Tag: New Words (Page 14 of 20)

Here is a word from The Valley of Fear, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. When I looked it up the first time, it really puzzled me, so I had to find another dictionary. Now I fully understand.

Coruscation – according to Merriam-Webster, there are two definitions. 1. Glitter or sparkle. 2. A flash of wit. I am sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was using the second definition.

Usage: Holmes and Watson are trying to decipher a coded message.

“Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning… Have we reached the limits of what reason can supply?”

“I fear that we have.”

“Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation, my dear Watson. Yet another brain-wave.”

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, The Valley of Fear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, circa 1914

Here is an interesting word that Sherlock Holmes used to describe Dr Watson in The Valley of Fear, one of the The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I wasn’t fully able to grasp the meaning of the word by the context, so I had to look it up. Now I find the context that much more enlightening and certainly more humorous.

Pawky – having a mocking or cynical sense of humor

Usage: Holmes says to Watson, “You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humor, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.”

Here is a word that sounds as gross as its definition. It is one of the words Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used to describe the Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Watson and Holmes chase the villain into the mire on a dark and foggy night. It was very dangerous for them all.

Miasmatic – a vapor from decaying organic matter

Usage: “Rank weeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odor of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapor onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet.”

I came across this quote in The Valley of Fear, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. As an amateur gardener, I wondered if “pollarded” might mean how the elms were pruned or cut back. That was exactly what I found. Here is a great article about Pollarding from The Daily Garden.

According to the article, pollarding is a type of pruning where all new growth is cut back, leaving the trees with a short, post-like trunk with many smaller branches that grow upwards. Some of the benefits of pollarding are short trees that won’t blow over in wind storms and less large limbs that may fall on power lines and roofs.

Here are some pictures from The Daily Garden:

Here is a flower that Dr Watson alludes to when he is describing the beauty of a woman he meets in The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I looked it up to find a picture, and it really is a pretty flower.

Usage: “Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel color, and her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose.”

This is a fun word to roll around on your tongue. I found it in The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I have heard and read it before, but now that I’ve looked it up, I understand it much better. Even before I found the definition, I thought the word seemed like a rolling, waving word, and I find that that isn’t too far from the truth.

Undulating – to move with a wavelike motion, as with a smooth rising-and-falling or side-to-side movement; to have a wavy form or surface

Usage: “It is a wonderful place, the moor,” said [Mr Stapleton], looking round over the undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite foaming up into fantastic surges. “You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious.”

These two terms are used several times in The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of The Greatest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Dr Watson uses these often when describing the moor. I looked them up just to be sure I could imagine the setting correctly, and I found this wonderful definition at the Discovering Sherlock Holmes website by Stanford University.

Cairns and Tors – “”Cairn” is a loose term for a pile of stones, usually marking an ancient burial place. A “tor” is a natural granite outcropping on the moor, exposed by years of weathering. Granite bedrock lies under the moor, keeping water from draining away, so that the ground remains saturated.”

I found this great website with many pictures and histories of the tors around Devon in England: Tors of Dartmoor. Below is a picture of Bowden Tor. You can see the outcropping of rock and the ground below which may remain marshy in wet seasons. Dr Watson described the moor in The Hound of the Baskerville as having many tors. I wonder if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had an exact place in mind when he wrote The Hound. It must have been a lovely place to be, even when he added threat of a cursed hound.