HOW TO USE THIS DICTIONARY

The following sample entries illustrate the format and plan of The Penguin Dictionary of Curious And Interesting Words.

ABLUTE:  verb  to cleanse "but with a ceremonial ring to it, as having had performed reglamentary pre-ritual ablutions" (Koster). ABLUTED, adj.  Compare LUSTRATION

. . . the black girl, having seized his hands, now led them up, like lifeless flannels or sponges, over her smooth stomach to ablute the cones of dark-tipped flesh above. . . .

--Fowles, Mantissa, pp. 33-34.

The girls led Genghis--abluted, tunicked, wanged--through the celebrants and stood him just inside the circle.

--Koster, Mandragon, pp. 218.

ARTEMID:  adj  having the characteristics of Artemis, Diana the Huntress, goddess of chastity. Compare DRYAD, MAELID, NAIAD

There were days when her body was artemid, an oread's, † the flat belly grooved and brown, butt, breasts, and hips strict and firm. . . .

--Davenport, "The Dawn in Erewhon,"
Tatlin!, p. 257.

BOLUS:  noun  lump, large pill. See also DIGLOT. Compare HOLUS-BOLUS

--Grandfather Hippagoras . . . was physicking the ass, sticking a turpentine and onion bolus down it.

--Davenport, "The Antiquities of Elis,"
Da Vinci's Bicycle, p. 144.

BOREAL:  adj  nothern.  See TRAMONTANA.  Compare SEPTENTRIONAL

    The word to be defined appears in full capitals and is followed by its part of speech and its definition. In a few cases the word's meaning is so clearly defined by its literary quotation tah the reader is instructed merely to See quotation. When a writer has supplied the compiler with a gloss on a word, this commentary becomes part of the definition--as shown in the first example. Koster's discussion of ABLUTE is placed within quotation marks, and the writer is identified within parentheses.
    Following each word's definition apeear any variant forms of the word illustrated in the quotations. For example, although ABLUTE is defined as a verb and functions as a verb construction in the Fowles quotation, it becomes an adjective in the passage from Koster. This adjective for is, therefore, specified following the definition.
    Cross-references often follow definitions: Compare, See, See also, and † :
    Compare directs the reader to the other words--usually synonyms or antonyms--which appear in the dictionary. Thus the ABLUTE entry provides LUSTRATION for comparison; ARTEMID provides DRYAD, MAELID, and NAIAD; BOLUS provides HOLUS-BOLUS; and BOREAL provides SEPTENTRIONAL.
    See has been used to avoid repetition of quotations. In the fourth entry above, both BOREAL and TRAMONTANA are found in a single quotation printed only inder TRAMONTANA.
    See also, illustrated by the BOLUS example, informs the reader that the word also appears in a quotation for DIGLOT.
    A dagger (†) following a word within a quotation alerts the reader that the word is itself defined elsewhere in the book. Thus OREAD, which appears in the quotation for ARTEMID, has a separate entry.

    A complete bibliography of sources appears at the end of this dictionary.