nenuphar

[prettygoodword]

All the words for the next couple weeks were encountered in works of Dorothy L. Sayers, specifically Have His Carcass, Gaudy Night, and Busman’s Honeymoon. (I also read Strong Poison to complete the quartet, but none of its vocabulary caught my attention.) In order, of course, so the first few are from HHC, starting with:


nenuphar (NEN-yoo-far) - n., a water-lily, esp. the European white water-lily (Nymphaea alba).



Thanks, WikiMedia!

Or as some older dictionaries put it, esp. the Egyptian lotus. This came up when Lord Peter is (as usual) being frivolous with Harriet Vane:

“There’s something in that. But I’ll have to get a decent frock if there is such a thing in Wilvercombe.”

“Well, get a wine-coloured one, then. I’ve always wanted to see you in wine-colour. It suits people with honey-coloured skin. ‘Blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured nenuphar’—I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking.”

The quotation in question is from the poem “The Sphinx” by Oscar Wilde. The word in question is from Medieval Latin nenuphar, from Arabic nīlawfar/nīnūfar, from Middle Persian nīlōpal, lotus/water-lily, from Sanskrit nīlotpala, blue lotus, from nīla, blue + utpala, lotus/water-lily -- so it traveled a fair distance there.

---L.

Comments

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

This is one of the scenes in Have His Carcase that I remember vividly and love dearly and the lines that come after it are brilliant too where she asks him what vintage of wine and he says something, give or take a year. So pretentious but so fun. Such good banter. I generally prefer Lord Peter Vane-less but I love this bit.

[prettygoodword]

Excellent banter, most of that book.

[full_metal_ox]

“Well, get a wine-coloured one, then. I’ve always wanted to see you in wine-colour. It suits people with honey-coloured skin.”

Specifically: “tanned to an agreeable biscuit-colour by sun and wind.”

[prettygoodword]

Yes, I love that line too.

[full_metal_ox]

There’s not only an affection but an observed precision to that description; I’m reminded of a throwaway line in Jack Vance’s Jack of Shadows, about a redheaded princess whose eyes were the color of “the edges of old mirrors.”

[lokifan]

Heee, love the quote!

[prettygoodword]

It's so Lord Peter, part of his silly ass around town persona.