Creative Writing Exercise: Visit a Dictionary

I have a sick fetish for dictionaries. I love them. I love going to bookstores and flipping through them and trying to think of words that couldn’t possibly be included in every single edition. So without further ado, we begin our adventure:

I bought this dictionary because it had one of those words that rarely showed up in smaller paper back dictionaries: Lugubrious. (To be in a drunken stupor). But to my dismay, it didn’t have involute, or miscegenation, and a bunch of other ridiculously esoteric words that each author seems to have a small arsenal of. And now I am slightly disheartened with these memories while I visit the dictionary.

No matter! I will randomly flip and find a new word today. On a page full of f’s the only word I have never encountered in my life is ferrous. It’s an adjective, my dictionary tells me rather matter-of-factly, and means to contain iron. Next up: A page of s’s. S-L’s to be exact. I’ve read the two pages aloud because I like the sound of words that begin with Sl. Slush, sloe, slog. Sluice is a verb, and it means to wash in running water. And to think someone out there was so utterly frustrated with having to explain the idea of flushing something under water they had to invent the word “sluice”, not that it’s the kind of word that can be said out loud comfortably anyway.

One more: a page of t’s, and I have found the most ridiculous word: tonsure. It’s a noun that defines the “shaved patch on a monk’s or other cleric’s head”. I imagined that the entire head should be shaved, and furthermore, why not any patchily bald man’s head?

P.S.: Uxorious: To be overly fond of one’s wife. Adjective. Who knew references could be so entertaining?