About this app

Such words and expressions fall within the following types:

• archaic
• arcane
• obsolete
• rare
• slang
• dialectical
• foreign (i.e., non-English)

To avoid cumbersome repetition here, I'll refer to those above word types with an overarching term, thus: challenging.

Currently, the app contains the challenging words for the following novels:

• Ulysses by James Joyce

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

• Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

• Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

• The Odyssey by Homer

• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Additional literary novels are added at regular intervals throughout the year.

So, whenever you read or study a novel in the app's list, you can quickly search or browse through the database for the meanings of those words which challenge you.

Why Novel Words?

Generally, most popular fiction necessarily uses easily understood language. Literary fiction - that is, fiction which has literary merit and which broadly focuses upon the human condition - tends to use those challenging words which often cause readers to pause. And thereby reach for a dictionary....

And so: while reading Ulysses years ago, I paused - at least once - almost every page, while I came to grips with nine-hundred and thirty-three pages of perhaps the most important work of 20th century English fiction. Here's a tiny sample of words (from Ulysses) which caused a pause for me: omphalos, gossoon, orgulous, quopped, ubicity, ollav, bullgine, leet, coneys, plappering, ingle, oxter, yclept, invercund and mazer.

Finding definitions for such words can be problematic, offline or online. Many are indexed in only a dozen dictionaries; some only in half that; and a few curly ones in just a couple ... or one only. And, when dictionaries failed, searching also necessitated use of specific, annotated compendia and notes, as detailed in my research sources.

A further difficulty is Joyce (and not only Joyce) often spelled words differently to those in dictionaries; which inevitably resulted in even longer search time for correct meanings.

Moreover, Joyce (and, again, not only he) habitually coined combination words such as thinsocked, almosting, dullthudding, birthaiding and many, many more. Such words are not, generally, in dictionaries and are not included in this app because their meanings, for the most part, are clearly or contextually obvious. Incidentally, I understand Joyce invented such words to be self-defining.

Additionally, within some novels there are a number of words for which no meanings have been found in any sources searched. In most cases, though, I've provided my considered opinion or suggestion about meanings.

And finally: concerning the last word type - foreign - I have selected only single words or short sentences and expressions (maximum of 225 characters, including spaces) to provide translations; longer texts are beyond the scope of this app.

There are free online services which can provide workable translations, if necessary (put 'free online translations' into a search box).

Well, then ... it's simply because I found searching dictionaries so taxing, I figured others - especially high school and university students - would like to have all those challenging words at their fingertips; and thus eliminate most of that bleary-eyed-inducing tedium.

New features

8 May 2018 - Production Release Version 3.

This app contains the challenging words found in the following novels:

Ulysses
Lolita
Naked Lunch
Under the Volcano
The Odyssey
Blood Meridian
Madame Bovary
Tender is the Night
Gulliver's Travels
A Tale of Two Cities