I’ve been reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. (I reviewed it yesterday.) For such a light, easy-reading book, it sure had a lot of big words in it. I copied down quite a few but am only sharing a few with you. I don’t want to make your head bulge.
- enigmatical – difficult to understand as in “. . . and I dreamed that night of that enigmatical woman . . .”
- physiognomy – a person’s facial features or expression as in “His physiognomy underwent a complete change.”
- jocosely – playful or humorous as in “And he leered more jocosely than ever.”
- sagacity – wisdom, cleverness as in “Still, I had a great respect for Poirot’s sagacity — except on the occasions when he was what I described to myself as “foolishly pig-headed.”
If you enjoy watching for new words as you read, you may want to play along with this new weekly meme over at Bermuda Onion. For more go here.
NORTHERN CALLIFORNIA
Too funny. Sagacious is one of my husband’s favorite words! Good ones!
Thanks for playing along today! Great words – I thought sagacity might be from sage.
wow, That is why I had such a time with her books…I just felt stupid because I dont understand the words.
Oh I love the word sagacity, I’m going to be throwing that one around all week
And I’ve always loved the use of the word enigma. Winston Churchill had a famous quote I always thought was neat that goes: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key.”