Entry: culcate (adj.)
In context: "...as the culcate handle navigates the inguinal canal..."
Definition: We aren't really off to a great start this week - another neologism, and this one I haven't any idea about. Thoughts?
Other:
SNOOT score: 1
Page: 488
Source: N/A
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
Well, “inculcate” is a verb, and the etymology in the Oxford American English Dictionary says:
ReplyDelete“ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from Latin inculcat- ‘pressed in,’ from the verb inculcare, from in- ‘into’ + calcare ‘to tread’ (from calx, calc- ‘heel’).”
So, a “handle” to be pressed in rather than pulled? Sounds about right for what it sounds like that passage is describing.
Thanks Peter, I think you hit this one pretty squarely.
ReplyDeleteFor my part, I definitely gave up a bit too soon as the link to inculcate is pretty obviously. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting!