Occasionally, I post new-to-me words discovered during my reading rambles. I do this for my edification. If you’ve stumbled across this post and you're a word-nerd, you might enjoy these as well. Following each word is a short definition (sometimes with a thought interjected parenthetically), trailed by the context in which the word was found.
voluptuary: a person addicted to luxury and pleasure of the senses | “With his boundless capacity for self-referring, he enrolled the invention of sense in the search for pleasure. The two were identified: reading as jouissance (the French word for joy that also means coming); the pleasure of the text. This too was typical. He was, as a voluptuary of the mind, a great reconciler.” - Susan Sontag, “Remembering Barth,” Under the Sign of Saturn
jouissance: physical or intellectual pleasure, delight, or ecstasy | ibid - Susan Sontag, “Remembering Barth,” Under the Sign of Saturn
swivet: a panic or extreme discomposure | “I was soon sprawled on the floor at home, surrounded by drifts of undifferentiated paper, and near tears in a catatonic swivet.” John McPhee in his book Draft No. 4, describing the overwhelming dread he faced writing his first cover story for Time magazine.
[Neurotic that I am, I stumbled across the word terrane in John McPhee’s Draft No. 4, had no idea what it meant, and discovered there were three different, “terrains”]:
terrane: A block of the Earth's crust that differs from the surrounding material, and is separated from it by faults. “You are on the low side of the learning curve and don’t even know terrain from terrane.” John McPhee, Draft No. 4
terrene: Of or like earth; earthy
terrain (adding this definition here as a comparison): A stretch of land, especially with regard to its physical features. (Another definition): of or relating to or inhabiting the land as opposed to the sea or air.