My Five Favourite Pretty Words

Here are my five favourite pretty words. Apart from the first one, I have noticed a theme which is that they all seem to be to do with things that sparkle. Oh well…

1.Oubliette- of French origin, an oubliette is a dungeon without windows or doors. The only way in or out was usually through a hatch in the high ceiling. Not a nice meaning for such a pretty word.

2.Tinsel – I love this word. I love the way it looks on the page, the way it sounds when spoken and I love the connotations it brings with it. You’d probably have to be writing about Christmas to use this word.

3.Glitter – ooh, sparkly! I love sparkly things and I have fond memories of using glitter profusely when I was a child, much to the annoyance of parents and teachers! This is a word which probably owes more to its associations than its actual sound for its inclusion in the list.

4.Celestial – and again, all things twinkly! The word “celestial” though, always looks like such an elegant word when I see it written down. It comes from the Latin “caelestis” or “caelum”, meaning heaven and is often used to refer to angels and other heavenly beings. I always think of shining angels and twinkling stars in the heavens when I hear the word celestial, anyway. Oh, and apparently there is a race of heavenly beings called Celestials in the Star Wars universe, Dungeons and Dragons and the Marvel Comics (Wikipedia). I didn’t know that…

5. Jewel – Just seeing and hearing this word makes me thing of bright colours, and of crystals catching the light. I even like the names of precious stones – beautiful words like diamond, sapphire, emerald and ruby.

I suppose this article shows that the beauty of a word is mainly in its associations, as well as the sound of it, and how it looks written down. I like things that sparkle, therefore the words that I find pretty are the ones associated with sparkly things. Maybe the words a chef would find pretty are words like ganache or julien and a scientist would like the words astrophysics or photosynthesis. It would be interesting to find out…