loup-garou

loup-garou \loo-ga-ROO\, noun:

A werewolf; lycanthrope.

In the bushes, the loup-garou snarled quietly, and its eyes brightened, burned with scarlet fury.
-- Jim Butcher, Fool Moon

Those who were of French descent among them, and full of the old Acadian superstitions, explained it simply enough by saying he was a "loup garou," or "were wolf," and resigned themselves to the impossibility of contending against a creature of such supernatural malignity and power.
-- Charles Roberts, "The Gray Master," Concord Junction, 1911

Loup-garou stems from the French word of the same spelling which also means werewolf. The word loup also means "wolf" in French. It entered English in the late 1500s.

eidolon

eidolon \ahy-DOH-luhn\, noun:

1. A phantom; apparition.
2. An ideal.

"An eidolon, a manifestation, if you will, sent up to us from the uttermost deeps to bring about the end of the world."
-- Neil Gaiman, Looking for the Girl

It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide.
-- H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider

Eidolon comes from the more common word idol, which originally referred to pagan religious idols. It was first used in the 1820s.

cantrip

cantrip \KAHN-trip\, noun:

1. Chiefly Scot. A magic spell; trick by sorcery.
2. Chiefly British. Artful shamming meant to deceive.

Used properly, it may be possible to drive a vampire or garou into frenzy with this cantrip.
-- Steve Long, Ethan Skemp, Combat

And before I knew it her arms were around me, and she smelt of lavender and delicious silk, and her voice in my ear was whispering something—a cantrip, I thought, with a twist of surprise, a cantrip, just like the days in Lansquenet—and then I looked up and it wasn't Maman there at all.
-- Joanne Harris, The Girl with No Shadow: A Novel

Cantrip is of uncertain origin, but it is most likely a variation of the Old English word calcatrippe which referred to both a plant and a type of iron ball used to block calvary in warfare.

teratoid

teratoid \TER-uh-toid\, adjective:

Resembling a monster.

They wandered, amazed, through street after street of these teratoid villas and they concluded that the architecture of Knokke-le-Zoute was unique and far more disrespectful to the eye than that of any other maritime settlement they had ever seen, worse, by far, than Brighton or Atlantic City.
-- Jean Stafford, "The Children's Game," The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, 1958

Later she rechecked the engraving and was appalled to see that Lincoln had lain on what appeared to be a teratoid, golden oak, four-poster bed.
-- William Manchester, The Death of a President, November 20-November 25, 1963

Teratoid was coined in the 1870s. The root terat- is a Greek combining form that means "indicating a monster."

supernorma

supernormal \soo-per-NAWR-muhl\, adjective:

1. In excess of the normal or average: supernormal faculties; supernormal production.
2. Lying beyond normal or natural powers of comprehension: supernormal intimations.

On the other hand, the voyager may also feel that he possesses supernormal powers of perception and movement, that he can perform miracles, extraordinary feats of bodily control, etc …
-- Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience

The limbs twitched, the eyes gleamed, the blood-pressure appeared heightened, and there was a supernormal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning

Supernormal was first used in the 1860s. The prefix super- has a number of common senses. In this case, it is used in the sense of "an individual, thing, or property that exceeds customary norms or levels" as in superstar.

uncanny

uncanny \uhn-KAN-ee\, adjective:

1. Having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary: uncanny accuracy; an uncanny knack of foreseeing trouble.
2. Mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange: Uncanny sounds filled the house.

Again the mood is uncanny, with strange perturbations in the atmosphere, the abstruse word choice purposely jarring: "suzerain," "diacritic," "acephalous," "zebu," "argute."
-- Charles Bukowski, introduction by David Stephen Calonne, Absence of the Hero

She saw him put his hand on the shoulder of their mother's chair, touch the fringe on a lampshade, as if to confirm for himself that the uncanny persistence of half-forgotten objects, all in their old places, was not some trick of the mind.
-- Marilynne Robinson, Home

Uncanny once meant "mischievous." The association with the supernatural arose in the 1770s. The word canny means careful, astute, skilled and frugal.

delate

delate \dih-LEYT\, verb:

1. Chiefly Scot. To inform against; denounce or accuse.
2. Archaic. To relate; report: to delate an offense.

"I will delate you for a warlock to the Privy Council!" said Sir John. "I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of a tar-barrel and a torch!"
-- Sir Walter Scott, "Wandering Willie's Tale," Selected Short Stories

What's more, if you persist in disobeying me, I'll have no choice but to delate you to His Excellency the Archbishop.
-- Andrew M. Greeley, The Priestly Sins

Delate stems from the Latin word dēlātus which is the past participle of dēferre meaning "to bring down," like the modern English word defer.

parturient

parturient \pahr-TOOR-ee-uhnt\, adjective:

1. Bearing or about to bear young; travailing.
2. Pertaining to parturition.
3. Bringing forth or about to produce something, as an idea.

With a scornful snicker, he settled himself behind his desk, replaced the empty cigarette holder in his mouth and lapsed into parturient silence for a few moments.
-- Joseph Heller, Catch 22

To her nothing already then thenceforward was anyway able to be molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferate mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be received into that domicile.
-- James Joyce, Ulysses

Prometheus or Hephaistos smote the head of the parturient god with an axe, and Athena leaped out fully armed.
-- William F. Hansen, Handbook of Classical Mythology

Parturient is derived from the Latin word parturient- which literally meant "being in labor" or "desiring to bring forth."

acephalous

acephalous \ey-SEF-uh-luhs\, adjective:
 
1. Without a leader or ruler.
 2. Also, acephalic Zoology. headless; lacking a distinct head.
 
Some magicians, as Walter Scott, for instance, having appeared in the world, who combined all the five literary senses, such writers as had but one—wit or learning, style or feeling —these cripples, these acephalous, maimed or purblind creatures—in a literary sense—have taken to shrieking that all is lost, and have preached a crusade against men who were spoiling the business, or have denounced their works.
 -- Honoré de Balzac, The Muse of the Department
 
Only one of my books is without a preface, — though some of them are disguised as notes, or forewords, or afterwords, — and I hereby apologize for the acephalous condition of that volume.
 -- Cyrus Townsend Brady, Woven with the Ship
 
Acephalous stems from the Greek combining form -cephalous meaning "having a head or heads" and the prefix a- meaning "not, without."

recusant

recusant \REK-yuh-zuhnt\, noun:

1. A person who refuses to submit, comply, etc.
2. English History. A person, especially a Roman Catholic, who refused to attend the services of the Church of England.

He looked swiftly around to make sure no one was watching, stepped forward, and put his arms around the recusant in a quick embrace. "I'm sorry it had to go this far," he murmured, then stepped back and raised his hand in a parting salute. "If you leave now you could still make it back to the recusant Headquarters alive. And may we meet as friends next time."
-- Vyshali Manivannan, Invictus

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by my monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to the inquisitorial agents—the pit whose horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

Recusant comes from the Latin word recusāre meaning "to demur, object."

assoil

assoil \uh-SOIL\, verb:

1. To absolve; acquit; pardon.
2. To atone for.

Come up, wives, offer of your yarn! See, I enter your name here in my roll; you shall enter into heaven's bliss; I assoil you by mine high power, you that will make offerings, as clear and clean as when you were born — (lo sirs, thus I preach).
-- Bennett Cerf, An Anthology of Famous British Stories

"Go, and assoil thy living patient: the dead are past thy cares." — " I go," said the Monk of Montcalm, " and Heaven grant that I may shed around his death-hour, that peace which, I fear me, bloody prelate, will be denied to thine!"
-- Charles Robert Maturin, The Albigenses

Assoil is derived from the same root as the similar word absolve. However, assoil came into English through the Middle French word asoiler rather than directly from Latin like the word absolve.

veloce

veloce \ve-LAW-che\, adjective:

Played at a fast tempo.

And when I tired of reading I would swim in my pool, parting the azure blue water like a veloce human knife.
-- Sergio De La Pava, A Naked Singularity

Ah, I mention his name and your eyes, they light up veloce come un razzo—fast as a rocket.
-- Jacquie D'Alessandro, Summer at Seaside Cove

Veloce stems from the Latin word vēlōcem which was the accusative form of vēlōx meaning "quick."

ombudsman

ombudsman \OM-buhdz-muhn\, noun:

A government official who hears and investigates complaints by private citizens against other officials or government agencies.

Despite these common characteristics of ombudsman systems, there are significant variations across national contexts. The Swedish and Danish ombudsmen exemplify two different models.
-- Bruce E. Cain, Russell J. Dalton, Susan E. Scarrow, Democracy Transformed?

You have reached the Washington Sun's ombudsman desk. If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one. If you spoke to a reporter off the record but were identified in the article, press two…
-- Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking

Fate, or destiny, under God, is the poor man's omnipotent ombudsman.
-- Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights

Ombudsman comes from the Swedish word ombud which means "agent, attorney." It entered English in the 1910s.

fulgurant

Origin:
1640–50; < Latin fulgurant-  (stem of fulgurāns,  present participle of fulgurāre ), equivalent to fulgur-  ( see fulgurate) + -ant-  -ant

Medical Dictionary
fulgurant  ful·gu·rant (f&oobreve;l'gyər-ənt, -gər-, fŭl'-)
adj. 
Characterized by sudden shooting pain.

World English Dictionary
fulgurate  (ˈfʌlɡjʊˌreɪt) 
 
— vb  
 rare  ( intr ) to flash like lightning 
 
[C17: from Latin fulgurāre , from fulgur  lightning] 
 
fulgurant 
 
— adj