Right: The Anointing of King David

unctuous (UNK –choo-wus, UNGK-choo-us), adjective

This word may feel somewhat slippery at first (it even sounds slippery), but seeing how its various uses relate to one idea, will help one grasp it securely, so it won’t slip back into the deep dark waters. It comes from a Latin verb, “uguere” to anoint, via its past participle “unctus,” anointed, referring to applying an oil or unguent to a sick person; or to a baptism or confirmation. Some Christian churches use “extreme unction,” or “last rites,” for the dying. Unction and unctuous have the same Latin root.

unction : n.
The act of a religious, ceremonial, or healing ritual of anointing
An ointment, oil or salve
Something soothing
Affected or exaggerated earnestness.

unctuous : adj.
An excessively pious or moralistic fervor, especially in an affected manner.
Like an unguent (ointment), fatty, oily, greasy
Having a smooth, slick feel, slightly greasy as certain minerals
Affectedly, insincerely or excessively smooth, suave or ingratiating in manner or speech

The basic idea seems to be about “oil” and its smoothness whether of physical or spiritual or social things . A slice of American, or Swiss cheese has a smoothly unctuous feel to the fingers. Some minerals have an unctuousness about them: feel a piece of coal, a soapstone, graphite – all slightly oily. Salad dressing is like an unguent. Southern fried chicken is a delicious unctuosity! An unctuous complexion would be an oily face. To call a person unctuous is not a compliment. It may mean s/he has an artificial slick-shine of oily sentimentality; or has, in spite of good intentions, an off-putting insincere earnestness; or s/he may be a slick smooth-talking hypocrite 'anointed' with ulterior self-serving motives.

Related words:
unctuously, adverb
unctuousness, noun
unctuosity, noun
unguent , noun
chrism, (criz-uhm) [from Greek] an anointing oil mixed with spices, usually balsam, used in religious rites.

synonyms: unctuous, oily, greasy, unguinous, oleaginous, oleic, unguentary, chrismal, fatty, sebaceous, tallowy, suety, lardy, lardaceous, buttery, soapy, saponaceous, paraffinic, slick, sleek, slippery, flattering, smarmy, smooth, suave, slick, affected, insincere, self-serving, smugly agreeable or earnest, gushy, hypocritical, self-important, sanctimonious, self-righteous, goody-goody, pharisaical .

“The sweet potatoes take on earthiness from sautéed mushrooms, and their sweetness is countered by the unctuousness of seared chicken livers, playing off the tradition of something sweet with something rich. . . “ -Charlie Trotter, New York Times, March 7, 2001
“The tart is then baked to order until the pastry is lightly browned and crisp, the mushrooms unctuously tender. A brush with olive oil and a sprinkling of herbs adds a whiff of immediacy.” – Amanda Hesser, The New York Times, Dec. 3, 1997

“He approached Sean wearing a smile so unctuous it seemed about to slide right off his face.” Naeem Murr, "The Boy"

“I believe this whang-nosed fanatic is a more despicable creature than even Gen. Wild; he is one of the sleek, unctuous kind that tries to cover his rascality under the cloak of religion, but his - (word illegible) comes out too strong for that much patched garment to hide.” – Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865

“But wait. An obstacle lies between them and wedded bliss in the unctuous, smiling person of Robin Williams, who plays a minister with definite ideas about what it takes to make a marriage work...” -A. O. Scott, Movie Review-‘License to Wed’, The New York Time, July 3, 2007

He wanted students who showed ''unctuous rectitude'' as part of his original requirements. –Janet Maslin, New York Times, Nov. 29, 2007

“ 'Fish are friends, not food,’ goes the mantra he repeats in an unctuously imperious drawl whenever he's tempted to gobble up a passing morsel.” Stephen Holden, The New York Times, May 30, 2003

“Vanilla-soaked bread pudding, an imposing cube of unctuosity accompanied by a caramel-swathed scoop of white chocolate gelato, relegates the cheesecake to also-ran status. “ - William Grimes, The New York Times, July 11, 2001

“. . . a very coarse and awkward, if not a very scandalous stroke of business, by unctuous affectation of sympathy with the poor clergy of Darlington and the good cause, . . . “ - Harpers Magazine, May, 1861

‘’ Oglethorpe thought of raclette, a mountain cheese famous in Switzerland and France but almost unknown in England. Raclette is unctuous and pliable where cheddar is dry and crumbly.’’ -Cory Kummer, “The Art of Aging Well” Atlantic Monthly, (Nov. 2007)

A blood-red or "sanguine" flower.

sanguine ( SANG-gwin), adjective

1. red, of the color of blood
2. passionate; amorous or quick to fall in love; (medieval physiology) having the warm cheerful temperament and healthy reddish complexion of one who has blood as their dominant bodily humor .
3. cheerfully confident; optimistic

ME,<OF sanguine, < L sanguineus, <sanguis, sanguin, = blood

related:
sanguinely , adv
sanguineness , sanguinity nouns

Medieval physiology had the notion of four humors (fluids) of the body by which they classified maladies and temperaments: sanguine (blood), phlegmatic (phlegm), choleric (yellow bile) or melancholic (black bile). The temperament of the sanguine person was considered to be courageous, hopeful and quick to fall in love. Sanguine still refers to cheerfulness and optimism of the temperament but no longer has a direct reference to medieval physiology.

The English word sanguinary, however, has not been influenced by the theory of the cheerful, amorous sanguine humor or temperament. It is a vicious word. It means “bloodthirsty, bloodstained, flowing with blood, with much murder or carnage.”

‘’ In Arkansas, Mrs. Clinton was perceived as the cold realist to Bill's more sanguine softy.’ She was much more inclined to see people's dark sides,’ Mr. Moore said.” – Mark Leibovich, “The Long Run” New York Times, Dec. 9, 2007

‘’ Sadness is probably more endemic to the human subtext than sanguine spirits, which is why funereal songs like Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday” strike a universal chord and why Freud conjectured that “ordinary unhappiness” (as opposed to what he called “hysterical misery”) was the best the talking cure could hope to achieve.’’ - Daphne Merkin, “Darkness Invisible” New York Times, Sept. 16, 2007

‘’ The awkwardness is that he isn't even wrong about his impact, and yet you wish for more of the sanguineness that led Nabokov, asked to rank himself in modern literature, to snort, ‘Jolly good view from up here,’ and leave it at that. ‘’ - Tom Carson, “Zimmerman Unbound,” New York Times, Oct. 24, 2004

‘’ He showed the solid principles upon which the enterprise was founded, and the advantage that must attend its success, and the glory it must shed upon the Spanish Crown. Isabella, being warm and generous of nature and sanguine of disposition, was moved by the representations of Juan Perez, and requested that Columbus might be again sent to her.’’ -Frances Jenkins Olcott, Good Stories For Holidays

squamous (SKWEY-muhs ), also squamose , adjective:

1. formed of or covered with scales; scaly
2. scalelike, thin and flat


related forms: squamously, squamosely, adverb; squamousness, squamoseness, noun.

1541 from Latin squamosus “covered with scales, scaly.”
M.E. had squame (c. 1385) “a scale” from O.Fr. esquame, from L. squama

“Squamose Krispies, a new breakfast cereal !”

"Skin is composed of two main layers; the outer epidermis overlaying the thicker dermis. The epidermal layer is composed of stratified squamous epithelial tissue."
http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/16cm05/16labman05/lb7pg8.htm

“The death knell tolls, then, for dandruff, that little icon of our humanity resting gently on your left shoulder. Scientists have untangled the skeins of its DNA and will doubtless snuff out the ’druff long before it begins to create squamousness of the scalp; ending a quest for a cure begun when Pliny the Elder recommended garlic.” - “Flake Out, Times Online, Nov. 6, 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article2813952.ece

“For very dry and fissured skin of hands. It [Eucerin hand cream] softens the rough skin surface and prevents its excessive squamousness.” - http://www.docsimon.com/article/eucerin-hand-cream-for-dry-to-very-dry-skin-5-urea-75-ml

“. . . modernists' urgent desire to recover an original wholeness but nevertheless imposing on unpatterned reality the squamousness of the abstracting mind, ...” Alan Wilde, Irony in the Postmodern Age: Toward a Map of Suspensiveness

“Dr. Richard C. Wender, president of the American Cancer Society, said the form of cancer Mrs. Bush had, a squamous cell carcinoma, was far more easily treated than breast cancer, with an overwhelmingly high recovery rate.” -Jim Rutenberg, New York Times, Dec. 20, 2006

“Here commence the land ferns, and those kinds indeed whose so-called capsules open in a valvular manner, just as in the liverworts; . . . the trunk is provided with squamose leaves or lobes, . . . “ -Lorenz Oken, Alfred Tulk, Ray Society, Elements of Physiophilosophy, p. 292, (1847)

“Carapace hardly longer than broad across eyes, densely and finely squamosely sculptured, the scales not hispid;. . . “ -M. Beier, Insects of Micronesia

Comedian Will Ferrell who coined the word.

dignitude ( DIG-neh-tood ), noun

1. an attempt to act with dignity successful in the actor’s eyes, but undignified to others. -
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dignitude Feb, 12, 2005

2. a blend of dignity and “attitude” (with undignified results)

“I'd add one more, inspired by George W. Bush, who has himself made important contributions to the language (embetter, misunderestimate). But the comedian Will Ferrell, in the role of President Bush, gave us dignitude ("As President, George W. Bush carried himself with great dignitude"). Dignitude is a blend of dignity and attitude; with a sort of surfer-dude gravitas, it manages the remarkable feat of puffing out its chest while not taking itself seriously. More dignitude is what America needs, and if we have to throw out vacuous or supercilious to make room, then so be it.” - Cullen Murphy, Innocent Bystander, The Atlantic Monthly, March, 2003

“Restoring dignitude to the White House.” Oct. 19, 2006, http://derenegade.blogspot.com/2006/10/restoring-dignitude-to-white-house.html

spicule (SPIK-yool)

1. a small or minute, slender, sharp-pointed body or part; a small, needlelike crystal, process, or the like.
2. Zoology. one of the small, hard, calcareous or siliceous bodies that serve as the skeletal elements of various marine and freshwater invertebrates.
3. Astronomy. a jet of gas several hundred miles in diameter rising from the sun's surface to heights of 3000 to 6000 miles (4800 to 9600 km).
- Random House Unabridged

related: spicular, spiculate, spiculated , adjectives ; spiculation, noun

[Origin: 1775–85; < L sp&#299;culum spearhead, arrowhead, bee stinger, equiv. to sp&#299;c(a) ear of grain, spica + -ulum –ule]

“Spicules of fear were forming in his mind.”

“Presently, too, a new wonder for a midsummer afternoon--a snow scene all around, and spicules of ice settling and remaining frozen on the coatsleeve.” - John M. Bacon, The Dominion of the Air: The Story of Aerial Navigation

"The usual treatment for spicules is a local injection (around the spicule), with a good response rate (around 70%). We have operated on some cases, with a good result." Dr. Maigne, http://www.coccyx.org/whatisit/spur.htm

“The deep-sea sponge Euplectella, or the Venus flower basket, grows attractive glassy fibres, called spicules. Now, researchers led by Joanna Aizenberg of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey have shown that these are superb optical fibres.” - Jonathan Sarfati, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/optics.asp

“The objective of this paper is to propose a method to automatically detect spicule shadows in mammograms. The method is consisted of two steps, enhancement and feature selection. First, spicule shadows are enhanced . . . . Second, a concentration expression is given with gray levels and two features are selected for recognition of tumors with spicules.” - H. Jiang, W. Tiu, S. Yamamoto, S.-I. Iisaku, "Detection of spicules in mammograms," icip, p. 520, 1997 International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP'97) - Volume 3, 1997

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/porifera/porskel.html pictures of spicules as sponge skeletons
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040802.html a great picture of solar spicules from NASA

schlub ( shluhb ), noun, slang , also zhlub, rhymes with club, and grub

someone clumsy, stupid or unattractive

[Yiddish, from Polish Zhlob, trough, blockhead.]
related: adj. schlubbish, schlubby, adv: schlubbishly; adj. zhlubbish, zhlubby, adv: zhlubbishly

‘According to Sol Steinmetz, et al., in ''Meshugganery,'' an informal dictionary of Yiddishisms, the word is spelled schlub and means ''a crude individual lacking in social skills and blessed with insensitivity, clumsiness and no manners.'' A less pejorative sense is ''oaf, bumpkin.'' A third sense, similar to nebbish, less often used, is ''a person of no color'': the lexicographers refer to an ad placed in the personals by a schlub reading: ''Sweet Jewish guy, 40. No skeletons, no heavy baggage. No personality, either.'' In its form as a modifier, zhlubby is synonymous with the British naff, ''unfashionable, tasteless.'' ‘ – William Safire, New York Times, Oct. 05, 2003, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1D6143DF936A35753C1A9659C8B63&scp=30&sq=schlub&st=nyt ''Lads'' describes the life of a hapless schlub in romantic affairs, a charlatan in professional matters and a loser in the game of life. – David Carr, New York Times, 14 Sept. 2004

“Although the lexicographers at M-W classify as “slang” such terms as schlub (stupid person), schlump (sloppy person) and schmuck and schmo (both jerks), they have accepted as Standard English the noun schlock (something of low quality) and the verb schmooze (to converse informally, also “to chat in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business or connections” — that last a superb definition of a verb that filled a void in business communication).” -William Safire, New York Times, 16 Sept. 2007

‘ Ted Friedman, author of Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture, suggests that the emergence of the schlub and geek as heroes “has to do with the rising influence of technology”, whereas, he says, “when I was in high school, to be a nerd or a geek was just shameful and not valued”. ‘ – Christopher Goodwin, ‘The sorry state of masculinity in American movies’, timesonline.co.uk

We’wha (1849 – 96) a Zuni berdache, of New Mexico, dressed in women’s clothing, and holding a ritual vessel.

berdache (ber-DASH ), noun

in some Native American Indian tribes: a man who adopts the dress and social roles traditionally assigned to women.

[The older term "berdache" is a generic term used primarily by anthropologists, a loan from French bardache , and is frequently rejected as offensive by Native Americans. It has been replaced by two – spirit or badé.]

related: berdachism , noun

Many Native Americans tribes thought of gender as a trait that is acquired rather than being inborn, and is not limited to male and female but that there is an ‘alternative’ third gender with two spirits, male and female in one body: a berdache. They were considered spiritually gifted, and were valued by the people of the tribe as a sacred trust given them by the Great Spirit. The women of the family appreciated them for they could do more and harder work in the household than females, with no down time for pregnancy.

“In my book "The Zuni Man-Woman," I tell the story of a male berdache from Zuni, named We'wha, who spent six months in Washington in 1886 as the guest of the anthropologist Matilda Stevenson. All Washington -- even President Grover Cleveland, who received We'wha in the White House -- assumed that this six-foot-tall, muscular Zuni was an Indian "princess." ‘ WILL ROSCOE, San Francisco , New York Times, Letter to the Editor, June 16, 1991



links:
http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/stonewall/3044/zunibook.html - Book review of “The Zuni Man-Woman”
http://staff.jccc.net/scorbett01/ch8/zuni_berdache.htm Early anthropology, Matilda Stevenson
http://depts.washington.edu/chid/intersections.php?article=1994c Historical Overview

pome (pohm), noun

1. a type of fruit with excess flesh separated from central seeds in the ‘core’.
2. a mispronunciation of the word “poem.”
3. Australia, acronym : Prisoner Of Mother England

A pome is not something made by a poet! It is a good word to use in your next po-em , however. Pome rhymes with brome, comb, chrome, dome, foam, home, loam, Nome, roam, Shalom, tome, . . . .

Just one bite of the pome
And poor Eve lost her home. . .

In botany a pome is a type of fruit with a large area of edible flesh surrounding the seeds in the center. Apples, hawthorns, rose hips, pears, quince are all pomes. Other types of fruits are berries and drupes.

related: pomelike

“Sometimes I feel so pomelike – with an excess of flesh!”

“Lord Alfred Tennyson was a celebrated poet, and he wrote a lot of beautiful pomes with long hair. His greatest pome is called ‘The Idle King.’ He was made a Lord, but he was a good man. . . ‘ “ "School Boy’s Estimate of Tennyson," The New York Times, Jul 06, 1905

“Sensing this receptive mood beneath the surface pieties of his time, Whitman [poet Walt Whitman], with help from friends like Clapp, became a tireless self-promoter. Long before Norman Mailer and Truman Capote appeared on television talk shows in the 1960's or Tom Wolfe tried on his first white suit, he constructed an ''image'' of himself. Careful (according to Alcott) to pronounce the word poem as the monosyllable ''pome,'' he cultivated his reputation as ''one of the roughs.'' –Andrew Delbanco, ‘Barbaric Yawp’ New York Times 22 Aug. 1999

“. . . , explaining that he is proud to be an Australian whose grandfather emigrated as a ''POME,'' a prisoner of Mother England.” John J. O’Connor, New York Times, 20 May 1984

Wow, something new every day - so much variety, and so impressively presented! Thank you!

Thank YOU, LynnDel! :)

Have you any cool words that entrance you?