A peripatetic list of words I've looked up #9.

dogsbody — person who is given boring, menial tasks to do

Heard on Downton Abbey; meaning mostly derived from context.

Was it Joseph Culler who said, “We must always say more, and other, than what we mean”? Whenever I divine the meaning of a word from hearing it in context a few times, I wonder how I am contributing to the eternally mutable nature of language.

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febrile — feverish; having or showing a great deal of nervous energy

I am a puddle, you see; I am a directionless beam of light; I am a free radical. I was born in a lagoon on the sun; I was born under three feet of concrete; I was born in your mouth. I shake. I shake. I shake. I break.