Reading time: About 1 minute
Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: concupiscent.
I don’t usually read mystery stories; I’m much more interested in other genres. But someone recommended The Silent Wife to me and I agreed to give it a try.
The story — a psychological thriller, really — describes the troubled relationship of a woman who’s a psychologist with her philandering husband, who’s a developer. I won’t spoil it by telling you anything more except to say that the writing, by A.S.A. Harrison, is surprisingly skillful — one giant leap beyond what we normally see in thriller/mysteries.
The book also re-introduced me to the wonderful word, concupiscent. Here is the sentence in which it appeared:
Meanwhile she and Todd were in their blissful third year of being a couple, still in the brash, lingering phase of going everywhere together, going out just to be seen in all their concupiscent glory.
I knew it meant lustful, but I had no ideas about the roots of the word until I checked in my dictionary of etymology. The adjective is Latin, dating to the mid-15th century, from the word concupiscent, present participle of concupiscere meaning “to long for, covet.”
It immediately makes me think of the commandment, “thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” which ties perfectly with the title of this book.
