Your voice sounds like sparks in a dark room. Like honeycomb, dripping. Like first meeting on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Deep blue moth wings flirting with my veins. The flicker of night thoughts. Your brave mind slipping past all my defenses. My sailor’s tongue sucked into your mouth.
Your voice engulfs me. Makes me want to burn bridges. Your voice pushes everything off the table and puts yourself on it. Right up against me. Your voice takes my heart in both your hands and kisses it. Your voice makes me weak, then stronger than diamonds. I spill out inside your voice.
When I yearn, your voice gets me. When I’m broken, your voice heals me. When I’m lost, your voice discovers me. Your voice calls down the stars.
your voice travels up my spine, reciting a love song over heated skin. feeling your passion burn through my bones. words which echo throughout my sensuality chambers, tattooing your name upon my ribcage. I surrender.
your voice consumes me. awakening me with fiery need and calming me with peaceful waters. covering me in you. creating honey covered stars upon your tongue as you suckle goosebump flesh. your spoken whisper is my lullaby, bringing forth easy sleep as we pull breath from the same lungs.
when I ache, your voice sustains me. when I’m covered in despair, your voice rescues me. when my heart bleeds, your voice is my healing balm. your voice -is the key which unlocks all of my worlds.
3. an unrestrained expression, as of feelings:poetic effusions.
4.Pathology. a. the escape of a fluid from its natural vessels into a body cavity. b. the fluid that escapes.
5.Physics. the flow of a gas through a small orifice at such density that the mean distance between the molecules is large compared with the diameter of the orifice.
Origin: 1350–1400; Middle English (<Anglo-French ) <Latin effūsiōn- (stem of effūsiō), equivalent to ef-ef-+fūsion-fusion
“There is an intensity and effusion of spirit in them, in which his own more studied compositions are somewhat wanting.” - CHARLES J. ABBEY AND JOHN H. OVERTON, THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1. resounding loudly, especially with a plaintive sound, as a bell.
Origin: 1815–25; <Latin plangent- (stem of plangēns), present participle of plangere to beat, lament. See plain2,-ent
“It seemed as large as the shell of a cathedral, and for organ there was the plangent, echoing sound of sea waves.” - CYRIL ARTHUR EDWARD RANGER GULL, THE AIR PIRATE
1. to treat with disdain, scorn, or contempt; scoff at; mock:to flout the rules of propriety.
Verb (used without object)
2. to show disdain, scorn, or contempt; scoff, mock, or gibe (often followed by at).
Noun
3. a disdainful, scornful, or contemptuous remark or act; insult;gibe.
Origin: First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English flouten “to play the flute” (see flute); compare Dutch fluiten “to play the flute, talk smoothly, soothe, blandish, impose upon, jeer”
“Is it a safe thing, think you, Sir Count, to jest with a princess in her own land and then come back to flout her for it?” - S(AMUEL) R(UTHERFORD) CROCKETT, JOAN OF THE SWORD HAND
1. not to be daunted or intimidated; fearless; intrepid; bold: a dauntless hero.
Noun
2. (initial capital letter) Also called Douglas SBD. the principal U.S. Navy fleet bomber of early World War II, capable of carrying bombs or depth charges and particularly successful as a dive bomber.
“But in spite of those rather weary looking eyes, young Mortier was possessed of a burning enthusiasm and a dauntless courage.” - R. P. DUNN-PATTISON, NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS
1. a whirling about on one foot or on the points of the toes, as in ballet dancing.
2.Dressage. a complete turn in which the horse uses its hind legs as a pivot.
Verb (used without object),pir·ou·et·ted, pir·ou·et·ting.
to perform a pirouette; whirl, as on the toes.
Origin: 1700–10; <French: a whirl, top, feminine of Middle French pirouet, equivalent to pirou-(cognate with Italian pirolo, diminutive of piropeg) + -et-et
“Jessie suddenly hopped down from the chair arm and began a pirouette about the room, clapping her hands as she danced.” - MARGARET PENROSE, THE CAMPFIRE GIRLS OF ROSELAWN
1. of the nature of or resembling glass, as in transparency, brittleness, hardness, glossiness, etc.: vitreous china.
2. of or relating to glass.
3. obtained from or containing glass.
Origin: 1640–50; <Latin vitreus, equivalent to vitr(um)glass + -eus-eous
“This he dropped into some molten lead, but it was nearly all exhaled in smoke, and the residue was simply of a vitreous character.” - WILLIAM HENRY DAVENPORT ADAMS, WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN
2. a restless, disordered, or tumultuous state of affairs: the maelstrom of early morning traffic.
3.(initial capital letter) a famous hazardous whirlpool off the NW coast of Norway.
Origin: Maelstrom comes from an early Dutch proper noun that is a combination of the verb malen (“to grind”) and the noun stroom (“stream”). The original Maelstrom, now known as the Moskstraumen, is a channel located off the northwest coast of Norway that has dangerous tidal currents and has been popularized among English speakers by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne (whose writing was widely translated from French) in stories exaggerating the Maelstrom’s tempestuousness and transforming it into a whirling vortex. Maelstrom entered English in the 16th century and was soon applied more generally in reference to any powerful whirlpool. By the mid-19th century, it was being applied figuratively to things or situations resembling such maelstroms in turbulence or confusion.
“There is that might-have-been which is the single rock we cling to above the maelstrom of unbearable reality.” - William Faulkner
1. dear; sweetheart: used in referring to or addressing a woman or girl.
Origin: Borrowed from Anglo-Norman cheri, from Old Northern French cherise (“cherry”), from Vulgar Latin ceresia, a reinterpretation of the neuter plural of Late Latin ceresium, from Latin cerasium(cerasum,cerasus (“cherry tree”)), from Ancient Greek κεράσιον (kerásion, “cherry fruit”), from κερασός (kerasós, “bird cherry”), and ultimately possibly derived from a language of Asia Minor. Displaced Old English ciris (also from Vulgar Latin ceresia), which died out after the Norman invasion and was replaced by the French-derived word.
“"I tell you it is like taking the life of a puppy, ma cherie,“ he was saying.” - JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD, THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE
Origin: The adverb erstwhile has been part of English since the 16th century, but it is formed from two words that are much older. It comes from the Old English words ær, meaning “early,” and hwīl, which has much the same meaning as the modern word while. (The English word ere, meaning “before,” is also descendant of ær.) The adjective erstwhile, as in erstwhile enemies, joined the language around 1900.
“After all, my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished, need we say it was no love, just because it perished?“ - Edna St. Vincent Millay
Origin: First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, originally “lost, stray (animal), unclaimed (property)” (compare Old French guaif “stray beast”), from Scandinavian; compare Old Norse veif “movement to and fro, something waving, flag”; see waive
3. to arrange or comb (the hair) in a coiffure; to style (the hair).
4. to provide with a head covering or headdress; cover with a coiffure.
Origin: First recorded in 1625–35; from French, equivalent to coiff(er) “to dress the hair” + -ure noun suffix; see origin at coif2,-ure
“He rose and kissed her lightly on the forehead, experience teaching him to avoid a stray hair from the carefully built coiffure.” - Gertrude Atherton, Ancestors
Origin: Cruciverbalist is a combination of two Latin words—crux “cross” and verbum “word”—and in this way, it’s a direct translation of the word crossword using Latin elements. Crux is also the source of numerous words related to crosses or, more figuratively, focal points, such as crucial and excruciating, while verbum’s descendants include verbal, verbiage, and verbose, all of which pertain to words.
“There is an honour among crossword-solvers. I would never give away an answer to a fellow cruciverbalist, unless specifically asked to do so. And if someone did ask me for an answer, I have to confess that I wouldn’t regard that person as a proper cruciverbalist.” - SIMON BRETT, BLOOD AT THE BOOKIES, 2008
1. utterly unyielding or firm in attitude or opinion.
2. too hard to cut, break, or pierce.
3. like a diamond in luster.
Origin: 1200–1250; Middle English <Latin adamantinus<Greek adamántinos. See adamant,-ine1
“Each bound to the other, through all the vicissitudes of life, in adamantine bonds of love and admiration!” - Various, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852
1. of or relating to the lion: We breathlessly watched the pride, in its leonine majesty, as it moved across the veldt.
2. resembling or suggestive of a lion: the conductor’s wild, leonine hair.
3. (usually initial capital letter) of or relating to Leo, especially Leo IV or Leo XIII.
Origin: First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English leonyn, from Latin leōnīnus “lionlike,” equivalent to leōn- (stem of leō) + -īnus; see origin at lion,-ine1
“He was still bearded, still rather leonine, but he was better groomed than in those days in India.” - Anne Warner, The Tigress
