Wondrous Words Wednesday (April 29)

Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog hosts this weekly meme in which she asks us to share new words we’ve come across in our reading. All my words are from Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers edited by Judy Blume.

My first word is from the story “The Beast Is in the Labyrinth” by Walter Dean Myers:

Jitney– “They squeeze into the jitney and I decide to walk” (p. 112).

A jitney is a “bus or other vehicle carrying passengers for a low far, originally five cents.”*

My second word is from the story “Baseball Camp” by David Klass:

Chaw – “The large chaw of chewing tobacco in his mouth caused him to spit regularly, and he timed those occasions to nearly punctuate his story” (p. 128).

A chaw can refer to “chewing tobacco, or a wad of this.” (This one was pretty obvious from the context!)

My last two words are from the story “Love and Centipedes” by Paul Zindel (which I can’t say I enjoyed):

Monstrance – “Emotion burst from her chest, a hallucinatory rush that she was a living monstrance or an elaborate dollhouse” (p. 145).

A monstrance is “a receptacle, usually of gold or silver, with an open or transparent compartment in which the consecrated Host is exposed for veneration.”

Sauerbraten – “‘Remember, you had sauerbraten and I had the Black Forest blood sausages?’” (p. 148).

Sauerbraten is “a roast of beef marinated in vinegar with peppercorns, onions, and other seasonings before cooking.”

What new words have you discovered lately? Share your Wondrous Words on Kathy’s blog.

*All definitions are from the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004).