Having one of those thought-streams the other day in which I was wondering about the process of linguistic development and how it affects the way that the world is viewed. But don’t worry, this post isn’t about that, I’m not even close to the level of motivation required to tack down all my little notions about semantics and try to make sense of them. Nope, that’ll be another four years down the road at least.

However, I was scribbling impressions in my notebook and used the word ‘exquisite’. Immediately after writing that word I stopped and decided to do a little fast checking as to the exact definition. What I came across made me grin.

This is from Dictionary.com.

1. Characterized by intricate and beautiful design or execution: an exquisite chalice.
2. Of such beauty or delicacy as to arouse intense delight: an exquisite sunset. See Synonyms at delicate.
3. Excellent; flawless: plays the piano with exquisite technique.
4. Acutely perceptive or discriminating: “Blind dolphins have been known to survive in the wild, guided by exquisite acoustic images of their prey” (Kenneth Browser).
5. Intense; keen: suffered exquisite pain.
6. Obsolete. Ingeniously devised or thought out.

It’s that last one that got me grinning, something about the idea of beauty as being well designed rang some inner bell and I’m even more enamoured with the word now then I was before. Plus, the tag of obsolete struck me at that moment as a challenge, why not try to revive that meaning I thought. So I scribbled a few more notes, and then wrote this post, which you apparently read (ha ha) and my plan to influence your vernacular is that much farther along. There really is something exquisite in the way that works.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 6th, 2006 at 6:26 pm and is filed under indiscriminate, words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.