Faithful readers of John Irving love his novels for (among other things) colourful characters, morbid humour and their celebration of diversity. As one of those faithful readers, another thing I appreciate is that I learn new words with every Irving opus. His latest, Queen Esther, graced me with these additions to my vocabulary.
folderol: fuss, or something that is showy but of no value. The word comes from nonsense syllables (“fal-al-de-rol!”) in old song choruses. “There was no folderol about the seating arrangements.”
shmoonda: Yiddish slang for female genitalia; a vagina. I found no good explanation on the origin of this euphemism, a variation of shmundie. It comes up when the title character asks Jewish boys, who know many words for penis, what the Yiddish word for her genitalia is. “‘You have a shmoonda or a shmoochky!’ one of the Jewish boys cried.”
phimosis: tight foreskin. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word is derived from a Greek word meaning “muzzling.” The etymology for the Greek word is unclear, though. Prevention of this frequently painful condition is mentioned in Queen Esther as a possible reason for circumcision.
bildungsroman: a “novel of formation”; in other words, a novel about the main character’s formative years. The word is of German origin. Bildung means formation. Roman means novel. Classic examples in the bildungsroman genre include Great Expectations and David Copperfield.
antimacassar: a piece of cloth put over the back and arms of a chair or couch to keep them clean. To understand this word’s origin, you need to know that European men long ago used a hair tonic made with a seed oil from the Macassar region of Indonesia. Cloths were placed on headrests to protect furniture from staining. “The Frau was fussing with ancient and soiled antimacassars on the arms and headrests of the sofas and chairs.”
labile: liable to lapse; unstable. My New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993) and the Online Etymology Dictionary say labile’s origins lie in a Latin word. Merriam-Webster says it was “borrowed into English from French,” and French adapted it from the Latin labi. “Post-stroke patients are emotionally labile—they’ll frequently cry over the smallest triggers.”