abstemious: [L. ab away, tementum intoxicating
drink] restraint, i.e. from food or drink.
abulia: inability to make a decision
a cappella [Italian: cappella chapel] without
instrumental accompaniment.
I guess this would mean music similar to
the traditional all vocal, pristine Gregorian-like chants murmuring in chapels
throughout Europe. Currently, however, a capella might mean the loud, raucous
gospel music in a small Baptist church.
acciaccatura [Italian crushing] /ah cha kah TOO
rah/ a discordant note sounded with the
principal note or chord. This is one of
the amazing beauties of listening to Thelonious Monk. Surprising, startling, epiphanous
beauty. My son John and I were listening to a solo
Monk CD and were discussing how we would love to have a compilation of the last ten seconds of each of his songs...striking, creative, evocative dissonant
endings. An acciaccatura.
acme [Greek, ackme the highest point] the highest point; something that
represents perfection.
This makes me reminisce about other words
that denote the highs and lows of things, of life.
I always loved the phrase ‘the waxing and waning of the moon’ as the yellow
two-cusped crescent diminishes or enlarges before wide eyes. To reach for the heights… to wax (as in the
repetitive dipping of candles ), reach the summit, the peak, the epitome, to
start the Chaucerian pilgrimage, to glimpse the penultimate before the ultimate,
the acme, the alpha. The see the zenith
(zenithal - a stunning adjective), the
apogee of the innocent space shot that left us all breathless, the pure, heroic
astronauts drifting around the moon, rhythmically reaching the apogee of their
trajectory, the apex. And then the
contrasting lows: the nadir, the waning, the inevitable omega. The yin, the denoument and anticlimax, the
slow, beauteous symphonic descrescendo. The crepuscule after the sunrise.
Actin-
[Greek aktin Old English uhte morning twilight] 1. having a radiate form (flowers usually are
actiniform; they have symmetric petals radiating from the central stem; 2.
Having to do with ‘radiation’
My interest in this word is due to the
etymology of ‘morning twilight,’ since some of my favorite words are about the
setting of the sun, i.e. crepuscule, crepuscular, dusk, twilight. This comes as a pleasant surprise to find out
that the word “twilight” also refers to the morning. A crepuscular morning.
Scientifically, twilight refers to the
time when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon until it is at the
horizon. This is called “civil twilight”
and refers both to evening twilight and morning twilight when the night sky
starts to imperceptibly lighten. Actual
dawn or dusk is when the sun is ‘at’ the horizon.
Who doesn’t have memories of their first dawn? For me this brings back memories of
that magical time as a Freshman in college. I
had a small group of friends and we would sit in the dorm hallway all night
discussing philosophy, poetry, literature, Thoreau, Walden. It was 5 a.m. and
one of us suggested, “Let’s go sit on the golf course and watch the sun rise”
as we sat there in the dorm….and we did.
We lay together on the cool green grass covered with dew, on our backs
staring silently at the stars and at our futures. A feeling of unity, friendship and peace. I can still
feel the morning twilight gradually dawn on all of us, enveloping us, the dawn
of our young lives was upon us.
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