A peripatetic list of words I've looked up.

In my writing folder on my hard drive is a file titled, WORDS I’VE LOOKED UP. It went dormant for several months at one point, but lately I’ve been adding to it. I thought I might share some of them with you, with explanations that may or may not be true.

gherkin — 1. small variety of cucumber or a pickle made from one; 2. trailing plant with cucumberlike fruits used for pickling.

I think I found this in a description of an enormous spliff, probably in Wonderboys (Chabon novel), and had no clue what it was. I remember maybe three summers ago, my last one in Portland, I decided to listen to Wonderboys on my iPod while I did yard work and the like, and I seem to remember a scene in which Grady Tripp is out at his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s house and shares a tobacco-laced joint with his soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law. This joint is likened to a gherkin, which is a pretty meaningless simile if you haven’t ever seen one before or even heard the word, which I hadn’t.

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numinous — having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating the presence of a divinity

I love this word, especially its potential for comic use. I think I once described a character’s eyebrows as “numinous” in a short story. It seemed appropriate. Probably got it from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz).