"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Monday, 1 June 2009

Archaic

 
I have been made aware that some of my readers are not native English speakers and therefore it would be helpful if I differentiated between words which are in common usage, words used only in poetry / literature and those which are out of date.
I shall endeavour to remember to do this in future. Words with no qualification may be taken as being in current usage, The abbreviation (lit.) will be used to for words found only in poetry and old literature.

Words which have fallen out of fashion are generally referred to as archaic which means a word or phrase that is no longer in general use but is still encountered in older literature and still sometimes used for special effect.
 

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