A Lexicon of Ridiculously Arcane and/or Obscure Words in Gene Wolfe Novels
by Heretica and Arcturas
Read a page or two in any of these novels and you’re bound to discover at least one word that you don’t recognize, even if you’ve got a pretty stellar vocabulary. These novels, written as translations from manuscripts written in the distant future, are chock full of words that we’re still unsure how Wolfe was able to collect. While reading these books, we looked up every word that was even slightly unfamiliar, and took notes about them. We found a few different sources of information [1, 2, 3], but we were surprised by how many words were not listed in these resources, so we decided to create an ultimate Urth lexicon. If you’re reading these books, please make use of this resource.
Click the book title to see the page with its words listed. Words are listed in order of appearance, not alphabetically. The best way to find words on these pages is to hit Ctrl+F on your keyboard to open up the Find command. Type in the word and it will locate it on the page for you. If the word is a hyperlink, click it to see an image for further illustration. If there is a word missing from these lists that you think should be on them, please let us know!
The Book of the New Sun
The Sword of the Lictor
The Citadel of the Autarch
