What's the right word?

The most apt one in context.

I love words like essence, emotion, God, art, truly, irrational, scumbag, grout, changed, juxtaposition, etc.. I love lots of words.

I like the word "ethereal."

Abbondanza! Quintessential! Both good words. The language I think has to stay true to the world you're in though. Haven't found an opportunity to use either yet.

Zanzibar and lapis lazuli are favorites of mine. Really Something about the z's, I think.

richcapo said:

I like the word "ethereal."

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Lutetium.

Chris Hill said:

It's the sound often isn't it? And the way the sound links with the meaning - not necessarily in an onomatopoeic way - but just something which suggests the spirit of the word.

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I also like the word 'silver' because it somehow acts like silver: it's shiny, and slips out of the mouth like an oiled pebble.

Circumlocution. Malaprop. Onomatopoeia.

And other inherently funny words.

Cuspidor. A beautiful word for a container of spit.

Aardvark.

Chris Hill said:

An oiled pebble - I like that very much

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I thought the same thing.

I don't know. Maybe it's possible to love a word too much. Sometimes I see a piece of writing studded with lots of gnarly words, and I can't help feeling that the writer is trying just a tad too hard.

It's like a gibbous moon. Lovely word. Rolls across the tongue. But on the page? Can sometimes come across as pretentious.

I've been editing recently and have put a lot of red lines through words which I absolutely adored when I wrote them, but with hindsight ... maybe not.

backslashbaby said:

lapis lazuli

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I came across this a few months back in an m/m novel. Fell in love with it.... Some things just stay with you.

Voice/POV is everything to me when making a word choice. I like, for instance, evanescent a lot, but ephemeral is also cool and yet my character might think fleeting or short-lived or maybe even not long for this life, dude.

I do love a word that feels or sounds like its meaning. Drudge. Spit. Acerbic (somehow a tart word). And I like foreign words that we use that just seem fun to my English language ears, like rutabaga or haboob. Or that rhyme internally. And I fall in love with words for their etymology, like with avocado, originally Nahuatl for "testicle."

And there are a few words I irrationally dislike, for they've never done a thing to me. Dilapidated is one. How it got on my bad side, I can't explain.

lorna_w said:

And there are a few words I irrationally dislike, for they've never done a thing to me. Dilapidated is one. How it got on my bad side, I can't explain

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I actually like dilapidated, although I can't say why. I never use it, though.

Of course, I like a lot of big, fancy words, that I never use. I don't like using words I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce. See them lots, never hear them used in everyday conversation in MS.

Anonymous. Geode. Spruce. I like those words too.

The apt word is the right word, imo.

I love azackly. What? it's totally a word!

I love the word 'eloquent'. Beautiful and expressive. I actually have to be careful not to use it much, because I would.

I love language and words, but I don't get very fancy in my writing unless the word is pitch-perfect. You can express a lot simply, and I'm of the school that if you can, you should.

I've grown fond of sesquipedalian. I haven't used it though.

I like the word lugubrious, although I don't think I've ever actually used it in a story. I like to say it. I like how it sounds precisely as it means.

Sultry.

caw

I just learned the word "amalgam" the other day, reading some article or another. I plan to use it sometime in the near future

Salubrious.