As an author, I always love stumbling upon new words that are either unusual or have fallen out of usage. I’m always game for increasing my vocabulary and as I tend to write fantasy, old, Middle English words tend to offer a touch of authenticity to the stories.
Today’s word is melichrous.
Pronunciation: “mel-LEE-krooss”, or “mel-LEE-kruss”
It derives from the old Greek word melichroos and it means: the color of honey yellow
“The big cat licked his chops as he pressed closer, his large melichrous eyes set on me as if I were his next meal.”
I love the word as I believe describing something as the ‘color of wheat’ or ‘amber’ or ‘honey’ is a little clichéd and old. We hear it all the time. Melichrous is fresh, dynamic…different. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and can find ways to incorporate it in your vocabulary.
Have a lovely Sunday.
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YA Chit Chat 
Would you worry about using melichrous in young adult writing? Your audience wouldn’t know the word and wouldn’t want to look it up. Of course, if was in Kindle they might be able to just click on it and the definition would come up.
Also, I’m looking for an artist to draw renderings of my characters for my website. Who did your heading art?
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The art on the top of the blog page is a Creative Commons/Public Domain image so I can’t help you with finding an artist. I’m actually looking for one myself to draw my dragons, my Duwan fae and main characters. I’ve searched Deviant Art and found some artists there but have not engaged them in conversation as to how much they would charge.
Words…I was always one that if I didn’t know a word, I looked it up. I want my readers to do the same. With a word like this, some readers may skim over and not think anything else, but I’m hoping there are some that would take the time and look it up. As long as the writing isn’t overwhelmed with these kinds of words, I think kids may actually enjoy the challenge. In the instance with my novels, I’m hoping they will be cross-overs between YA and NA. That is my hope and dream.
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Gorgeous word! I’ll never remember it, but hopefully if I see it in a book one day, I’ll flash back to reading this post and recall its meaning 🙂
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Good one. You can build a lot of character with that word, as only a well educated person would know or use it.
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Thanks for the new word! I’ve always been fascinated by word origins and learning about words that are no longer in common use, as I write historical fiction, too. 🙂
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I think one of the qualifications necessary to be a writer is the ability to get a bit breathless at the idea of finding the perfect word. Thanks for sharing this one, Jenny!
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I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for stopping by.
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