Lapidary prose is so elegant and precise that it’s worthy of being carved into stone. Lapidary comes from Latin lapis, meaning stone, and is related to the brilliant blue stone, lapis lazuli, and the word dilapidated, from a Latin word meaning to destroy — originally, to pelt with stones. This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...