Wondrous Words Wednesday

What new words have you learned this week? Join Kathy to learn even more.

Ben sent me out with a bang—8 more new words before I finished reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin last week.

1. emolument
(n) [ih-MOL-yuh-muhnt]

Definition—profit, salary, or fees from office or employment; compensation for services

Use—“Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument; but I who was intimately acquainted with him (being employed in printing his Sermons and Journals, etc.), never had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day decidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a perfectly honest man, and methinks my testimony in his favour ought to have the more weight, as we had no religious connection.”

2. votary
(n) [VOH-tuh-ree]

Definition—a devoted follower or admirer

Use—“Critics attack'd his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their encrease; so that I am of opinion if he had never written any thing, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect, and his reputation might in that case have been still growing, even after his death, as there being nothing of his writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety of excellence as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed.”

3. merlon
(n) [MUR-luhn]

Definition—(in a battlement) the solid part between two crenels*

Use—“The battery was soon erected, the merlons being fram'd of logs and fill'd with earth.”

          So then I had to look up:
               *crenel
               (n) [KREN-l]
               Definition—the open spaces between the merlons of a battlement

            Arghhh—I’m caught in a loop! Until I found this picture…now I get it.4. calumniate
(v) [kuh-LUHM-nee-eyt]

Definition—to make false and malicious statements about; slander

Use—“He complain'd to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charg'd with abominable principles and practices, to which they were utter strangers.”

5. subaltern
(adj) [suhb-AWL-tern]

Definition—lower in rank; subordinate

Use—“While I was at the camp, supping one evening with the officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he represented to me his concern for the subalterns, who, he said, were generally not in affluence, and could ill afford, in this dear country, to lay in the stores that might be necessary in so long a march, thro' a wilderness, where nothing was to be purchas'd.”

6. hautboy
(n)  [HOH-boi, OH-boi]

Definition—oboe 

Use—“I was at their church, where I was entertain'd with good musick, the organ being accompanied with violins, hautboys, flutes, clarinets, etc.”

7. quarto
(n) [KWAWR-toh] Definition—a book size of about 9 1 / 2  × 12 in. (24 × 30 cm), determined by folding printed sheets twice to form four leaves or eight pages

Use—“Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, for by the additions that arrived afterward they swell'd to a quarto volume, which has had five editions, and cost him nothing for copy-money.”

8. escritoire
(n) [es-kri-TWAHR]

Definition—writing desk

Use—“Is it possible, when he is so great a writer? for I see him constantly at his escritoire.”

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Which words did you already know?