Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.  If you want to play along, grab the button, and join the fun!  (Don’t forget to leave a link in the comments if you’re participating.)

All of my words this week came from my nifty Word-a-Day calendar that Santa Claus brought me.  This calendar gives the definition, uses the word in the sentence and gives some interesting facts.

1. langue – “Langue makes communication possible; without it, we could not process and understand each other’s utterances.”

In French, langue literally means “language,” but in English it means language viewed abstractly as a system of forms and conventions used for communication in a community.

Since I found that definition hard to understand, I looked this word up on wiktionary.org and it said langue means language as a system rather than language in use. Langue is the formal rules, structures, and limitations of language.

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2. ultima – “For the last line of her poem, Sheila needed a word with an ultima that rhymed with “green,” so she found a way to use “magazine.””

Ultima means the last syllable of the word.  (The second to last syllable is called the penult or penultima.)  The related word ultimate, originally referred to the last of something in a series.

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3. syncretic – “Dr. Portman and his partners practice a syncretic form of medicine, borrowing from both Eastern and Western medical traditions.”

Syncretic means characterized or brought about by the combination of different forms of belief or practice.

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What new words have you encountered lately?