Watch in amazement as Britt's vocabulary grows and grows! These are words I've come across in my reading that I had to look up. Definitions are courtesy of the Mirriam WWWebster Dictionary. When a word has multiple meanings, I've only included such definitions as seem relevant and/or interesting. I've also included some partial etymologies that are particularly interesting or useful in remembering the meaning of the words.
If the WWWebster fails you, you might want to try the Hypertext Webster Gateway at UCSD. I've most often found that WWWebster gives me more useful hits, and usually if WWWebster doesn't have it, neither will the Gateway, but the Gateway searches older editions of the Webster Dictionary, so it sometimes provides hits on more archaic terms. I've marked definitions found with the Gateway with an asterisk (*).
Would you like to augment your own vocabulary? Try the A.Word.A.Day mailing list.
11/9/99
whilom*: formerly; once; of old; erewhile; at times.
. . . [L]ike the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Washington Irving
con: commit to memory, to examine or study closely.
From [the schoolhouse] the low murmur of his pupil's voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard on a summer's day. . .
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Washington Irving
7/14/99
cofferdam:a watertight enclosure from which water is pumped to expose the bottom of a body of water and permit construction (as of a pier) or a watertight structure for making repairs below the waterline of a ship.
He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. . .
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
farrago*: a motely assortmnet of things.
[I flew] into an passion at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's [that Queequeg was peddling his head about town.]
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
grego*: a short jacket or cloak made of very think, coarse cloth, with a hood attached, worn by the Greeks and others in the Levant.
First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol; then . . . kindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
4/28/99
grapnel: a small anchor with usually four or five flukes used in dragging or grappling operations and for anchoring a dory or skiff.
With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver. . .
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
copestone: 1. a stone forming a coping. 2. a finishing touch: crown.
The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
arrant: being notoriously without moderation.
toper: one who topes (drinks liquor to excess).
obstreperous: marked by unruly or agressive noisiness.
The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
4/16/99
hypo: (Inflected form: hypos) hypochondria, extreme depression of mind or spirits often [but not always] centered on imaginary physical ailments.
. . . whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
mole: a massive work formed of masonry and large stones or earth laid in the sea as a pier or breakwater.
Its extreme down-town is Battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
spile: a pile, a long slender column usually of timber, steel, or reinforced concrete driven into the ground to carry a vertical load
Some [were] leaning against the spiles; some seated upon pier-heads, some looking over bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seward peep.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
lath: a building material in sheets used as a base for plaster.
But all these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster . . .
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
9/7/98
amphisbaena: a serpent in classical mythology having a head at each end and capable of moving in either direction.
Ten minutes and a large autobus hummed and groaned in beneath the translucent seashell canopy, twenty meters long and segmented like a worm, a while and gold amphisbaena, nothing but seats and flex windows and flex door.
Queen of Angels
Greg Bear
agonal: of, relating to, or associated with agony, especially the death agony.
Diagrams graphs simulations of supporting evidence . . . icon clocks ticking precise time of death in each body outline, muscular activity before death (this an unnecessary detail but provided for thoroughness) and discharge of fluids (agonal relaxation) besides blood mostly limited by clothing, cooling of bodies (details on cell necrosis, internal decay, bacterial growth in intestines.
Queen of Angels
Greg Bear
7/17/98
syzygy: the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies (as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse) in a gravitational system
She had written a thesis in silver ink, using a whole arcane vocabulary of knowledge. So long ago -- now, running down the corridor toward the elevator, the only word she could remember was syzygy.
Sugar Rain
Paul Park
5/7/98
vigintillion: 1063 [American system], or 10120 [British system].
After vigintillions of years great Cthulu was loose again, ravening for delight.
"The Call of Cthulu"
H. P. Lovecraft
cachinnate: to laugh loudly or immoderately.
There is a sense of spectral whirling through liquid gulfs of infinity, of dizzying rides through reeling universes on a comet's tail, and of hysterical plunges from the pit to the moon and from the moon back again to the pit, all livened by a cachinnating chorus of the distorted, hilarious elder gods and the green, bat-winged mocking imps of Tartarus.
"The Call of Cthulu"
H. P. Lovecraft
armigerous: bearing heraldic arms.
The old gentry, representing the two or three armigerous families which came from Salem in 1692, have kept somewhat above the general level of decay; though their names remain as a key to the origin they disgrace.
"The Dunwich Horror"
H. P. Lovecraft
psychopomp*: a conductor of souls to the afterworld.
Then, too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills which grow vocal on warm night. It is vowed that the birds are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer's struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence.
"The Dunwich Horror"
H. P. Lovecraft
5/1/98
aqua regia: a mixture of nitric or hydrochloric acids that dissolves gold or platinum.
Nitric acid and even aqua regia merely hissed and spattered against its torrid invulnerability.
"The Colour Out of Space"
H. P. Lovecraft
wain: 1. an unusually large and heavy vehicle for farm use. 2. capitalized [short for Charles's Wain, derived from Charlemagne]: Big Dipper.
That July and August were hot; and Nahum worked hard at his haying in the ten-acre pasture across Chapman's Brook; his rattling wain wearing deep ruts in the shadowy lanes between.
"The Colour Out of Space"
H. P. Lovecraft
aerolite: a stony meteorite
And the footprints and frightened horses -- of course this was mere country talk which such a phenomenon as the aerolite would be certain to start.
"The Colour Out of Space"
H. P. Lovecraft
saxifrage: an of a genus (Saxifraga of the family Saxifragaceae, the saxifrage family) of chiefly perennial herbs with showy pentamerous flowers and often with basal tufted leaves.
pentamerous: divided into of consisting of five parts, specifically: having each floral whorl consisting of five or a multiple of five members.
When the early saxifrage came out it had another strange color; not quite unlike that of the skunk-cabbage, but plainly related and equally unknown to anyone who saw it.
"The Colour Out of Space"
H. P. Lovecraft
tenebrous: 1. shut off from the light : dark, murky. 2. hard to understand : obscure. 3. causing gloom.
When the [electrical] current blazed on again there had been a shocking commotion in the tower, for even the feeble light trickling through the grime-blackened, louver-boarded windows was too much for the thing. It had bumped and slithered up into its tenebrous steeple just in time -- for a dose of light would have sent it back into the abyss whence the crazy stranger had called it.
"The Haunter of the Dark"
H. P. Lovecraft
Kanaka*: A native of the Sandwich Islands.
The Emma, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her course by the great storm of March 1st, and on March 22nd, . . . encountered the Alert, manned by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes.
"The Call of Cthulu"
H. P. Lovecraft
3/27/98
ogive: 1. a diagonal arch or rib across a Gothic vault. 2. a pointed arch.
The splash itself is gentle, equal to a fall of fifty meters and you enter ogive first with no sudden shock, less than three gees.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Heinlein
acclamation: 1. a loud eager expression of approval, praise or assent. 2. an overwhelming affirmative vote by cheers, shouts or applause rather than by ballot.
One man will write it -- a dead man -- and late at night when they are very tired, they'll pass it by acclamation.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Heinlein
3/17/98
asperity: 1. rigor, severity. 2. roughness of manner or temper, harshness.
"If you can, you are a clever child," answered Miss Minchin, drawing in her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by her asperity, she changed her manner. "But you are clever in everything," she said in an approving way.
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett
bungalow: a usually one-storied house with a low-pitched roof, from the Hindi banglA, in the Bengal style.
salaam: 1. a salutation or ceremonial greeting in the East. 2. an obeisance performed by bowing very low and placing the right palm on the forehead.
sahib: sir, master -- used especially among the native inhabitants of colonial India when addressing or speaking of a European of some social or official status.
ayah: a nurse or maid native to India, from the Hindi AyA from the Portuguese aia, from the Latin avia, grandmother.
She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and called her "Missee Sahib," and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and pets and an ayah who worshiped her, and she had gradually learned that people who were rich had these things. That, however, was all she knew about it.
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett
lascar: an Indian sailor, army servant, or artilleryman.
At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the big ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children playing on the hot deck, and some of the young officers' wives who used to try and make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said.
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett
3/9/98
nulliparous: of, relating to, or being a female that has not borne offspring.
But hosting is a good profession for a Free Woman. It's high pay . . . I don't wet-nurse them, I never see them. So I look nulliparous and younger than I am, maybe.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Heinlein
sine qua non: something absolutely indispensable or essential.
"To a revolutionist, communications are sine-qua-non."
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Heinlein
3/6/98
facile: 1a. easily accomplished or attained. 1b. specious, superficial.1c. used or comprehended with ease. 1d. readily manifested and often lacking in sincerity or depth. 2. mild or pleasing in manner or disposition. 3a. ready, fluent 3b. poised, assured.
Blunt and tenacious to a fault, Bohr was too serious to be pompous and too honest to be facile.
The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
chiaroscuro: 1. pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color. 2a. the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts of a pictorial work of art. 2b. the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character) 3. a 16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print different tones of the same color, also a print made by this technique. 4. the interplay of light and dark on a surface. 5. The quality of being veiled or partly in shadow.
Bohr saw complimentarity [of quantum mechanical states] as a kind of chiaroscuro, an essential embracing by nature of contradictions that had been revealed to us by Heisenberg indeterminacy but that has wider implications.
The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
1/21/98
encomium:glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise.
Albert Einstein wrote encomiums in [Kepler and Galileo's] honor.
The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
plenum: 1a. a space or all space every part of which is full of matter. 1b. a condition in which the pressure of the air in an enclosed space is greater than the outside temperature.
The problem shared with all these systems is that they must reduce a three-dimensional plenum, the surface of the earth, to the two dimensions of a map.
The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
1/12/98
paling:a fence of pales or pickets
All round [the loghouse] they had cleared a wide space, and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high, without door or opening, too strong to pull down without time and labor, and too open to shelter the besiegers.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
avast: a nautical command to stop or cease
"If Abe Gray -- " Silver broke out.
"Avast there!" cried Mr. Smollett. "Gray told me nothing, and I asked him nothing; and what's more I would see you and him and this whole island blown clean out of the water into blazes first."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
thwart: a rower's seat extending athwart a boat.
athwart: across
The [boat] was extremely small, even for me, and I can hardly imagine that it could have floated with a full-sized man. There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
coracle: a small boat used in Britain from ancient times and made of a frame (as of wicker) covered usually with a hide or tarpaulin.
I had not then seen a coracle such as the ancient Britons made, but I have seen one since, and I can give you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn's boat than by saying it was like the first and worst coracle ever made by man.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
younker: a young man
"Jim," says he, " I reckon we're fouled, you and me, and we'll have to sign articles. I'd have had you but for that there lurch: but I don't have no luck, not I; and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard, you see, for a master mariner to a ships' younker like you, Jim."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
1/9/97
ambush*: the persons stationed in ambush, also : their concealed position.
. . . my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favorable ambush of the crouching trees.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
wisp: a small handful (as of hay or straw)
Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
cutwater: the forepart of a ship's stem
stem: the main upright member at the bow of a ship; the bow or prow of a ship.
One fine day, up with the signal, and here come Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head done up in a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about the cutwater. But there he was, you mind, and the six all dead -- dead and buried.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
They don't come down here now; they're all mastheaded up in them mountains for fear of Benjamin Gunn.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
jolly boat: a ship's boat of medium size used for general-purpose work.
Waiting was a strain; and it was decided that Hunter and I should go ashore with the jolly-boat, in quest of information.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
12/20/97
centrifugal: proceeding or acting in a direction away from a center or axis, from the Latin centr- + fugere, to flee, from which "fugitive" is also derived.
centripetal: proceeding or acting in a direction toward a center or axis, from the Latin centr- + petere, to go, to seek, from the Greek petesthai to fly, from which "feather" is also derived.
12/2/97
gig: a long light ship's boat.
"My lads," said he [the captain], "we've had a hot day, and are all tired and out of sorts. A turn ashore'll hurt nobody -- the boats are still in the water; you can take the gigs, and as may as please may go ashore this afternoon."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
quaint: 1. (obs) expert, skilled. 2. marked by skillful design. 3a. unusual or different in character or appearance: odd. 3b. pleasingly or strikingly old-fashioned or unfamiliar.
On the far side of the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks, shining vividly in the sun.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
careen: to put (a ship or boat) on a beach especially in order to clean, caulk, or repair the hull.
"Right you was, sir," says he [Long John Silver], " to haul your wind and keep the weather of the island. Leastways, if such was your intention to enter and careen, and there ain't no better place for that in these waters."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
conn: to conduct or direct steering of (as a ship)
All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
11/19/97
berth: a billet on a ship
billet: 1. an official order directing that a member of a military force be provided with board and lodging (as in a private home). 2. quarters assigned by or as if by billet.
forecastle: 1. the forward part of the upper deck of a ship. 2. the crew's quarters, usually in a ship's bow.
spar: a stout pole (?)
The whole schooner had been overhauled; six berths had been made astern, out of what have been the afterpart of main hold; and this set of cabins was only joined to the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
companion: a ship's stairway from one deck to another : companionway
roundhouse (*):(Naut.) A cabin or apartment on the after part of the quarter-deck, having the poop for its roof.
. . . Mr. Arrow and the captain were to sleep on deck in the companion, which had been enlarged on each side till you might have almost called it a round-house.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
11/12/97
scupper: an opening cut through the bulwarks of a ship so that water falling on deck may flow overboard.
bulwark: the side of a ship above the upper deck -- usually used in plural.
The Hispaniola was rolling scuppers under in the ocean swell.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
glim: something that furnishes light (as a lantern or candle)
"Sure enough, they left their glim here," said the fellow
from the window.
"Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!"
reiterated Pew, striking his stick upon the road.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
quadrant: an instrument for measuring altitudes consisting commonly of a graduated arc of 90 degrees with an index or vernier and usually having a plumb line or spirit level for fixing the vertical or horizontal direction.
brace: two of a kind, a pair, from the Latin bracchia, arms.
Under [the suit of clothes] the miscellany began -- a quadrant, a tin canikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value and mostly foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass and five or six curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and hunted life.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
gully: (dialect British) a large knife.
pigtail: tobacco in small twisted strands or rolls
A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the cracked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder box were all they [his pockets] contained, and I began to despair.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
lugger: a small fishing or coasting boat that carries one or more lugsails
lugsail: a 4-sided sail bent to an obliquely hanging yard that is hoisted and lowered with the sail.
Some of the men who had been to field-work on the far side of the "Admiral Benbow" remembered, besides, to have seen several strangers on the road, and, taking them to be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one at least had seen a little lugger in what we called Kitt's Hole.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
peach: to inform against
". . . But you won't peach unless they get the black spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again, or a seafaring man with one leg, Jim -- him above all."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
11/11/97
trebly: 1a. having three parts or uses: threefold. 1b. triple in number or amount.
"For my part, I must do my best to save this fellow's trebly worthless life . . ."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
11/10/97
assize :the former periodical sessions of the superior courts in English counties for trial of civil and criminal cases -- usually used in plural.
"If you do not put that knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honor, you shall hang at the next assizes."
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
11/3/97
sedulous:diligent in application or pursuit.
He had a remarkable ability to imitate other writers -- to play "the sedulous ape," he called it -- and yet he always remained himself.
Preface to the Washington Square Press edition of
Treasure Island
capstan: a machine for moving or raising heavy weights that consists of a vertical drum which can be rotated and around which a cable is turned.
I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterward:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest --
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"
in the high, old, tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars.
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
10/23/97
vug: a small unfilled cavity in a lode or in rock.
There were crystals in the mountains, scattered among the stones of long-dry streambeds, perhaps broken free from the vug in which they formed, or leached up from some deep volcanic tube.
The Rains of Eridan
H. M. Hoover
10/22/97
adduce: to offer as example, reason, or proof in discussion or analysis.
. . . no credible evidence that would stand up in a court of law has ever been adduced to prove that Shakespeare did not write his plays or that anyone else wrote them.
"The Author" in the Folger Library edition of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
flambeau (plural flambeaux): a flaming torch; broadly
Three hundred wedding guests carrying lighted flambeaux wound down from the hills to take part in the play.
"A Fairy Fantasy" in the Folger Library edition of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
epithalamium: a song or poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom
As was suitable in an entertainment designed for a wedding, the play closes with an epithalamium . . .
"A Fairy Fantasy" in the Folger Library edition of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
desultory: 1. marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose. 2. not connected with the main subject. 3. disappointing in progress or performance.
Various other pieces in the play may have come from his desultory reading.
"A Fairy Fantasy" in the Folger Library edition of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
competence: 1. a sufficiency of means for the necessities and conveniences of life.
In the course of his career in London, he made enough money to enable him to retire to Stratford with a competence.
"The Author" in the Folger Library edition of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
10/11/97
shunt: 1a. to turn off to one side : shift 1b. to switch (as a train) from one track to another.
The distant rumble of traffic had ceased; five minutes ago he had been cursing the engines shunting in the marshalling yard at the end of the road.
"All the Time in the World"
Arthur C. Clarke
10/3/97
insouciance: lighthearted unconcern : nonchalance
An insousciant [sic] grin flicked Murbella's mouth.
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
9/29/97
sangfroid (pronunciation:sane-F(R)WA): self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain. From the French sang-froid -- literally, cold blood.
Odrade revealed characteristic sangfroid when braced with this question.
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
sirocco: 1a. a hot dust-laden wind from the Libyan deserts that blows on the northern Mediterranean coast chiefly in Italy, Malta, and Sicily. 1b. a warm, moist, oppressive southeast wind in the same regions. 2. a hot or warm wind of cyclonic origin from an arid or heated region.
More rain here could mean a diversion of high-altitude winds. That in its turn would change things elsewhere, cause moisture-laden siroccos where they would be not only upsetting but also dangerous. Too easy to bring on great tornadoes if you inserted the wrong conditions. A planet's weather was no simple thing to treat with easy adjustments.
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
benison: blessing, benediction
You lived in interesting times, as the ancient curse/ benison had it.
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
9/25/97
aperitif: an alcoholic drink taken before a meal as an appetizer.
I'll see if I can scare up an aperitif before I start cooking.
Personal conversation.
9/20/97
fervency: fervor
I'm sure you appreciate the fervency (is that a word?) of my resolution.
Personal email
veronica: 1. Speedwell, a perennial herb (Veronica officinalis). 2. an image of Christ's face said to have been impressed on a cloth that Saint Veronica gave him to wipe his face on the way to his crucifixion; also : a cloth resembling the legendary one of Saint Veronica. 3. a pase in bullfighting in which the cape is swung slowly away from the charging bull while the matador keeps his feet in the same position.
pase: a movement of a cape by a matador in drawing a bull and taking his charge.
mordant: 1. biting and caustic in thought, manner, or style : incisive. . . acting as mordant. 3. burning, pungent
"Taraza's classical veronica (how apt the bullring image) had aimed the Honored Matres into such episodes of carnage that the universe was mordant with potential supporters of their brutalized victims."
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
tabula rasa: 1. the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions. 2. Something existing in its original pristine state
Let the future remain uncertain for that is the canvas to receive our desires. Thus the human condition faces its perpetual tabula rasa.
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
9/19/97
pavane: A stately and formal Spanish dance for which full state costume is worn; -- so called from the resemblance of its movements to those of the peacock. [Written also pavane, paven, pavian, and pavin.]
"Testing, re-testing, shaping and re-shaping. A constant process, never stopping, never satisfied. It was your own private pavane, similar to that of other Mentats but it carried always your own unique posture and steps."
Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank Herbert
* This definition is from the Hypertext Webster Gateway at UCSD.
The elephant bookends image is from The Home of the Horizontal Rule
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Britt Scharringhausen Last modified: Mon May 6 15:46:27 EDT 2002