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.
stela (stiːlə): an upright stone slab or column typically bearing a commemorative inscription or relief design, often serving as a gravestone. | "This chronicler of past grandeurs [Chateaubriand], this solitary voyager touched with emotion at the sight of stelae with nowillegible names, never ceased to cry that human memory would obliterate him from its records-but he did so in the manner of those brilliant students who, to ward off failure and attract success as a reward for their humility, lament time and again that they have botched their homework and still receive time and again the highest grade, to their classmates' great chagrin. He certainly didn't imagine that one day there would be people who wouldn't know whose grave was marked by this anonymous stone." | Maël Renouard and Peter Behrman de Sinéty, Fragments of an Infinite Memory, My Life with the Internet
monadic (məʊnad): in philosophy, an indivisible and hence ultimately simple entity, such as an atom or a person; in biology, a single-celled organism, especially a flagellate protozoan, or a single cell; Latin from Greek monas, monad- ‘unit’, from monos ‘alone’. | "Each thing will deploy itself beneath our gaze in irs monadic singularity, that is, in the infinity of its nature, its history, its relation to the entire world." | Maël Renouard and Peter Behrman de Sinéty, Fragments of an Infinite Memory, My Life with the Internet
amalgam (əˈmalɡəm): a mixture or blend; from French amalgame or medieval Latin amalgama, from Greek malagma ‘an emollient’. | "We were an unhealthy amalgam until I left to lead a life of my own. Was I the shiełd between her and her terror, was I the one who kept her from sinking into the abyss?" | Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts
malefic (məˈlɛfɪk): causing harm or destruction, especially by supernatural means; in astrology, relating to the planets Saturn and Mars, traditionally considered to have an unfavorable influence; from Latin maleficus, from male ‘ill’ + -ficus ‘doing’. | "They ran aground in one of the innumerable tentacles of the river and were not found until much later, by which time they had all died of hunger, thirst and the heat. In this way, a part of the world's elite was offeredup asa buman Sacrifice to the new century. Manaos — malefic consonance." | Maël Renouard and Peter Behrman de Sinéty, Fragments of an Infinite Memory, My Life with the Internet
tessitura (tɛsɪˈtjʊərə): the range within which most notes of a vocal part fall; origin Italian, literally ‘texture’, from Latin textura. | "Though I sometimes scream: I no longer want to be I! but I stick to myself and inextricably there forms a tessitura of life. May whoever comes along with me come along: the journey is long, it is tough, but lived." | Clarice Lispector, Água Viva