I’m always looking up words – I keep a dictionary tab on my browser so it’s easy to go there. I recently encountered coruscate, which means “to emit vivid flashes of light; sparkle; scintillate; gleam.”

As in “the diamonds coruscating in the candlelight.” Or, “a flutist whose music coruscated throughout the concert hall.”

I’m having trouble falling in love with the word because it doesn’t sound like something that flashes and sparkles. Coruscate? It sounds like, I don’t know, maybe the process by which rock breaks apart, or perhaps some process of erosion.

Plenty of words, of course, sound like their meanings. Like labyrinth – that sounds like a maze of hallways you can get lost in. Or jazz – that clearly sounds jazzy.

But coruscate? I’ll have a hard time remembering it because of its inner ear dissonance.

Still, the word deserves a trial run. So here goes:

At the dinner party, her coruscating wit prompted merriment all around, though some of the dullards insisted on discussing the price of cement.

Okay, well, let’s keep working on it…