Rashomon

(RAH-shoh-mohn)

A complex story told from several different points of view.

You probably won't find this one in dictionaries, though it pops up from time to time in modern prose. It's an allusion to Akira Kurosawa's 1950 movie, Rashomon, which won that year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

The movie portrays two two violent crimes from several people's points of view, demonstrating that because the individuals' perceptions vary so widely, discovering the objective truth about what happened is impossible. In 1994, a writer for Vanity Fair put it to good use this way:

"When you talk to any of Mrs. Clinton's longtime intimates, the Hillary that emerges is so different from her public persona that the exercise assumes the surreal quality of a Rashomon experience."

 

rebarbative

(ree-BAR-buh-tihv)

Irritating, repellent.

This prickly word has a "beard" in the middle of it: The barb in rebarbative goes all the way back to the Latin barba, meaning "beard." (And yes, Latin barba is a linguistic relative of English barber.) From Latin barba evolved Middle French se rebarber, which means "to confront or resist." In its most literal sense, though, se rebarber meant "to face (an enemy)", that is, to come "beard-to-beard" with him.

From se rebarber came the French adjective rebarbatif, meaning "repellent," the inspiration for the English word for "causing annoyance, irritation, or aversion."

"Still, everyone appeared to be extremely nice, except that that Dr. Greenfield man was a trifle rebarbative. (This was a word which Toby had recently learnt at school and could not now conceive of doing without.)" - from "The Bell," by Iris Murdoch

 

recondite

(RECK-uhn-dyte)

1. Difficult to undertand, obscure, abstruse.
2. Hidden, concealed.

It's from Latin recondire, meaning "to put away."

"Wayne loved nothing better than to spend whole evenings surfing the Web in search of obscure knowledge--and the more recondite, the better."

 

recrudescence

(ree-kroo-DESS-enss)

A new outbreak; a renewal of activity after a period of inactivity or dormancy.


Recrudescence comes from the Latin word recrudescere, which means "to grow raw again," and once literally referred to worsening wounds. (In fact, both recrudescence and the English word crude share a common root in the Latin word crudus -- literally "raw" or "bloody.")

In the 18th and 19th centuries, recrudescence was used negatively sense, as in 1884, when a newspaper noted: "The fears of a recrudescence of the epidemic are now subsiding."). Nowadays, however, this word can also be used in a neutral sense, or even a positive one.


"Millenarian Christian belief, which has experienced a populist recrudescence in the United States in the past decade, has a long, fevered tradition dating back to the first century A.D., when the most passionate Christians believed that the Second Coming (of Christ) was immediately at hand, and that martyrdom at the hands of their Roman oppressors, often in terrifying circumstances, was to be welcomed, even courted." --
Joyce Carol Oates, in a New York Times essay

redolent

(RED-oh-luhnt)

1. Fragrant, sweet-smelling.
2. Evocative or suggestive of.

Redolent comes from Latin redolere, which means "to smell." It's a relative of olfactory" and odor.

This word is often followed by either "of" or "with."

"At this time of year, our lovely street is snowy with dogwoods and redolent of lilacs."

 

rowel

(RAU-ull)

The spiked wheel on a spur. (Or, as a verb, to goad, vex, or spur.)

Rowel (rhymes with "towel") derives from an Old French term meaning "small wheel," which itself goes all the way back to Latin "rota," or "wheel." This makes rowel a linguistic relative of rotate and the name of that wheel-shaped Italian pasta, rotelli.

"Will you stop roweling me with questions already?"

 

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