Word of the Day

I was reading Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert when I came across this paragraph. “She was watching him with that speculative look he had noticed earlier. As though she was an entomologist and he was some kind of interesting lepidopteran”.

I don’t know about you, but it really annoys me when I am happily reading along and run smack into a word I am not sure of the meaning of. I used to be a lazy reader and just take a guess at the meaning. You can infer from this paragraph that a lepidopteran must be some sort of bug. But what kind? Enquiring minds want to know. I ran to the Merriam-Webster dictionary for a quick definition and it was as suspected: a lepidopteran is any of a large order (Lepidoptera) of insects comprising the butterflies, moths, and skippers that as adults have four broad or lanceolate wings usually covered with minute overlapping and often brightly colored scales and that as larvae are caterpillars.

I can’t wait to toss that little gem out into conversation.

It is satisfying to continue expanding your vocabulary even when you are done with school or not competing in national spelling bees. Now I just need to check up of hagiography (thank you, New York Times) and spurious.