Thursday, March 09, 2006

Word of the week

It has been quite some time since I have been courted by the Dictionary. I had an ambition a few months ago to have a 'Word of the week', from memory I have had one word so to be more accurate we shall be calling this 'Word of the quarter'

To be honest I have not found any words lately that I would invite to join my vocabulary. To my dismay many authors in Particilar Mr Robert Jordon seem to just make up words willy nilly as I cannot find many of them in a normal source.

However this one that suits my mood

Maudlin - Foolishy or tearfully sentimental

Supposedly derived from Mary Magdalene in describing the depictions of her, paintings often reflecting sadness that was her life and often she was weeping in potraits. The story goes that the G was dropped and today the spelling of the word has followed the pronounciation.

In fact in centries past women who have fallen from grace was often referred to as Mawdelens and their babies known as Mawdlens

Stangely enough since the church no longer considers Mary Magdelen a woman of easy virtue she is now the patron saint of repentant sinners. Her feast day is July 22nd.

3 comments:

desert flower said...

Tearfully sentimental.... now that sounds like someone we know and love. Beautiful sunflowers, shame about the teddy cake, miss you like crazy. Kiss , kiss

Domestic Goddess said...

About time

Rose said...

What a great word that is. I think that describes me well when I watch a schmaltzy movie. You know what I mean? You know you shouldn't be weepy but you just can't help yourself.