Category Archives: Glossary

Transcend

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Transcend (verb) – to rise above or go beyond the limits of

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcend

From “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood

I came across this word while reading “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood. It appears towards the end of the reading as the author talks about word usage, it caught my interest because I had an idea of what it meant but didn’t know it’s exact definition so it threw off my understanding of what the reader was trying to say.

“Another thing. Good and wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?”

After reading the definition of the word I better understand the context of how the author was using it in that part of the text. As seen in the quote, they used it to describe how they should improve on the words they used previously by using better words to express their message. The words “good” and “wicked” weren’t good enough so they decided to go above and beyond to use better words, or to “Transcend” their word use.

Wroth

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Wroth >>> : intensely angry : highly incensed : wrathful.

When i was reading one of the Cinderella versions  The Baba Yaga  by Aleksandr Afanasyev, I came across this word and it was unfamiliar. This was the context

“As soon as her father had heard all about it, he became wroth with his wife”

While reading the story I could understand what the word meant generally, but I wanted to make sure I was on the right track. Due to the mistreatment from the girls stepmother the father became really angry and took action. I guess you can remember the word Wroth as Wrathful which also means angry or having intense anger.

 

Dagger

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Dagger (noun) – a sharp pointed knife for stabbing

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dagger

From “Yeh-Shen, A Cinderella Story“ by Aai-Ling Louie

While reading the story written by Aai-Ling Louie, Yeh-Shen, A Cinderella Story I happened to glance a part of the story that surprised me. The use of the word Dagger surprised me because I didn’t think this story of Cinderella would have such a word in it.

“Yeh-Shen was given the worse jobs and the only friend she had was a beautiful fish with big golden eyes . Each day the fish came out of the water onto the bank to be fed by Yeh-Shen. Now Yen-Shen had little food for herself but she was willing to share with the fish. Her stepmother hearing about the fish disguised herself as Yen-Shen and enticed the fish from the water. She stabbed it with a dagger, and cooked the fish for dinner. Yeh-Shen was distraught when she learned of the fish’s death.”

This part of the story surprised me because we all know the story about Cinderella how her stepmother and her daughters treated Cinderella poorly because she was beautiful. Then she wants to go to the ball but isn’t allowed so she visits her mothers tree and meets the fairy godmother. But in this story from China it is much different. Louie uses the fish as a replacement of the fairy godmother. The death of the fish made Yeh-Shen sad and what was left of the fish which was the bones was what gave her the dress and golden shoes.

Malign

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Malign: (adjective) evil in nature, influence, or effect: injurious

“And then, my best idea came to me as I looked at my cup of cocoa. Like the prince trapped inside the body of a frog, that humble white cup, so maligned by the everyday, so misrepresented as a mere vessel, was a work of art waiting to occur.”

Word from Bia Lowe’s I Always Write About My Mother When I Start to Write

The use of the word was to show how neglected and mistreated the cup is. The only purpose of it being a container and nothing else, when in the narrators view it shows more potential and can be used for something else. From what I can understand, the purpose of this word is to express something or someone in a negative light.

 

 

Magnificent

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Magnificent (adjective)- marked by stately grandeur and lavishness.

Source: Merriam-Webster

I saw this word while reading the 1812 version of the Brothers Grimm story, Cinderella. Cinderella uses it in reference to the ball her stepsisters attended the night before.

The next morning the two sisters came to the kitchen. They were angry when they saw that she had sorted the lentils, for they wanted to scold her. Because they could not, they began telling her about the ball. They said, “Cinderella, it was so grand at the ball. The prince, who is the best looking man in the whole world, escorted us, and he is going to choose one of us to be his wife.”

“Yes,” said Cinderella, “I saw the glistening lights. It must have been magnificent.”

Here, Cinderella is saying the party was extravagant and high-class. Basically, she’s saying the party looked like a good time.

 

Sheen

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Sheen (noun) –  a bright or shining condition

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sheen

From ” I Always Write About My Mother When I Start to Write” by Bia Lowe

“I loved to watch her stand over the sink. The sheen of her slip in the bathroom light slid
over the curves of her body like my finger in a bowl of frosting.”

Bia Lowe uses this word to describe the brightness of her mother’s dress, which may be velvet, in the bathroom light and shows the reader that it is glowing. Sheen basically means bright or luster texture on the surface.

 

Image result for sheen meaning

Buoyed

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Buoyed

Past tensed for buoy

Verb

This word is defined as to keep (someone or something) afloat.
“I let the water buoy up my weight”

i found this definition on https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buoy

I came a upon this word in ” I Always Write About My Mother When I Start to Write” by Bia Lowe

The sentence that this word is in is ” I wanted to lay them, breathtaking, at her feet, and by doing so bind her heart to mine, ever after to be buoyed Up like a raft on a calmed ocean. ”

Now that I learned the real meaning of this word I truly understand the passage because in the sentence Bia talks about the raft being buoyed in a calmed ocean. Bia talks about being heart to heart to the mother so I see it as two people all alone with each other and every thing else just fades away. So Stating that she wanted to be like a raft floating in the ocean is like being deeply in love. It’s this feeling that no one else matters anymore.

Epithet

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Epithet:noun:

An Epithet is a disparaging or abusive word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epithet

“Another thing.Good and wicked.Don’t you think that you should transcend those puritanical  judgemental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of it is conditioning, isn’t it?”

Basically this word is a sort of chastization and or warning that writers and or society should stop putting labels on people and things.Essentially people who use this word want things and people to be studied carefully because diffent forms of being or behavior usually have multiple reasons.

Puritanical

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  • Puritanical (Adjective) – of, relating to, or characterized by a rigid morality/ extremely or excessively strict in matters of morals and religion

Taken from Margaret Atwood’s  “There Once Was”

“Another thing. Good and Wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgemental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?“

Atwood used the word puritanical to show the speaker’s point of view at how the idea of “good and wicked” are used in stories, expressing her disapproval that such things were just based on moral principles that was reinforced by old beliefs and that it’s time to move on to that cliche expression. 

 

source:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/puritanical

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/puritanical

 

 

 

Passé

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Passé: (adjective): past one’s prime.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pass%C3%A9

From “There Was Once” by Margaret Atwood:

“There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest.”

“Forest? Forest is passé, I mean, I’ve had it with all this wilderness stuff. It’s not a right image of our society, today. Let’s have some urban for a change.”

As one can see, the listener in the story is criticizing the speaker for choosing to use a forest as a setting for the tale. Forests are settings that old tales took place, and therefore outdated, and a change of setting is needed. A much more modern one, that the listener can relate to.

“That hairstyle is so passé.”