Unusual Vocabulary

Gleanings from Crossword Puzzles

 shufti (noun)
• Definition: a quick look around
• Synonyms: reconnaissance
• Use in sentence: “Take a shufti
while you’re out there.”
• Origin of word: From the Arabic verb šāf “to see,”
with the word šufti, meaning “have you seen?”
• Trivia: Military slang adopted by soldiers in
World War II who were serving in the Middle East and North Africa
rarefy or rarify (verb)
• Definition: to make thin, reduce density
• Synonyms: dilute, purify, attenuate
• Use in sentence: “If warm, dry winds blow upon the clouds, they
rarefy the vapour and disperse the clouds.”
• Origin of word: from the Latin rarus (thin or rare) and facere (to make)
• Trivia: Usually used in a chemistry or physics context, such as: “The
hot air in the smoke flues will warm the separating brick partition, and
consequently rarefy the air in the ventilating flue.”
An air purifier rarefies the air.
bund (noun)
• Definition: the boundary separating one land from another; also a league or
alliance
• Synonyms: embankment, wall; also federation, society
• Use in sentences:
“It overflooded the bund which I had taken the precaution to build.”
• Origin of word: In India “bund” was borrowed into English from Hindi, originally to
mean a dyke or embankment; also from the German for “association,” as in
volksbund (people bond)
• Trivia: Many countries’ waterfronts are called The Bund, as in Shanghai; also
applicable to the confederation of German states and the name of German financial
bonds; the same word in India can mean a pond in which fish are stored, or a wall
surrounding a water tank to contain spills
trawler (noun)
• Definition: a person who catches fish; a fishing boat that uses a trawl
net (verb form is trawl (to search or to tow)
• Synonyms: fisherman, troller
• Use in sentence: “The trawlers were out at sea when the monsoon
hit.”
• Origin of word: from the Latin tragula (dragnet)
• Trivia: Trawling goes back as early as the 14th century, but probably
even earlier; the first modern trawlers were built in the late 19th
century in Britain and were steam-powered.
 hiatus (noun)
• Definition: an interruption in time or continuity
• Synonyms: interval, lapse, break or pause
• Use in sentence: “After a one-year hiatus, the festival continued.”
• Origin of word: from the Latin hiare (to gape)
• Trivia: In formal grammar, a hiatus is a break in sound between two
vowels that occur together without an intervening consonant, both
vowels being clearly enunciated, as in “naïve,” or the gap between the
final and initial vowels of two successive words, as in the phrase “see
it”
 rococo (adjective or noun)
• Definition: a style of decorative art and baroque architecture from 18th
century France, having elaborate ornamentation.
• Synonyms: ornate, elaborate, fancy
• Use in sentence: “The coat of arms was in elaborate rococo style.”
• Origin of word: takes its name from the French word “rocaille” (rock
or broken shell). In the decorative arts, the rococo
emphasized pastel colours, sinuous curves, and
patterns based on flowers, vines and shells.
• Trivia: Can also be applied to language, as in
“extravagantly rococo metaphors.”
 genuflect (verb)
• Definition: to bend the knee in worship; to be servile or to grovel
• Synonyms: kneel, prostrate; snivel, fawn and toady
• Use in sentence: “She genuflected before the cardinal.”
• Origin of word: from the Latin genu (knee) + flectere
(to bend)
• Trivia: In Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield,
Uriah Heep is the epitome of a sniveling, obsequious
toady, genuflecting to one and all.””
proclivity (noun)
• Definition: an inclination or natural tendency
to behave in a particular way
• Synonyms: liking, inclination, tendency
• Use in sentence: “The choice of restaurant
demonstrated my sister’s proclivity for hot, spicy food.”
• Origin of word: from the Latin pro- (forward) + clivis (slope)
• Trivia: the subtle connotation of proclivity is that the slope is usually
toward something negative, while propensity suggests an uncontrollable
inclination, predilection means a strong liking connected with one’s
temperament and penchant means an irresistible attraction.
 diaphanous (adjective)
• Definition: transparent or translucent, delicate, very lightweight
• Synonyms: sheer, gossamer, transparent, pellucid
• Use in sentence: “Her gossamer gown had a diaphanous veil.”
• Origin of word: from the Greek dia (through) + phainein (to show)
• Trivia: Interestingly enough, the
synonym “gossamer” derives from
the Middle English word “goose”!!
(perhaps for its similarity to
goosedown)