As your friendly neighborhood lexicographer approaches another collection of weird words for Webb, Abraham Verghese’s novel “The Covenant of Water” stands at #5 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Sales have been aided by the sterling success of Verghese’s earlier “Cutting for Stone,” which spent more than two years on the NYT roster — and by the fact that Oprah Winfrey tapped “Covenant” for her wildly influential book club.
But the book’s ongoing popularity no doubt rests largely on its literary brilliance; it is frankly a masterpiece, in my opinion establishing its author as this century’s equivalent to Charles Dickens.
And so — because my massive inventory of oddball vocab is mostly culled from books I’ve read — our next two wordlists will honor Verghese, with a selection of new-to-me terms from “Covenant of Water.” The novel’s Indian setting — and its many characters working as physicians or suffering from disease — will explain the geographical and medical theme in these two lists.
Brinjal (BRIN-juhl, noun) – Indian and African word for an eggplant; also known in Britain as an “aubergine” (OH-bur-zheen).
Cricoid (CRY-coid, noun) – A ring-shaped cartilage in the lower larynx; also, an adjective referring to this area. Loosely related to the word “circle.”
Defervesce (dee-fer-VESS, verb) – Used of a fever when it decreases. Its origin is in a process called “back formation,” where a new word emerges usually by clipping a suffix off an existing one. Here the original term is “defervescence,” related to the more familiar “effervescence” — since “ferv” is a Latin base meaning “boil or bubble.”
Dhobi (DOE-bee, noun) – In the Far East, a man employed to wash clothes.
Gadgie (GAD-gee, noun) Man, boy or boyfriend; a Scottish term from the early part of Verghese’s novel, which has some chapters set in Glasgow.
Gastrojejunostomy (GAS-tro-jeh-joon-OSS-toe-mee, noun) – Surgical procedure for creating a passage between the stomach and the jejunum — the middle section of small intestine. According to Medscape, this can be necessary to drain the stomach properly or provide a bypass for its contents. The term for the resulting route, incidentally, gives us another cool word: anastomosis. And on a final note, this word (like the vast majority of weird medical words) is constructed from Greek bases: “gastro,” meaning stomach, and “tom(y),” meaning “cut” — as in the more familiar appendectomy, mastectomy and tonsillectomy.
Ghat (GAWT, noun) – A mountain pass, or steps descending to a river — in keeping with the novel’s pervasive water theme.
Jugum (JOO-gum, noun) – According to Wiktionary, this is a “connecting ridge or projection, especially on a bone.” It can also refer more specifically to this type of ridge on certain insects and plants. On another etymological note, “jug-” is a Latin base meaning “yoke or join,” giving us such words as “jugular” (which also connects) and even the slightly respelled “junction.”
Kippa (KIH-puh, noun) – A Jewish skullcap, often crocheted.
Lassi (LAS-ee, noun) – The terrific dictionary.com, on which I have leaned heavily in this piece, describes this as “an Indian beverage of yogurt or buttermilk, water, and spices, often with the addition of fruit or sweetener.” Sounds delish!
That’s 10 from Verghese; look for another set on July 18.
