Logodaedaly, or Sleight-Of-Words — Erzsebet Gilbert

What is a "balanoid"? Who carries an "ombrifuge" into a storm? How is a "filipendulous" city destroyed? These and other fabulous questions are found in Logodædaly, or, Sleight-of-Words: a dictionary of the imagination. Within its pages, young author Erzsébet Gilbert has delved into the history of the English language to unearth a host of forgotten, quirky, obsolete and utterly bizarre words, and created a phrasebook like no other. It is a dictionary whose entries are not merely words, but the fantastical stories and wild musings behind them-a dictionary of two-headed serpents and royal assassins, warrior birds and people on the moon, specters and true love.

As vividly antiquated as it is experimental, the ornately designed book features the original images-from dragons to hummingbirds-of artist Sherise Talbott, illuminations whose intricacy and style might have emerged from the museums of centuries ago. Through Logodaedaly one might not learn an everyday vocabulary, but beyond A and Z the reader finds that the meaning of a word is always much more than it seems.