Category: Words That Strike My Fancy

“cocksucker”

offensive

  • one who performs fellatio —often used as a generalized term of abuse

Merriam-Webster

“segue”

  1. proceed to what follows without pause—used as a direction in music
  2. perform the music that follows like that which has preceded —used as a direction in music

Merriam-Webster

“obsequious”

  • marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

— Merriam-Webster

“constellation”

  1. the configuration of stars especially at one’s birth
  2. any of 88 arbitrary configurations of stars or an area of the celestial sphere covering one of these configurations; the constellation Orion
  3. an assemblage, collection, or group of usually related persons, qualities, or things “… a constellation of … relatives, friends, and hangers-on ….” — Brendan Gill; a constellation of symptoms
  4. pattern, arrangement; “… taking advantage of the shifting constellation of power throughout the known world,” H. D. Lasswell

— Merriam-Webster

“rubric”

  1. a heading on a document.
    a category: such ideas naturally fall under the rubric of postmodernism.
  2. a set of instructions or rules
    • a direction in a liturgical book as to how a church service should be conducted.
    • a statement of purpose or function: art for a purpose, not for its own sake, was his rubric.

 

“pejorative”

  • Adjective expressing contempt or disapproval: permissiveness is used almost universally as a pejorative term.
  • Noun a word expressing contempt or disapproval: most of what he said was inflammatory and filled with pejoratives.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

“notion”

  1. a conception of or belief about something: children have different notions about the roles their parents; I had no notion of what her words meant.
  2. an impulse or desire, especially one of a whimsical kind: she had a notion to ring her friend at work.
  3. items used in sewing, such as buttons, pins, and hooks.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

“peruse”

  • read (something), typically in a thorough or careful way: he has spent countless hours in libraries perusing art history books and catalogues.
  • examine carefully or at length: Laura perused a Caravaggio.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

“scotoma”

Medicine: a partial loss of vision or blind spot in an otherwise normal field of vision.

— Oxford Dictionary of English

“anthropophagus”

: man-eater, cannibal

— Merriam-Webster