Ryan Gosling is NOT a Recreant: Wondrous Words Wednesday

Ryan Gosling: Not a recreant

It's time for Wondrous Words Wednesday the meme hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onions' weblog. Typically it's the day when we share new to us words from our reading.
This week I've barely read a thing because I am in the midst of packing madly for our move into Los Angeles plus I foolishly signed up for a writing workshop. Talk about terrible timing! While packing I discovered my old thesaurus, it's a fairly ancient hardback edition of Rogets classic; this one published in 1962 features wonderful little alphabetical and numerical tabs and there really is something very gratifying about sticking your finger in and pulling back the pages. The heft feels so good that even though I've mostly moved into the electronic age, I plan on keeping it!
So I opened it at random and found the word "recreant". Ahhh, one who recreates? Sorry, no.
It's one of those words that can be used as a noun and an adjective; the key meaning is coward/cowardly or disloyal.
According to dictionary.com

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English < Old French, adj. and noun use of present participle of recreire to yield in a contest, equivalent to re- re- + creire < Latin crēdere to believe

Related forms

rec·re·ance, rec·re·an·cy, noun

rec·re·ant·ly, adverb

un·rec·re·ant, adjective

Synonyms
1. dastardly, pusillanimous, base, faint-hearted, yellow. 2. faithless, untrue, apostate. 3. dastard.
Antonyms
1. brave. 2. loyal. 3. hero.

 

 

AND I thought you might enjoy this song from Drive, the film made from the James Sallis book of the same name. I LOVE this song "A REAL HERO" from College and Electric Youth