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. Kathy from Bermudaonion won the BBAW award for Most Concise blog, so make sure you visit and congratulate her (if you haven't done so yet).Today's words are coming from my book club's choice for this month, The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner.
picayune - 1. a: a Spanish half real piece formerly current in the South b: half-dime 2. a: something trivial, of little value b: petty, small-minded
This is how it's used in the book:
And from train windows Bo looked out over fields of flax in flower, acres and acres of blue, and then his brewery job, full of travelling as it was, seemed trivial, picayune, confining.(p. 31)
flickertail - a ground squirrel chiefly of the north-central U.S. and adjacent Canada
Here's how it's used:
Flickertails jerked and ran and sat up with absurd little hands hanging on their chests.(p.36)
The newspaper in New Orleans is the Times-Picayune, so I'm really disappointed by the meaning of picayune. Oh well. Thanks for participating today!
ReplyDeleteFlickertail? - I´ll try to remember that one. I love small squirrely animals.
ReplyDeletepicayune is one of my favorite words! To me it sounds almost like what it means...I think of it pertaining to someone who is picky & peevish (I honestly didn't mean to go with just "p" words, it just came out that way!)lol
ReplyDelete~ Amy