Sunday, February 11, 2007

Words I Don't Know: Ordurous

Welcome to the first installment of words I don't know. I came across "ordurous" in Cormac McCarthy's novel "Suttree." Based on McCarthy's use, my guess was that the word did not have a pleasant meaning. I was right.

A Merriam-Webster online dictionary search came up empty but led me to "ordure":
Pronunciation: \ˈr-jər\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from ord dirty, foul, from Latin horridus horrid
Date: 14th century

1: excrement
2: something that is morally degrading

My sentence:
"Norbit" appears to be an ordurous movie, but it dominated the weekend box office by taking in $33.7 million.

2 comments:

Ben said...

Hope this becomes a regular feature. I found it to be what we physicists refer to as "anti-ordurous."

Ted said...

Yeah, I plan for it to show up on a regular basis. I may even use less offensive words sometimes.