Black Spring

Black Spring Glossary

Insouciance

Nonchalant, unconcerned

Fuliginous

Sooty, obscure

Glabrous

Smooth, as skin

Exgurgitating

Another term for regurgitating, as food

Luminol

An almost white to yellow crystalline compound C8H7N3O2 that gives a brilliant bluish luminescence when it is treated in alkaline solution with an oxidizing agent (as hydrogen peroxide) and that is used in chemical analysis

Chancre

A sore, usually the first lesion of syphilis

Guffawing

Laughing loudly

Mercurial

Fickle

Inunctions

Rubbing of oil or ointment

Anagogic

Interpretation of a word, passage, or text (as of Scripture or poetry) that finds beyond the literal, allegorical, and moral senses a fourth and ultimate spiritual or mystical sense

Harbinger

Omen, foreshadowing something to come

Apoplexy

A state of intense rage and energy

Derelict

Homeless person

Cotyledon

The first leaf or one of the first pair or whorl of leaves developed by the embryo of a seed plant or of some lower plants (such as ferns)

Phantasmagoria

A shifting optical effect or illusion

Cloying

Disgustingly sweet or precious

Conflagration

A fire

Penchant

Predilection for something

Portly

Heavyset

Somnambulistic

Like a sleepwalker