Ten Favorite Words–Part I

Photo credit: Public Domain Pictures

I love words. I keep a list of my favorites, the ones that draw a mental picture that involves taste and feel as much as sight and sound. Here are some of them:

abecedirian–means what it says–a beginner.Rudimentary. The abc’s.
bandog–a large and fierce chained dog. This one’s appealing mostly because I love dogs.
caliginous–murky, dark. Say it aloud. It sounds good.
carabinieri–Italian national police force. This has a strength, a foreign power that I’ll probably never get to use because my characters aren’t going to Italy. I might have to plot a trip.
cobble, as in ‘cobble together’. Can’t you just see that 1700’s cobbler tap-tapping at your plan, creating a beautiful mental quilt from scraps of disparate ideas
confluence–a flowing together a coming together of people. ‘A confluence of events’. Comes after you’ve cobbled for a while.
concatenation–interlinked series. MS Excel users know this word. It’s how you cobble together clues and discover a confluence of events. I love problem solving in quirky original ways.
dappled–mottled, spotted. A dappled meadow, or horse. I see the dancing spots of brilliant color
deus ex machina–a powerful image of an unexpected problem-solver. I’ll get it into my writing eventually. So far, it’s sounded contrived.
doppelganger–Alter ego. I know in my writer’s soul I can turn this ghostly double into a problem-solver.