Welcome back. When you become smitten with words, prepare to endure unrequited love. Despite my best efforts to remain aloof from words and cold-hearted about them, a few have wormed their way into my heart. I am uplifted, enlivened and never, never bored by them. Here are a few of my favorites:
Vague: Indistinct, unclear
Evanescent: Vanishing, fading away, fleeting (''The evanescent glow of fireflies'')
Glance: A brief look
Diaphanous: Sheer, transparent or translucent
Footfall: Footstep
Aggress: To commit the first act of aggression
Smitten: Struck down, infatuated
Caress: An embrace, a light stroking (I particularly like ''aggress'' and ''caress'' used together. ''Shall I aggress or caress?'')
Ferocious: Fierce, savage, brutal, predatory
Lumpen: Dispossessed, displaced people who have lost social status. (I see lumps of clay. ''These are the lumps of the lumpen.'')
Vicious: Ferocious, brutal, dangerous, aggressive
Agon: A conflict, a struggle (''Job had an agon with God.'')
Bask: Laze, lie, lounge
Parse: To examine critically, to break down in component parts (''How could I begin to parse the sentiment behind that look?'')
Distracted: Preoccupied
Doleful: Sorrowful, mournful
Jiggling: Shaking, wiggling, fidgeting
Wayworn: Fatigued by travel
Flickering: Glimmering, dancing, twinkling, sparkling
Coruscate: Give off or reflect flashes of light (''They pulled up at the farthest end of a loop path that looked out over the great basin of the Rio Grande under brilliant, coruscating stars.'' Bill Roorback writing in Big Bend)
Aglow: Shining, radiating, smoldering
Swoon: To enter a state of ecstasy
Swirl: Whirl, eddy, billow, spiral
Rapture: Joyful ecstasy
Vague: Indistinct, unclear
Confabulation: Easy, unrestrained conversation
Evocative: Tending to evoke (''The fragrance was evocative of languid summer afternoons.'')
Sere: Dry, withered
Wizened: Shriveled, aged, white with age
Languid: Slow, listless
Rheumy: A mucous discharge from eyes or nose (sometimes snot)
Phantasmagoric: Deceptive appearances in a dream or created by the imagination
Languish: To become weak or feeble
Dear Reader, look for more evocative words next month. Send in your favorites.
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