Hydromania

Hydromania is a craving or passion for water. 

I'm not sure my wish to be on a beach qualifies as hydromania, but I would quite like to be somewhere sunny and sandy, with gentle waves rippling on to the shore and gulls wheeling overhead...

Matins

Matins, which may also be written as martins, is a service of morning Christian prayer. Or it may be a night 'office of prayer', but it can also happen at daybreak or in the evening. There, aren't you glad I cleared that up for you?

Matins (or mattins) is both the singular and the plural, so at least that's simple.

You may recall me moaning about poets getting an extra definition for the word bedew (no reason you should remember, but you might). They're at it again with matins as they can use it to describe birdsong. Only in the morning though.

Bedew

According to my dictionary, to bedew means to cover with dew or sprinkle with drops of water. That part seems fair enough, but it goes on to state that poets can also use the word to mean sprinkle with tears.

Does it seem fair to you that a poet's characters' cheek may be be bedewed with tears but mine may not?

No, I didn't think so. Oh well, sometimes life isn't fair, so I'll confine all my bedewing to that involving unsalted water.

Conflate

To conflate is to blend or fuse together two sets of information – usually texts. When Rosemary J Kind and I worked on our joint book, she conflated her contribution with mine. The resulting conflation is From Story Idea to Reader.

Miaul

To miaul is to cry like a cat, or to mew. I have no idea, other than the spelling, how it differes from miaow. Do you know?

Bagpuss doesn't miaul, he snores.

Contranym

A contranym (or contronym or even autoantonym if you prefer) is a word for which there are two opposite or contradictory meanings.

As examples–

 'Left' can mean remaining or departed. When the girls left the room, the boys were left behind.

'Trim' can either mean adding or removing something. I trim my hat with flowers, but trim the hedge with shears. 

'Refrain' is either to stop or repeat depending on the context. I might sing the refrain, or refrain from singing. (If you're nearby, you'll prefer the latter.)

Can you think of more examples?

Gadabout

A gadabout is a person who gads about. Obvious when you think about it, isn't it? Well, that's unless you're not entirely sure what gadding about involves. Fortunately I'm a gadabout myself (even when writing my books) and therefore able to enlighten you.

To gad is to go about in search of pleasure, or idle wandering and adventure. A person doing this can be said to be 'on the gad'. I have gadded on numerous occasions.

After writing it in all it's forms, I'm no longer sure I like the word gadabout and would rather you thought of me as the travelling writer.

Swoop

To swoop often means moving easily and rapidly through the aiir. Swoop is a word generally used in conjunction with another. When followed by down, it means to dive or drop at speed, like a bird of prey. If swoop is followed by on, it implies making a sudden attack from a distance. Swoop up means to snatch everything in one go.

During my trip to Wales earlier this year, I watched choughs swooping through the air - just as my character Alice does in Firestarter. (I'll keep any similarities between our trip and the next chapter in the novel to myself!)

Undertow

An undertow is a current, below the surface of the sea, which is moving in a different direction to that of the surface current.

Today is our fith wedding anniversary – and the sixth anniversary of the day Gary proposed to me at sea. It happened just about here.

Feel free to complain about that news not being current, or suggest I've had him under tow ever since.