Entry: kohl (n.)
In context:"Then at the four-way meeting Tavis arranged, the old B.U. coach showed up in L.L. Bean chinos and a Lacoste polo shirt and got a look at the size of Orin's left arm, and then at Orin's Moms in a tight black skirt and levantine jack with kohl around her eyes and a moussed tower of hair and about fell back over sideways the other way."
Definition: A powder used in the East to darken the eyelids, etc., usually consisting of finely powdered antimony. A powder used in the East to darken the eyelids, etc., usually consisting of finely powdered antimony.
Other:
Etymology: < Arabic kuḥ'l, koḥ'l; see alcohol n.
Interesting.
Etymology: < medieval Latin alcohol, < Arabic al-kuḥl ‘collyrium,’ the fine powder used to stain the eyelids, < kaḥala, Hebrew kākhal to stain, paint: see Ezekiel xxiii. 40. It appeared in English, as in most of the mod. languages in 16th cent. Compare French alcohol, now alcool.
SNOOT score: 1
Page: 286
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
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