Using the Dictionary

I used the word 'mawkish' in the preceding post. I realized as I wrote it that I wasn't sure what it meant.

I have a larger-than-average vocabulary, but it's full of words whose meanings I intuited from their context in a written passage, rather than by looking them up.

Like "intuited", for example.

Blogblah! used to frequently refer to himself as 'peckish'. Months went by with me thinking 'peckish' meant something like 'peeved', rather than 'hungry'. I think it was Lark who eventually straightened me out on that.

I remember using the word 'erstwhile' in a news story once. It was years – decades, in fact – before I discovered I had used it completely incorrectly. Of course, no one else in the alleged 'newsroom' caught it, either.

If you search the word 'physiognomy' on this blog, you'll find it somewhere, a few years back. I meant 'physiology', but it was again years before I discovered my mistake.

The Macintosh has a perfectly good built-in dictionary. There are several others available online. I have begun, at age 58, a habit I should have begun at eighteen, or even eight: looking up words when I am unsure of their meaning.