It’s possible you just might have noticed a slight focus on Christmas in the last several issues of Webb Weekly.

That’s certainly the case with my own recent articles; but since some readers won’t get their Christmas-week copy till 12/26, I was stumped on a theme for the year’s final batch of “Weird Words.” And so — with the issue’s arrival essentially spanning Xmas — I decided to go with oddball terms that either start or end with X.

Here’s the first half of that list. (Words ending in X are saved for next week!)

Xanthomata (zan-THOE-muh-tuh, noun) – Plural form of xanthoma, a medical term for a yellow patch or nodule filled with lipids. (My doctor-wife puts it more simply: “cholesterol plaque.”)

The Greek base “xanth(o)” means “yellow,” giving us many other X-words: xanthous (for races with yellow hair and fair complexions); xanthopyll; xanthochromism (a goldfish condition); xanthochroia; and the ubiquitous xanthan gum — a cream-colored food additive. There is one more, however:

Xanthopsia (zan-THOP-see-uh, noun) – Also a medical condition, this causes one to see things as yellow; the term is somewhat familiar because Vincent Van Gogh had it — which explains the color-scheme in many of his paintings.

Xenogeny (zee-NAH-juh-nee, noun) – Also called xenogenesis, this is “the supposed production of offspring completely unlike either parent” (Collins English Dictionary). Secondarily, it’s also a synonym for abiogenesis.

Xenogeny may recall the more common xenophobia, which means fear of strangers, foreigners or other cultures. The two terms are related because “xeno-” is a Greek base meaning “strange” or “foreign.”

Xerarch (ZEER-ark, adj.) – The similar Greek root “xer(o)” means “dry”; from this, we get xerography and its well-known derivative, Xerox … because that printing process, unlike others before it, does not use wet ink!

Quoting my beloved American Heritage Dictionary, xerarch means: “Originating in a dry habitat, such as a rocky shore, cliff, or desert.” (The related adjective xeric describes organisms adapted to such environments.)

But even in the sprawling, 2100-page AHD, the “X” section occupies a mere three pages! Happily, it also supplies our next two definitions:

Xerosere (ZEER-uh-sear, noun) – “A succession of ecological communities originating in a dry habitat.” And …

Xerosis (zih-ROW-sis, noun) – “Abnormal dryness, especially of the skin, eyes or mucous membranes.” It can also mean the normal hardening of tissue with age.

Xerus (ZEE-russ, noun) – An African ground squirrel. (Classic weird-word definition!)

Xylocarp (ZIE-low-carp, noun) – My running list of oddball vocab is generally collected from widespread reading in books, magazines and newspapers. So I don’t recall where I came upon this X-word; but among several dictionaries, I could find this only in the exhaustive Collins — which has nearly three times as many entries as most hardcover dictionaries. That massive volume defines xylocarp as any fruit which, like the coconut, has a hard, woody shell.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, “xylo-“ is also a Greek base; it means “wood.” That root likewise gives us xylograph, or wood-carving. (“Graph” is Greek for “write”; thus, photograph means “writing with light” — a charming definition for that art-form.)

The same base provides our next term:

Xylotomy (zie-LOT-uh-mee, noun) – This is the preparation of wood for microscopic examination — by slicing it thin.

And with that, I just can’t resist one more Greek reference: “tom(y)” means “cut,” as in so many surgical procedures: tonsillectomy, mastectomy, appendectomy, etc. Believe it or not, tom- is also found in atom — after the prefix “a,” meaning “not” or “without” (as in asexual, atheist, anonymous, amorphous). Thus, atom literally means “not cuttable” — because at the outset of atomic science, they couldn’t imagine anything smaller!

Xystus (ZISS-tuss, noun) – From Merriam-Webster online: “a long and open portico used especially by ancient Greeks or Romans for athletic exercises in wintry or stormy weather.” Can also mean a walk lined with trees. And just in case you have more than one of these, here’s the plural form: xysti.

Axolotl (AK-suh-lah-tull, noun) – Yeah, I know — doesn’t start with X. But this is such a fun word — I just had to include it. And since this article has leaned so heavily on my dictionary stash, I’ll quote from one more go-to of mine — the Random House Collegiate: “any larval salamander of the genus Ambystoma, found esp. in lakes and ponds of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.” From the language called Aztec, Nahuatl or Mexicano, it literally means “servant of water.” The excellent RHC adds that axolotls can breed in the larval stage.

Gotta love dictionaries; I sure learned a lot working on this piece!

Hope you did too.