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 new button (or the old graphic), and join the fun!  (Don’t forget to leave a link in your comment if you’re participating.)  Thanks to Julie for the cute new button!

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My first two words for this week come from A Separate Country by Robert Hicks.

1. tignons – “I watched women dressed in white smocks and white tignons leading the coffin, and the men in white following behind with the coffin on their shoulders.”

Since tignon is so similar to chignon, I suspected it was a hat and I was right.  A tignon is an article of woman’s headgear consisting of a piece of material tied in individual ways.

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2. tendentious – “They are, of course, tendentious and coarse, as Hood is himself, and they will do little to improve his reputation, but I am a man of my word and I will cause them to be published if he dies.”

Tendentious means marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view; biased.

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My last word this week came from Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani.

3. proscenium – “It’s a simple auditorium with wooden seats that fold up; and a proscenium stage with black velvet drapes that create scrims on the upstage wall of the theater.”

I’ve encountered this word before, but never looked it up.  Proscenium is the part of a modern stage in front of the curtain.

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What new words have you encountered lately?