Joyfully Retired

Welcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday. Thanks for stopping by to see what new words I discovered this week. I usually find new words wherever I happen to be reading. This week I found them on my kindle and on the website of a fellow blogger.

I’m reading a book about Agatha Christie. Ms. Christie almost always gives me a new word or two in her novels, but in this case it was John Curran writing about her favorite detective that made me find this one:

overweening: “Christie also endowed him [Hercule Poirot] with an overweening vanity and a neurotic precision, as well as magnificent moustaches and his famous little grey cells.”

I thought from the context that overweening meant over-the-top or excessive. I looked it up anyway and found it means showing excessive confidence or pride. A very good description of M. Poirot.

 ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yesterdat on JoAnn’s (Lakeside Musing) Tuesday Intros, she shared the first paragraph of A Glass of Blessing by Barbara Pym. Right in that first paragraph I found this word:

verger: “I imagined the little bent woman in the peacock blue hat who acted as verger going into the vestry and picking up the receiver gingerly, if only to put an end to the loud unsuitable ringing.”

I didn’t pick up clues from the sentence so I had to grab my dictionary. It turns out that verger is an official in a church who acts as a caretaker and attendant.

That’s all my Wondrous Words for this Wednesday. Visit Kathy at Bermuda Onion to check out her new words this week.