lap·is laz·u·li

n. An opaque-to-translucent blue, violet-blue or greenish-blue semi-precious gemstone composed mainly of lazurite and calcite.

na·mas·te

“…In India, every time you meet or say goodbye to somebody, you put your hands in front of you and say, Namaste. That means, I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honor the place in you where, if you are at that place in you, and I am at that place in me, there is only one of us. Namaste…” –Dr. Leo Buscaglia

chant·pleure

v. An amalgam of two words from the French, combined by the English. The first, chant, means to sing. The second, pleure, means tear, lament, or to weep. Joined together, these two words, so opposite in their respective meanings, form a much needed and perfectly lovely word meaning “to sing and weep at the same time.” [Obsolete, amazingly enough]

ru·mi·nate

v. To turn a matter over and over in the mind. To reflect on over and over again.

ex·e·dra

n.

1. A usually curved outdoor bench with a high back.
2. An often semicircular portico with seats that was used in ancient Greece and Rome as a suitable place for a philosophical conversation.

[Latin, from Greek : ex-, ex- + hedra, seat.]

pel·lu·cid

adj.

1. Admitting the passage of light; transparent or translucent.
2. Transparently clear in style or meaning: pellucid prose.

[Latin pellucidus, from pellucere, to shine through : per-, through; see pera + lucere, to shine.]

sky·sill

n. The horizon. [Old English]

glis·sade

n. A gliding step in ballet. A controlled slide, in either a standing or sitting position, used in descending a steep icy or snowy incline. verb To move smoothly, continuously, and effortlessly.

syz·y·gy

n., pl. -gies

1. In astronomy, the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in the same gravitational system along a straight line.
2. In Gnosticism, a divine active-passive, male-female pair of aeons, complementary to one another rather than oppositional.
3. In mathematics, a relation between the generators of a module M.
4. In medicine, used to signify the fusion of some or all of the organs.
5. In philosophy, signifies “unity-friendship-community,” used as either an adjective or a noun, meaning a pair of connected or correlative things, or a couple or pair of opposites.
6. In poetry, the combination of two metrical feet into a single unit, similar to an elision. Syzygy is the shortest English word containing three ‘y’s.
7. In psychology, the archetypal pairing of contrasexual opposites, which symbolizes the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds. The conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity.
8. In zoology, the association of two protozoa end-to-end or laterally for the purpose of asexual exchange of genetic material, or the pairing of chromosomes in meiosis.

I first came across this wonderful word in my early teens while reading Theodore Sturgeon’s 1947 short story It Wasn’t Syzygy, which really took off the top of my head.

aq·ua·relle

n. A drawing done in transparent watercolors.