I finished reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest a few months ago and along with keeping up with the dozens of wildly different characters in different walks of life, I’ve had the pleasure of learning some new words along the way. While ‘cunctation’ and ‘quincunx’ are fun to say out loud, my favourite words so far have to be aleatory or lacuna.
This Infinite Jest word list below includes words that I already vaguely understood, but it took reading them in a novel to force me to learn their meaning once and for all! Hopefully this list is a nice cheat sheet for anyone else reading the novel. I also hope to pull together a list of blogs/websites that helped me understand the novel, watch this space.
New Words
Élan – energy, style, and enthusiasm
Loquacious – Tending to talk a great deal; talkative
Fugue – A state or period of loss of awareness of one’s identity, often coupled with flight from one’s usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy
Dipsomaniacal – An insatiable craving for alcoholic beverages
Nadir – The bottom, the lowest point
Optative – Of, relating to, or constituting a verbal mood that is expressive of wish or desire
Mordant – Sharply caustic or sarcastic, as wit or a speaker; biting
Anticonfluential – (this is likely a word that David Foster Wallace made up) A reluctance/refusal to allow things to flow together or merge
Leonine – Lion-like
Chiarascuro – The treatment of light and colour in drawing and painting
Deliquesce – (of organic matter) become liquid, typically during decomposition
Ideation – The formation of ideas and concepts
Diurnal – Of or during the day
Dentate – Having a tooth-like/serrated edge
Lebensgefährtin – Partner in life
Leptosomatic – Related to leptosomic, a person of asthenic build
Bröckengespenst – Also called Brocken bow or mountain spectre, is the apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank, or even from an aeroplane
Auteur – A filmmaker whose personal influence and artistic control over a movie are so great that the filmmaker is regarded as the author of the movie
Rapacious – Inordinately greedy and predatory
Samizdat – Literature secretly written, copied, and circulated in the former Soviet Union
Teratogenic – Able to disturb the growth and development of an embryo or foetus
Anfractuous – Tortuous, full of windings and intricate turnings
Fantods – To have the ‘fantods’ is to be in a state of nervousness, distress, or anxiety
Prandial – During or relating to dinner/lunch
Quincunx – A geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them forming a square or rectangle and a fifth at its center.
Plosive – The kinds of sounds usually associated with the letters p, t, k; b, d, g, in which air flow from the lungs is interrupted by a complete closure being made in the mouth.
Aleatory – Depending on chance; random.
Sangfroid – Composure, to be self-possessed in trying situations
Gibbous – Marked by convexity or swelling; when the Moon is more than half full, but not quite fully illuminated
Aperçu – Concise, clever review or summation of something
Capering – Skip or dance about in a lively or playful way.
Hirsute – Hairy, shaggy
Rutilant – Having a reddish glow
Fronds – An often large, finely divided leaf
Eidetic – Relating to or denoting mental images having unusual vividness and detail, as if actually visible.
Nacelle – The outer casing of an aircraft engine **I had no idea about this at all, and when I asked my boyfriend he knew it instantly?!**
Afflatus – A strong creative impulse, especially as a result of divine inspiration
Teutonic – Of or pertaining to the Germanic languages and to peoples or tribes who speak or spoke them
Lacuna – An unfilled space or interval; a gap.
Diorama – A three-dimensional full-size or miniature model
Detente – The easing of hostility or strained relations, especially between countries.
Ephebic – Of or relating to the characteristic of a young man
Apotheosizing – The glorification of a subject to divine level
Mens-sana – Of sound mind
Effete – (Of a person) s overrefined, and ineffectual
Florid – Having a red complexion; elaborately or excessively intricate
Nictitate – To wink/blink
Priapism – A persistent and usually painful long-lasting erection
Coprophilia – A sexual fetish people feel when they come into contact with faeces.
Onanism – Ejaculating outside the vagina during intercourse; (the performing of) coitus interruptus
Apothegm – A concise saying or maxim; an aphorism.
Cunctation – The action or an instance of delaying
Prolix – Using or containing too many words; tediously lengthy.
Amanuensis – A literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.
Falcate – Curved like a sickle; hooked
Fulcrum – The support about which a lever pivots.
Jejune – Naïve, simplistic, and superficial.
Glabrous – Without hair e.g skin or a leaf
Mephistophelan – Wicked
Turpitude – Depravity
Saprogenic – Causing or produced by putrefaction or decay.
Eschatology – A part of theology concerned with the final events of history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity. This concept is commonly referred to as the “end of the world” or “end time”.
Orts – Remains/scraps
Pulchritude – Physical beauty
Nacreous – Possessing the qualities of mother of pearl; iridescent
Escutcheon – An individual or corporate coat of arms
Crepuscular – Of, resembling, or relating to twilight
Hellacious – very great, bad, or overwhelming
Coprolite – fossilized faeces!
Evince – reveal the presence of (a quality or feeling)
Decoct – extract the essence of something by boiling it
Picayune – of little value or significance
Zaftig – A plump woman
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