|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
praedormitary adjective of or relating to the twilight state of semi-consciousness immediately preceding sleep.
ORIGIN ? I found this word in Speak, Memory by Nabokov. It gets 4 Google-hits, all from said memoir. I prepared the definition myself, based on hypnopompic: hypnopompic adjective of or relating to the twilight state of semi-consciousness immediately preceding waking up.
ORIGIN from Greek hupnos "sleep" and pompe "sending away". Is it in a dictionary? What might the origin of this wonderful word be?
Last edited by Hydra; 08/03/07 05:23 AM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
you'll find that the usual contrast to hypnopompic is hypnogogic (also hypnagogic), thus obviating any need for this word.
edit: dormitary is an obsolete term for sleep-inducing; cf. dormitive -- so pre- and post- could follow, perforce.
Last edited by tsuwm; 08/03/07 06:16 AM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
So do you think Nabokov just made it up?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
why not? someone has to do these things!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Is it in a dictionary? What might the origin of this wonderful word be?
You want to give us the context from the Nabokov?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
So do you think Nabokov just made it up?Yes. He was a master of language. He is one of the few authors I can think of who is (rightly) famous for works that he wrote in two different languages: i.e., Russian and English. He is credited with having coined the word nymphet.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
You want to give us the context from the Nabokov? Well, it's defininitely not a hapax legomenon... I just came across it in a short story, also by Nabokov. Here's your context: Just before falling sleep, I often became aware of a one-sided conversation going on in an adjacent section of my mind, quite independent from the actual trend of my thoughts. It is a neutral, detached, anonymous voice, which I catch saying words of no importance to me whatever—an English or a Russian sentence, not even addressed to me, and so trivial that I hardly dare give samples, lest the flatness I wish to convey be marred by a molehill of sense. This silly phenomenon seems to be the auditory counterpart of certain praedormitary visions, which I also know well.
—Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, p.28. Presently he sleeps, he sleeps, and, since, on his convict's cot, not a single praedormitory thought troubles him ...
—Tyrants Destroyed, ch. 14.
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,423
Members9,182
|
Most Online3,341 Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
0 members (),
793
guests, and
3
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|