Wondrous Words Wednesday

I’ve been enjoying reading this link up on my sister’s blog here , so I figured I’d give it a try.

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I am currently on a Shakespeare kick. I find the more I read him the more I understand and the more I enjoy his mastery of the english language. However, there are a plethora of words that I am unfamiliar with, or words of whose exact meanings I was unsure (being lazy and just guessing by context instead of looking them up). Here are my selections from “Twelfth Night.”

zanies: “I protest I take these wise men that crow so at these set kind of Fools no better than the Fools’ zanies.”

(1) Subordinate fools in comedies whose function is to imitate the main comic character. (2) assistants, flatterers.

nonpariel: “O’ such love/Could be but recompensed though you were crowned/The nonpareil of beauty.”

Adjective- having no equal, peerless. Noun-A person or thing having no equal. It also means a small pellet of colored sugar for decorating candy, cake, and cookies and a flat, round, bite-sized piece of chocolate covered with this sugar.

consanquineous: “Am not I consanguineous? Am not I of her blood?”

of the same blood, related. (This word was actually self defining, but I thought it was neat and I hadn’t heard it before so I figured I’d add it to the list.)

fustian: “A fustian riddle!”

pretentious, pompous

vouchsafed: “My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed ear.”

 willing, graciously attentive

The following are Shakespearing slang. I don’t know if they count, but they might be fun to slip in to casual conversation to see who is paying attention.

sneck up: shut up. HA! Going to try this one out at work…

sheep-biter: dog. Derogatory slang used by Thomas Nash to describe a hypocritical Puritan.