After years of owning it, I FINALLY picked up Lewis' On Stories and encountered these rarely used words:
otiose - from the Latin otiosus, meaning "at leisure, unoccupied, or idle" - generally used to denote something as useless, unproductive, futile
sidereal - from the Latin sidereus, meaning "of or relating to the stars or constellations"
jejune - from the Latin jejunus, meaning "empty, hungry, fasting, or barren" - generally used to reference something lacking nutritive value, or devoid of interest or significance
pusillanimous - this word comes from two Latin words: pusillus, meaning "weak, small, or petty"; and animus, meaning "spirit or soul"; so together it literally means weak-souled or without courage
diuturnity - from the Latin diuturnus, meaning "lasting a long time" - a rarely used word often considered archaic
architectonic - from the Greek words arkhi, meaning "chief"; and tekton, meaning "builder"; so together they mean "pertaining to a master builder" - I love that he uses this word in speaking of Dorothy Sayers.
dyslogistic - from the Greek words dys, meaning "bad"; and logos, meaning "words, language, speech"; together it means "bad words" - basically, the opposite of the word we are more familiar with: "eulogy" which is good words spoken about another person.
optative - from the Latin optativus, meaning "expressing desire" - it is used to name a grammatical "mood" of wishing (not to be confused with the subjunctive which is the mood of "possibility" - what may happen - not "desire" - what I wish would happen). I'll share Lewis' quote on this one because I find his pull-no-punches style entertaining.
"Ever since then, I have tended to use the Parthenon and the Optative as the symbols of two types of education. The one begins with hard, dry things like grammar and dates, and prosody; and it has at least the chance of ending in a real appreciation which is equally hard and firm though not equally dry. The other begins with "appreciation" and ends in gush. When the first fails, it has, at the very least, taught the boy what knowledge is like. He many decide that he doesn't care for knowledge; but he knows he doesn't care for it, and he knows he hasn't got it. But the other kind fails most disastrously when it most succeeds. It teaches a man to feel vaguely cultured while he remains in fact a dunce. It makes him think he is enjoying poems he can't construe. It qualifies him to review books he does not understand, and to be intellectual without intellect."
prosody - from the Latin prosodie meaning "the accent of a syllable" - generally used to refer to verbal intonation or poetic meter (Lewis' sense in the passage above)
