Historical Fictionistas discussion

We get lots of new words added to the lexicon every year but little is said about those that are lost. Here's one for you to find out the meaning of:
Nummamorous

What a great idea to do this!

It means money loving.
Next word:
Nympholepsy!

My personal guess on nympholepsy: a state of being suddenly seized with desire.

Buzz kill: nympholepsy is actually in the Oxford English Dictionary. “A state of rapture supposed to be inspired in men by nymphs; hence, an ecstacy or frenzy of emotion, esp. that inspired by something unattainable.”

Sticking with ens, how about Nous-box?

as in using your 'nous' or having a little bit of 'nous'.
Turdiform?
There is no intention to be euphemistic on my part btw!

I thought I had a good one: rumpy-pumpy, a fine, rare word for sexual intercourse, but it IS in Collins'Dictionary!

What a great word, regardless of how many dictionaries it is in! Evocative and yet cosily British at the same time.

Am so glad that people are highlighting little-used words—our dictionaries (especially electronic ones) seem to be getting scantier and scantier. The other day I was doing a Luminosity challenge that involved making as many words as possible in one minute, based on the first two letters provided by the challenge. The system kept throwing out words I typed that it didn’t recognize. Really, jabot is now not a word?

As for Turdiform—am guessing something to do with robins or similar thrushlike birds—as in Turdus migratorius (the favorite scientific name of adolescent male birders everywhere in the United States)?

you got it! thrush like in shape

Nothing to do with excreta I am afraid. It is a genus of birds (blackbird, thrush etc).

Try this one; Bovaristic

Like Madame Bovary (i.e., inexpressibly tedious—and yes, doubtless bovine as well)? If that’s not what it does mean, it’s what it should mean.

Here's my confession! I get the words from a collection of books by Peter Bowler. Their title is "The superior person's book of words". I use it on occasion in my writing. I'll leave you with an abecedarian insult. "You are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose,facinorous,gnathonic,hiricine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous,quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, theristical,unguinous,ventripotent,wlatsome,xylocephalous, yirning, zoophyte!" Please don't take it personally, it's ll in jest. My spellchecker is flashing red under every word (that must be first!). No doubt i shall now be banned from the group for using abusive words! Enjoy. Colin

Well, Madame Bovary must have something going for it to have become such a classic! Just not for me. I guess I’m not a typical woman (this no kind of surprise), because she seemed to me like a male’s stereotype of a woman, needy and self-involved but without inner resources of character. I felt, “a plague on both her and her husband’s houses!” Had to read it in both French and English at different times in school, and wished most fervently I could’ve gotten out of it.

Loving your source, Colin! Excerebrose, indeed—I feel that way more and more as I age.

hi- can I ask about the word (( schismarch ))

I'm not sure you want me to go through all 3 books! But I'll put some up from time to time to keep you entertained. I suffer from Clinomania. How about you?

got me there Hamid

Hi, Hamid, the Oxford English Dictionary (my court of last resort) has schismarch! It means “the founder of a schism.” So Martin Luther would be a schismarch in Christianity, and in Islam, either Abu Bakr or Ali ibn Abi Talib, depending on whether one’s point of view was Sunni or Shi‘a.

thanks Abigail, that's it. and about Clinomania, Colin, I also suffer from it.