Lexeme Love

A collection of ambrosials to know, use and love, organized by the volume in which they were most recently found.

From "Why Translation Matters" by Edith Grossman

Leitmotif: the theme, thought, thesis, or subject matter of a work
Vitiate: to abrogate, annihilate, or, more tamely, undermine
Aperçus: a compendium, survey, sketch, or abridgement. Also: aperçu
Prestidigitation: magic! associated with unfair or dishonest conduct, deceptive skill.
Welter: confusion, turmoil, uproar, toss; agitation, mutiny.
Mordancy: acerbity, corrosive sarcasm, belligerence.
Palliative: refers to the restorative or therapeutic aspects of the intoxicating, flammable liquid we know as alcohol. An interesting sanction of alcoholism...
Iniquitous: sinful, unfair, nefarious
Chary: cagey and calculating
Accretion: accumulation, augmentation
Benighted: unenlightened, uncultured
Exegesis: interpretation, explanation
Sui generis: unique, solitary, rare
Ebullient: effervescent, vivacious
Abstemious: ascetic, austere

From "Literary Laundry" journal of fiction and poetry
Epigone: a less distinguished follower, imitator esp. of artists in any medium.

From "Alif the Unseen" by G. Willow Wilson
eldritch: adj. From old English's 'el' meaning strange or foreign, and 'rich' for kingdom; generally associated with 'otherworldly'.

From "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes
deliquescent: adj. related to the phenomenon in which a solid absorbs so much moisture from the air that becomes itself a liquid.
distrait: beset by worries, and therefore inattentive to the matter at hand. Loan word from French.
fossicking (around): used in mining to heap mighty scorn on an individual or group what undermines another's digging, or the act of searching for "waste gold" in the mine's rubbish; outside of mining, it relates more broadly to any attempt to find an object etc. by which one might gain. When used without an object, it means (ever more broadly) to ferret out. Fossick-the-noun is a delightful name for a troublesome person.
frangible: easily broken. From Latin frangere into late Middle English and Old French.
lucubration: n. laborious, pretentious, and/or solemn toilings of mind or body, esp. at night; the no doubt questionable products thereof.
res ipsa loquitor: n. the rule by which an injury sustained by the defendant is their own bloody fault if it could have been avoided had they been vaguely more self-aware and decidedly less distrait. trans. "the thing speaks for itself."
priapic: exaggeratedly masculine, phallic. To do with the Greek god of procreation, Priapus - son of Dyonysis and Aphrodite, lush and sex-pot respectively. Ah, the fountainhead of spawning.

From "The Translation Zone" by Emily Apter

Miscellany:
defuglety: noun. Coined by my maternal grandmother to describe situations simultaneously precariously difficult and amusingly confusing. Homage to the vagaries of age, but potentially useful for anyone who habitually finds herself unable to move without threatening the integrity of precarious arrangements or breakables, general.
interrobang: a combination exclamation point and question mark, for those occasions when either one alone is just insufficient.
scabrous: scandalous and risqué, or rough surfaced (covered in tiny projections)