About Sources

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
All the words listed on this site are found in Stephen R. Donaldson's series, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I am not making any of them up, not even "grue."

When a quotation from one of the books is included I cite the book title and the page number. Page numbers from the First and Second Chronicles are taken from the American Del Ray paperback editions and from the hardcover U.S. Putnam editions of The Runes of the Earth and Fatal Revenant. The pagination, as far as I can tell, is the same in the older paperback editions (with Darrell K. Sweet cover art) as in the newer ones (with Michael Herring cover art). I am unaware of if the newer editions (with a graphic of a ring on the cover) have different pagination or not.

Dictionaries Used
When possible, meaning when the word was to be found in it, I used my Webster's New World Dictionary of American English (third edition). It's not as comprehensive as other dictionaries available, but for the vast majority of the words, it sufficed quite well.

When I was online, I used www.m-w.com, which is properly The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary is available online for a subscription fee), and www.dictionary.com, which uses a variety of sources, including the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (fourth edition) and Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. Of the free, non-subscription dictionaries available online, I believe this is the most comprehensive.

When on occasion I could not find the word in any of these sources, I had recourse to the public library's Oxford English Dictionary, which is the definitive dictionary. It is the result of a massive research project, on which J.R.R. Tolkien among many others worked. In addition to contemporary definitions, it contains definitions and examples of usages from throughout each word's history. Unfortunately, the online version is only available through a (large) subscription fee.

The Actual Words
So aside from the dictionaries and Donaldon's repeated usage, where do the weird words literally come from? There seem to be several general categories into which strange words in the Chronicles fall. For the heck of it, I made a list.

1. Addition / removal of strange suffixes / prefixes - To take an obvious example, "unbelief." "Disbelief" is a familiar noun, while "unbelief" is not. Check out "behung," "belorn," and their many similar friends for other examples, particularly "reft," which Donaldson often uses instead of "bereft."

2. An uncommon or unusual form of the word - Closely related to the above, but a bigger change, usually entailing a change in part-of-speech. For example, "despication" is a noun form of the adjective "despicable"; the former is probably not in the dictionary, but its derivation and its meaning are obvious. "Carious," on the other hand, graces dictionaries, though one hardly need look it up—same with "abysm," which is just another way to say "abyss" if you happen to be an overwrought Romantic poet.

3. A word used in an uncommon or unusual way - ...such as a verb used as an adjective. See various usages of the ever-popular "clench."

4. Archaic, obsolete, rare, or poetic words - Look up many of the strange words in the Chronicles, and you'll find that it's marked as "obsolete" or "rare" or some such in the dictionary. The gamut runs from words that are no longer in common use to words that are only used in poetic language. "Reft" and "abysm" fall under this category as well.

5. Words you never or hardly ever see in a book - Most of the unusual words are just plain uncommon, except on the GRE. A word may be totally new to the reader, or even though you may know what it means, you hardly, if ever, see it used. I mean, of course I knew what "roynish" meant before I read the Chronicles, I just never found a clever way to work it into conversation...yeah...that's it....