Make Your Point: CALIGINOUS

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pronounce CALIGINOUS:

kuh LIDGE in us

Hear it.

connect this word to others:

Let's say you're writing a story set in a spooky forest. You could write plainly and call the forest dim, dark, or murky.

But if you're trying to sound like Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, or Edgar Allan Poe, you could call your forest tenebrous, or caliginous, or bit___nous. Can you recall that last one? It means "black and shiny, or hellish, like a burning lake of hellfire."

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

In Latin, caliginem means "fog, gloom, darkness, or mistiness." It entered English around the year 1550 or so as "caliginous."

Literally caliginous things seem foggy, gloomy, dark, or misty.

And figuratively caliginous things seem mysterious and hard to understand.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "a caliginous forest;" "The hallway was humid and caliginous."

Other forms:

None are common, but if you need an adverb, it's "caliginously;" and if you need a noun, you can pick "caliginousness" or "caliginosity."

how to use it:

The word "caliginous" is very rare, and it sounds spooky, literary, mystical, and old-fashioned.

So if that's the mood you're going for, you could talk about caliginous places, like caliginous caves, tunnels, forests, roads, and buildings.

In doing this, you get to add a lofty, creepy tone to your writing—but you have to sacrifice clarity. Most readers have never heard of the word "caliginous."

examples:

"The towering space has a decadence-by-design look: faded walls, chipped tile moldings, abstract art, a glorious old chandelier... The caliginous disco is downstairs in the former bank vault."
— Bryan Miller, New York Times, 12 August 1988

"To the first two [Transformers] movies' clinking, clanking, clattering collections of caliginous junk, T3 adds what has become a go-to staple of Hollywood fantasy: the retro-conspiracy theory."
— Richard Corliss, Time, 29 June 2011

has this page helped you understand "caliginous"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "caliginous" without saying "dark" or "murky."

try it out:

Fill in the blank: "To me, (something that I barely understand) seems shrouded in a caliginous mist."

Example: "To me, social media platforms seem shrouded in a caliginous mist."

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is Make Your Point Before & After!

I’ll give you a clue, and you give me a verbal mashup including at least one word or phrase we've studied before.

For example, if I give you "It's someone who meets you at the library to join you in a state of deep, serious, often gloomy thoughtfulness," then you give me "brown study buddy." It's a mashup of "brown study" and "study buddy."

Try this one today: In the psychological thriller you're directing, it's the way you bring your final scene to a close, giving your viewers a startling glimpse of the story's bizarre, twisted, unpredictable ending, before allowing the screen to dissipate into total darkness.

To reveal the first two hints, highlight the hidden white text.

Hint 1: The number of words in this Before & After is... four.

Hint 2: The first word in this Before & After is... "fade."

Hint 3: Use this term.

To see the answer, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. The opposite of CALIGINOUS is

A. SWEET.
B. SUNNY.
C. STYLISH.

2. You might bump into the word "caliginous" in the works of _____, who often wrote about _____.

A. Louisa May Alcott .. life at home and falling in love
B. Mark Twain .. bravery, friendship, and systemic inequality
C. H. P. Lovecraft .. tentacled nightmare monsters and going mad

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > CALIGINOUS

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