It's not often I come across a word I have to look up but today I did. I always jot such words down, take a blind guess at what they mean and then google them and chortle in glee if I'm close to correct on my assumption. I find searching them out holds the word like glue in my brain. I had a father who was in love with words and we would do the crossword together every night. The Evening Echo of Cork, a reasonably challenging crossword. A fine way for a 6 year old to start developing language skills. We would look up any word we didn't understand.
Take a shot at the above word. I, of course, went right to the "piss" of it. And as the weather was "inspissated" in the story I thought: "beginning to rain." I should of course, know better than to go with the slang of "piss".
So take a shot at what it means......
Here's Merriam-Webster:
Definition of INSPISSATED
: thickened in consistency; broadly : made or having become thick, heavy, or intense
First Known Use of INSPISSATED
1655
in·spis·sat·ed adjective \in-ˈspis-ˌāt-əd, ˈin(t)-spə-ˌsāt-\ (Medical Dictionary)
Medical Definition of INSPISSATED
: thick or thickened in consistency
—in·spis·sa·tion noun
Along with some rather squeamish medical definitions involving breast ducts. We won't go there, alright? And the illustrations for the word - many horrific images. Avoid.
Susan Hill, recently discovered by moi and on whom I have a serious woman-crush, used it to describe the thickening of a mist into fog.
So there.
I learn something new every day.
Now that's one I haven't come across before. I must make a note.
ReplyDeleteI drop by your blog from time to time but don't recall ever having offered a comment but couldn't help myself today...
ReplyDeleteBeing completely unfamiliar with ever encountering your subject word, unlike you I remained thoughtless about what it might mean. But when enlightened, I was absolutely elated!
Although I currently do not appear on any cooking shows nor for that matter have I ever, I am a gravy lover and I foresee using this term often in the future to further my gravy cooking career. I should also note that even though it may be of use as a medical term, I find that thought a bit revolting if I am going to be using it in my gravy making banter.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! :)
I was far off the correct definition. I guessed overstuffed or overfilled for reasons I can no longer fathom!
ReplyDeleteI was off the mark. I was thinking of the soft soak-to-skin rain, that at times, seems unending.
ReplyDeleteTried to break it down: inspissated, part of the word inspire with ssated or having eaten or had enough, sort of came up with: wonderfully satisfied ahahahaha is weather self-aware? I definitely overthink things! LOL waaaaay off so much for breaking it down hehehehe hahahah :D
ReplyDeleteOf course I just had to do a google image search, and then spent too long scrolling through the images. As something of a medical geek, I foudn them fascinating!
ReplyDeleteinspissated used to describe thickening fog?
ReplyDeleteSusan, Susan, you are a writer I much admire; I’ve been reading your stories for many years, but, dear, ‘thickening fog’ would have done nicely. Are you after outselfing Will Self?
www, your love of words has an echo here, both Beloved and I play with words like hedge funders do with other people’s money. We spend a lot of time searching for definitions but prefer our books to be well written without recourse to Thesaurusses. (?)
Oh! I have missed coming here to read. I worked my way through the last six or so posts, delighting in every one. And here I've got a new word to play with as well as chuckles over slug like tears and deep sighs of appreciation for a mother-daughter relationship and a battle wind despite no answering canon!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not among the dead or missing.
That's a battle won, not wind - my fingers are out of keyboard practice, apparently.
ReplyDeleteThat's a new one on me. It sounds like a word you'd come across in cook books. "Here's how to inspissate your soup/sauce/topping" etc. It also sounds like a lovely potential insult - "Jeez, he's so inspissated. Thick as a plank."
ReplyDeleteNow that one I did know, but only the medical definition. I remember it from my days working as an animal nurse!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know you could use it to describe anything outside medical matters though. Interesting.
How have I lived so long without knowing that!
ReplyDeleteI must say, that I'd never come across it either!
ReplyDeleteSusan Hill is one of my favourite authoresses!
Maggie x
Nuts in May