Bury Your Dead
Looking For Me
Cottage at Glass Beach
As far as I’m concerned, words really are wondrous. That’s why I like paying attention to them while reading, and also why I love to play this weekly “game” of find-a-new-word-or-two.
I was reading an article on the NPR website, written by the celebrated librarian Nancy Pearl.
omnivorous: “Because I am an omnivorous reader, at first glance my choices always seem to me to be completely higgledy-piggledy, with no book bearing any similarity to any other.”
I thought I knew what omnivorous meant, but it didn’t fit in this sentence. So, I looked it up. Omnivorous is an adjective referring to an animal or a person feeding on food of both plant and animal origin. That did not seem right. Then I saw this in my dictionary: “taking in or using whatever is available : an omnivorous reader. Ahh ~, makes sense now.
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On Monday in my daily devotional I found this word:
tectonic: “The tectonic force that shaped the Cascades also tightly folded the layers of 55 million-year-old sandstone, shale, and coal to create the Chuckanut Mountains.
Tectonic refers to the structure of the earth’s crust and the large-scale processes that take place within it.
Wondrous Words Wednesday is sponsored by Kathy @ Bermuda Onion’s Weblog
I could be considered omnivorous in my reading tastes except that I exclude horror, the supernatural, most erotica, and serial murders. Guess I’m not omnivorous after all. Nice set of words!
I didn’t think omnivorous fit that sentence either. I do like that meaning, though! When we lived in France, I was definitely an omnivorous reader! Great words today!
Tectonic I remembered from earth science. I enjoyed reading more about these terrific words, and the explanations you provide, in this well-written post.
I knew tectonic from learning about tectonic plates. That’s a good usage of omnivorous too.
I love the words that you picked this week. I would never have know that you could use the first one in that manner!!!
I was sure you were going to say that someone on NPR had made a mistake or a joke)..I knew the first one in the nature sense, but never heard it the second way. I guess sometimes I am an omnivorous reader.
I’ve read about tectonic plates on all kinds of explanatory signs at all kinds of mountains and I still don’t quite understand it all…I just gaze at the beauty!