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saltings [sawlt-ings]
noun:
(British English) areas of low ground regularly inundated with salt water, often taken to include their halophyte vegetation; salt marshes
Examples:
I trail after them, noting as I go four egrets feeding across the saltings, wondering if they now share the heronry in the lee of Harlech Castle. (Jim Perrin, Red legs flash over the green strand, The Guardian, September 2017)
With a tidal range of up to five metres, millions of litres of water flood and ebb through its narrow entrance twice a day, creating massive areas of food-rich channels, mudflats and saltings for thousands of birds, fish and an increasing number of seals. (Elaine Hammond, High Sheriff of West Sussex explores Chichester Harbour and find out why it is so special, Chichester Observer, August 2020)
The village of Northton on the south of the island provides access to some of the most interestingly formed saltings in the Hebrides. The low-lying grasslands are frequently submerged at high tide and have been shaped into an incredible group of small islands partitioned by a network of gracefully meandering channels. (Jeremy Flint, 10 of the Most Epic Places to Visit in Northern Scotland, Fodors, July 2021)
Derived from salt, from Old English sealtan, from Proto-Germanic salto- (Online Etymology Dictionary)
By Eugène Delacroix - Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives via artsy.net, Public Domain, Link
cerulean [suh-roo-lee-uhn]
adjective:
resembling the blue of the sky; a shade of blue ranging between azure and a darker sky blue
Ten thousand balloons drifted into the cerulean sky as Yoshinori Sakai jogged up the 163 steps leading into the stands of Japan National Stadium. (Rob Gilhooly, When Tokyo unveiled its modernity to the world at the 1964 Olympics, The Japan Times, July 2021)
More than 1.7 million people follow this feline on Instagram to stare into his slightly askew, cerulean eyes and see what costume his owners will dress him up in next. (Paula Froelich, 12 cool Instagram cats to follow on Caturday, New York Post, December 2019)
Far below, the sea is swirling with shades of blue. It’s as if someone has rinsed a paintbrush in it - kingfisher, periwinkle, cerulean and duck egg. (Angelina Villa-Clarke, Find your mojo in Mauritius, The Jewish Chronicle, July 2021)
I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in comparison. (Henry David Thoreau, Walden & on the Duty of Civil Disobedience)
The street that they were following suddenly opened upon a wide avenue, and before them spread a broad and beautiful lagoon, the quiet surface of which mirrored the clear cerulean of the sky. (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan the Untamed)
Origin:
'sky-colored, sky-blue,' 1660s, with -an + Latin caeruleus 'blue, dark blue, blue-green,' perhaps from a dissimilation of caelulum, diminutive of caelum 'heaven, sky,' which is of uncertain origin. The Latin word was applied by Roman authors to the sky, the Mediterranean, and occasionally to leaves or fields. The older adjective in English was ceruleous (1570s). As a noun, from 1756. The artist's cerulean blue is from 1885. (Online Etymology Dictionary)
Cerulean comes from the Latin word caeruleus, which means 'dark blue' and is most likely from caelum, the Latin word for 'sky.' An artist rendering a sky of blue in oils or watercolors might choose a tube of cerulean blue pigment. Birdwatchers in the eastern U.S. might look skyward and see a cerulean warbler (Dendroica cerulea). 'Cerulean' is not the only color name that's closely associated with the sky. 'Azure' (which ultimately comes from a Persian word for lapis lazuli, a rich blue stone) describes the color of a cloudless sky and can even be a noun meaning 'the unclouded sky.' (Merriam-Webster)
Public Domain, Link
exegesis [ek-si-jee-sis]
noun:
critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text; explication, especially of biblical and other religious texts
Examples:
This approach resulted in a more freeform 'rambling philosophical inquiry' rather than 'cinematic exegesis,' according to a statement. (Althea Legaspi, Sufjan Stevens, Angelo De Augustine Preview LP With Two New Songs , Rolling Stone, July 2021)
In addition to writing the play, I wrote an exegesis exploring the research that informed it, and the process of creative development. In the end, the exegesis was about twice the length of the play itself. (Paul Andrews, Phillip Kavanagh, Australian Stage, June 2012)
When I remembered the deliberate and impertinent moralizing of Thackeray, the clumsy exegesis of George Eliot, the knowing nods and winks of Charles Reade, the stage-carpentering and limelighting of Dickens, even the fine and important analysis of Hawthorne, it was with a joyful astonishment that I realized the great art of Tourguenief. (William Dean Howells, My Literary Passions)
A learned exegesis of the theology of the Sistine ceiling, Wind's volume on Michelangelo is also an extensive discussion of the intellectual milieu in which the artist was formed. (Edgar Wind, 'The Religious Symbolism of Michelangelo: The Sistine Ceiling', Renaissance Quarterly, June 2003)
Origin:
1610s, 'explanatory note,' from Greek exegesis 'explanation, interpretation,' from exegeisthai 'explain, interpret,' from ex 'out' + hegeisthai 'to lead, guide,' from PIE root sag- 'to track down, seek out'. Meaning 'exposition (of Scripture)' is from 1823. (Online Etymology Dictionary)
Theological scholars have long been preoccupied with interpreting the meanings of various passages in the Bible. In fact, because of the sacred status of the Bible in both Judaism and Christianity, biblical interpretation has played a crucial role in both of those religions throughout their histories. English speakers have used the word exegesis - a descendant of the Greek term exegeisthai, meaning 'to explain' or 'to interpret' - to refer to explanations of Scripture since the early 17th century. Nowadays, however, academic writers interpret all sorts of texts, and exegesis is no longer associated mainly with the Bible. (Merriam-Webster)
