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Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by BermudaOnion at Bermudaonion’s Weblog where we get to share new words that we’ve encountered in our reading. Anyone can join in!

Now that I finished Midnight’s Children I thought I might go through a scarcity of ‘wondrous words’, but lo and behold Iam Fleming has taken me back to school with a few exotic words in his last Bond book ‘Octopussy and The Living Daylights’. Here’s a few of my favourites:

1. Accidie [ˈæksɪdɪ], acedia
n (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) spiritual sloth; apathy; indifference [in use C13 to C16 and revived C19: via Late Latin from Greek
akēdia, from a-1 + kēdos care]

2. Rascasse – ‘Scorpion fish inhabit most of the southern waters of the world, and the ‘rascasse’ that is the foundaion of bouillabaise belongs to the family’. French for ‘scorpion fish’. Used in bouillabaisse.
 
3. Secconal – “Major Smythe had awoken from his Secconal sleep’
Trademark for a sedative-hypnotic (secobarbital sodium).
 
4. Bouillabaise – (Occitan: bolhabaissa) is a traditional Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille.
I know it’s mostly foreign words, but it’s interesting to know them. As I read on I realise that Fleming uses quite a bit of French in his narrative. Not that I mind.