Patsy Collins - Words about writing and writing about words

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...

Matins , which may also be written as martins, is a service of morning Christian prayer. Or it may be a night 'office of prayer', bu...

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 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 ...

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...

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

A gadabou t is a person who gads about. Obvious when you think about it, isn't it? Well, that's unless you're not entirely su...

To swoop often means moving easily and rapidly through the aiir. Swoop is a word generally used in conjunction with another. When followe...

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