A Winter Dictionary: A Collection of Words for the Festive Season
by Paul Anthony Jones
ISBN 9781783968237
Published by: Elliot and Thompson
This is a fun collection of words related to all things winter, starting with the end of autumn transition to early winter and ending with the late winter transition into spring. In between there are chapters devoted to various aspects of winter, such as the weather as experienced both outside and from the inside, festive holiday rituals and activities, landscape, and more. It's a delightful assemblage of words, some relatively new, some old, and some archaic. Each entry includes the word, its part of speech, its earliest known use, a definition, and often amusing examples. There's a word list in the back. As someone who loves winter and finds that it always goes by too fast, I loved diving into this winter wonderland of words and could see myself going back to the book again and again at all times of the year. Whether you're a lover of winter, a lover of words, or both, this is a book to appreciate.
A few of my favorites include:
meldrop: a single drop from a melting icicle or the tip of a person's nose
chimonophile: a lover of wintry weather
cryophile: something or someone who thrives in wintry conditions
antifogmatic: a drink taken to combat the effects of cold or damp weather.
5 comments:
Is this a readable book or just a list of words? I love the idea of a winter dictionary.
Sounds intriguing. Brenda
Erika--other than the intro, it's not structured as a narrative. Rather, each chapter is theme-based and within each are words related to that theme. The structure is like a dictionary within each theme, with occasional commentary from the author/compiler about his search for the origins of the word. I read it a chapter at a time, but it would also be fun to dip in and out of.
Brenda--it's a fun book. :-)
This sounds absolutely wonderful, Shari. I love words! I shall have to see whether the local library has it and maybe even get a copy of my own. Winter is coming so I will have lots of opportunities to work in new words and everyone will be bowled over by my erudition. Well, maybe not Miriam, she’ll just roll her eyes! With my very best wishes - David
Miriam will keep you from getting too big for your britches 😉😏
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