Aphotic Pulchritude
Being a writer, there isn’t a creative spurt that goes by where I do not stop to search for synonyms when one form of a word just doesn’t seem like enough to me, or when I have to use that word more than once every few paragraphs  and need more forms  of it  to make it less repetitive. And more often than not, I find that there are so many more interesting synonyms for everyday words than I thought there were.
Today, I wanted to share the less-used synonyms of words that pertain to the chapter I’m currently writing. I’ve searched for all of these today, and I absolutely love the synonyms! They’re rather amazing.
And yes. I am a nerd.
Get over it.
Dark(lack of light): Aphotic, caliginous, nebulous, obfuscous, Stygian, tenebrous, adumbral
Dark(secret, hidden): Abstruse, anagogic, cabalistic, recondite
Light: Lambent, lucent, refulgent, scintillant
Evil: Execrable, flagitious, nefarious, pernicious, rancorous,
Red: Cerise, florid, rufescent, rubicund, sanguine, titian, vermilion
Cold: Algid, boreal, brumal, frore, gelid, heimal, hyperborean
Calm: Bucolic, halcyon
Beauty: Pulchritude
And with that spurt of words, I’m off to write more.
Oh, my cat says hi.
Or it might be “go away.”
I can’t tell.
Mara
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10 Comments
Emily
Lol, with that kind of stare, nobody knows what a cat is saying..
I’ve always loved Microsoft Word because it has a synonyms search.. select a word, and boom, if it has synonyms, it’ll give them to you.
Love the new background! You can see the snow much better now! Off to try to catch some virtual snow on my virtual tongue xD 😀
Mara
Actually, I use thesaurus.com, because while Microsoft Word does have synonyms, there are many that it doesn’t list. And it doesn’t know what a lot of these words are. 😀 If I only have one window open on the internet while writing, it’ll be thesaurus.com.
I thought you would appreciate that. Haha! I kind of just imagined you sitting there licking your computer screen to catch the snowflakes. 😀 That’d be an interesting situation to explain.
Bethly
HAAAIIII KITTY!!!! *reaches to hug it* *bumps into computer screen* Owie!
I LOOOVE synonyms. Wow. A little heavy on the caps tonight. Well, take it as a sign of excitement for your word-filled post! WORDS!!! 😀 One of my long time favorites is lucent. It just rolls off the tongue so prettily.
Mara
Hehe. She probably would not like to be hugged, sadly. My cat isn’t very cuddly unless she choses to be. (Which is why I think she was probably saying “go away”) But you can pet her. She likes to be petted.
It’s okay. I forgive you for all the caps. I do it too.
😀
I figured you’d like this post, seeing as how you’re a fellow word-nerd.
Lucent IS a pretty word!
Bethly
Oh, most excellent! I’m good at petting! I have a special cat friend at my besties’ house and he enjoys his belly rubs far more than cuddling. He’s quite the lady’s man, but he loves me most especially. Or at least I like to think so. 😛
Mara
Awwww. I love it when cats like belly rubs. Mine sometimes loves them, sometimes hates them. Maybe you’re special. 😀
Avra-Sha Faohla
Funnily enough, four of these are on my “Words I Like” notepad: tenebrous, flagitious, brumal (to be more precise, that’s “of winter”), and gelid.
Nebulous has always been a favorite, as well as Stygian (which has a cool origin), scintillant, nefarious, pernicious, and, of course, pulchritude. 😉
You’ve also introduced me to some new amusements, such as lambent, refulgent, cerise, titian, and bucolic. Thank you very much! 😀
Another synonym for your “light” list is coruscating. It’s closest to scintillant, as it means glittering. Quite a delightful little word in my opinion.
Oh, and did you know that “boreal” comes from “boreas”, which means the north wind?
Mara
I already knew about half of the words (caliginous, nebulous, tenebrous, abstruse, lambent, lucent, scintillant, execrable, flagitious, nefarious, pernicious, rancorous, cerise, florid, rufescent, rubicund, sanguine, vermilion, brumal, gelid, hyperborean, and pulchritude) from various books (Especially Gormenghast; that book is a treasure chest full of words I’ve never learned!), but I’m quite bad at remembering to USE the interesting words I know. And while searching for synonyms, I sort of reminded myself that there are much cooler words than “black” and I learned a few new ones. 😀
I didn’t know that about “boreal.” Interesting fact! I was going to look up all the ones I hadn’t looked up before, but I didn’t have time. I love knowing random things about words. 😀
Also, coruscating IS a delightful word. I’ll have to use it somewhere.
Avra-Sha Faohla
Don’t forget cabalistic. You must’ve already known cabalistic, too.
Mara
Oop, yes. That one too. 😀