9 (e)

iUniverse rev. date:   06/02/2020

To logophiles, everywhere

Contents

Preface

My Favorite Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives

My Favorite Color Words

My Favorite Foreign Words

My Favorite Latin Phrases

My Favorite Body Words

My Favorite Beach Words

My Favorite Nautical Words

My Favorite Baseball Words

Words that Are Frequently Confused

Words that are Often Unnecessary

Fancy Words to Avoid

Preface

In the beginning was the Word. That’s how the Gospel of John opens. The word is the start for religious people. Whatever their faith, the word is the start for writers. Later on, come sentences and paragraphs and chapters and stories, but in the beginning there is the word.

For the past few years, I’ve kept a list of words I liked. Some words I’ve used. Some words I intend to use in the future—I’m hoping the opportunities will present themselves. To keep a list of words is to create a dictionary. At first, I kept this list to myself. Lately, I felt the urge to share the list. Other writers may find the list helpful in constructing their worlds of words.

There are no off-color or profane words in My Favorite Words. Such words can be found in dictionaries stocked behind the cash wraps in less-than-reputable bookstores. And there are no unusual words that appear strange to the eyes and foreign to the ears. Such words rarely appear in print other than in compendiums of unpronounceable words. (I included at the end of the book a list of fancy words that, although not particularly odd-looking, are best to avoid.) None of the definitions in My Favorite Words are intentionally clever or witty. It’s not possible to compete with Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary. Of course, I take full responsibility for any unclear or idiosyncratic definitions—I have to, since there’s no one else to blame.

There are words to live by—we find these words in the Gospel of John. There are words to write with—we find a sample of these words in My Favorite Words. I like to think that the words in this dictionary are useful and upright, interesting and wholesome, needful and necessary, the kind of workaday words any writer would be proud to put in a sentence.

Note: words that do not appear in the English portion of Webster’s Ninth New College Dictionary (1988) are in italics. The covers have fallen apart from use, but this book still serves as the dictionary behind my dictionary.

Word ~ the basic unit of a spoken and written language; a sound of speech that cannot be further reduced and expresses a consensually understood meaning; the written form of the spoken unit of speech.

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My Favorite

Nouns, Verbs

and Adjectives

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A

abashed ~ ashamed, embarrassed, shy

abrade, to ~ to scrape, to scrape away; to erode

abstemious ~ a person who eats and drinks sparingly

abysm ~ an abyss

adept ~ an expert in a field; in occult circles, an ascended master

adroit ~ successful in handling difficult situations

adventitious ~ arising from an independent, collateral source

affable ~ having a friendly, agreeable nature; an extravert

affined ~ related; having mutual obligations

affirm, to ~ to assert; to validate a belief or conclusion

afterglow ~ a glow that remains after the main light has extinguished

afterling ~ a subaltern, an underling

agitatione ~ bogus Latin for a state of great agitation or annoyance

a-go-go ~ a common suffix, such as whiskey-a-go-go or pizza-a-go-go

(not to be confused with a go-go bar)

air hostess ~ a 1930s term for a flight attendant; a stewardess

alcove ~ a nook; a recessed space in a room

amaranth ~ a flower whose bloom never fades

ambiguate, to ~ to confuse a situation; to make ambiguous

amen corner ~ the corner seat in a tavern; a reserved pew in a church

anacoluthon ~ a shift of meaning in a sentence, indicated by use of a dash in writing

annulated ~ rings in an object, such as in a tree

anomalist ~ a person who studies paranormal activities; formerly a Fortean

aphorism ~ an apothegm, axiom, bromide, byword, chestnut, maxim, moralism precept, proverb, saw, saying, sutra, tenet

appointed ~ comfortably furnished, such as an apartment; good-looking

arch- ~ a prefix indicating prototypical or supreme, such as arch-fiend or arch-villain

arctics ~ winter clothing

ardent spirits ~ alcoholic beverages

argot ~ jargon peculiar to a particular group, such as servers in a restaurant

arm, on the ~ to buy an object on credit

arrest, to ~ to bust, to collar, to nab, to pinch, to round up, to take into custody

arroyo ~ a water-carved gully; a source of water in a desert

arterioneurosis ~ a phobia about imaginary vascular diseases

ascribe, to ~ to attribute a cause for an action or belief; to hold particular beliefs

aspergillum ~ the perforated container used to sprinkle holy water on congregants

assent, to ~ to agree; to approve

asseverate, to ~ to state categorically and with emphasis

atavism ~