Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Wondrous Words Wednesday


Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme, started by Bermudaonion where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. Feel free to join in the fun.

Today's words are from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

sacerdotal - of or relating to priests or a priesthood: priestly

She said "reading the newspaper" in the tone in which a Minister's wife might have said: "Presiding at a Cabinet meeting" - not from any arrogance of mind, but because the habit of a lifetime, and the attitude of her friends and relations, had led her to consider Mr. van der Luyden's least gesture as having an almost sacerdotal importance.

viceregal - of or relating to to a viceroy or viceroyalty

Archer contemplated with awe the two slender faded figures, seated side by side in a kind of viceregal rigidity, mouthpieces of some remote ancestral authority which fate compelled them to wield, when they would so much rather have lived in simplicity and seclusion, digging invisible weeds out of the perfect lawns of Skuytercliff, and playing Patience together in the evenings.

3 comments:

  1. Both of those words are new to me, but I don't think I'll be using either anytime soon! Thanks for playing along!

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  2. Viceregal is well known to me because I have read non-fiction about the British empire in India. I have come across sacerdotal, but I would certainly have to look it up, perhaps because it is difficult to see at a glance that it must be related to sacred.

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