Last week, Webb’s “Weird Words” celebrated a major milestone with our 100th vocabulary column.

That somewhat self-indulgent piece comprised a description of my weekly writing process; but it also mentioned another recent milestone: Sometime in the past month or so, the running master-doc—the one from which I draw my lists each week—managed to cross 3,000 words.

Here are the last few oddball terms that enabled me to reach that auspicious landmark:

Apricate (APP-ruh-kate, verb) – “To sunbathe or bask in the sun” (Collins). From an old Latin word meaning “sunny”; not related to April.

Celadon (SELL-uh-dahn, noun) – A grayish yellow-green; also, a Chinese glaze of this color—or an article made with said glaze. (Merriam-Webster)

Delitescent (dell-uh-TESS-ent, adj.) – Hidden, concealed, latent; definitely rare, this word is actually related to the third of those synonyms.

Eburnean (eh-BURN-ee-en, adj.) – Resembling ivory in color—again from Merriam-Webster; few other dictionaries have this. Eburnation is more common—a degenerative condition in which bones or cartilage become unusually hard … like ivory. (Latin for that substance is ebur.) All this is taken from the venerable and exhaustive Collins.

Foudroyant (foo-DROY-ant, adj.) – “Striking as with lightning; sudden and overwhelming in effect; stunning; dazzling”; sometimes used to describe the rapid onset of a disease (Dictionary.com).

Luculent (LOO-kyoo-lent, adj.) – Luc (or lux) was a Latin base meaning “light”; from that ancient word-group we get such terms as lucid, luster and even illustrate. Not surprisingly, luculent means “clear, or lucid”—“easily understood.” (American Heritage)

Niveous (NIV-ee-uss, adj.) – “Resembling snow, esp. in whiteness; snowy” (Random House Collegiate).

Tenebrous (ten-EE-bruss, adj.) – Dark, gloomy.

Hmmm; our sixth adjective on this 10-word list. I must be reading usually descriptive books these days!

Edh (eth, noun) – Yes, this is pronounced like the name Beth. It is actually letter—or rune—in several ancient languages related to English. As such, the scrupulous International Phonetic Alphabet uses it to represent the th sound in words like then, bathe and mother. (It’s a voiced “th”—different from the one in thick and thin—which is why you can’t spell this word eth. “D,” you see, is a voiced letter, too; if you say it without your voice, it becomes a “T”—go ahead, I dare ya.)

Olivaceous (ah-live-AY-shuss, adj.) – One final adjective! As you may have guessed, it means “like, or pertaining to, the olive; olive-green.” Taken from The Winston Dictionary, to which I add this closing encomium:

Although that trim black volume is so old that it lists Adolf Hitler as still alive (“1889—”), Winston is a go-to for me—admirably compact, well illustrated and handsomely laid out.

Subtitled the “Encyclopedic Edition,” it contains—in addition to nearly 1200 pages of definitions—the following appendixes: signs & symbols; weights & measures; foreign words & phrases; names of famous persons & places; common English phrases and their meanings; male & female names—also with meanings; a handbook of proper English grammar and style; and an atlas of the world (now slightly outdated!). Its many charts and plates include birds, flags, flowers, insects, constellations, chemical elements, architectural styles, ships, tools and trees.

I sure miss the days when folks actually compiled, bought and utilized that sort of scholarly resource! You can have this book—along with dozens of other my dictionaries—when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

But frankly, I don’t expect much of a fight. Here at “Weird Words,” I’m just carrying the torch for language and vocab—always gratified that at least a few readers are still apricating in its dwindling light.