kapellmeister \kuh-PELL-my-ster\ noun: the director of a choir or orchestra

Example sentence: Reverend Clayton was desperate — the Christmas season was approaching and he still hadn't found a new kappellmeister.

Did you know? As you may have guessed, "kapellmeister" originated as a German word — and in fact, even in English it is often (though not always) used for the director of a German choir. "Kapelle" once meant "choir" in German and "Meister" is the German word for "master." The Latin "magister" is an ancestor of both "Meister" and "master," as well as of our "maestro," meaning "an eminent composer or conductor." "Kapelle" comes from "cappella," the Medieval Latin word for "chapel." As it happens, we also borrowed "kapelle" into English, first to refer to the choir or orchestra of a royal or papal chapel, and later to describe any orchestra. "Kapellmeister" is used somewhat more frequently than "kapelle" in current English, though neither word is especially common.

welkin \WEL-kun\ noun

*1 a : the vault of the sky : firmament b : the celestial abode of God or the gods : heaven
2 : the upper atmosphere

Example sentence:
The pink sky at sunset brought to mind a quote from Shakespeare's King John: "The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set / But stay'd and made the western welkin blush."

Did you know?
When it comes to "welkin," the sky's the limit. This heavenly word has been used in English to refer to the vault of the sky since at least the 12th century, and it derives from an earlier word from Old English that meant "cloud." In modern English, "welkin" is still flying high, and it is often teamed with the verb "ring" to suggest a loud noise or an exuberant expression of emotion, as in "the welkin rang with the sound of the orchestra" or "her hearty laugh made the welkin ring." These contemporary phrases echo an older use — the original words of a carol that once began "Hark, how all the welkin ring," which we now know as "Hark! The herald angels sing."

wheedle \WEE-dul\ verb

*1 : to influence or entice by soft words or flattery
2 : to gain or get by coaxing or flattering
3 : to use soft words or flattery

Example sentence:
Steve hates shopping, but his wife wheedled him into going to the mall.

Did you know?
"Wheedle" has been a part of the English lexicon since the mid-17th century, though no one is quite sure how the word made its way into English. (It has been suggested that the term may have derived from an Old English word that meant "to beg," but this is far from certain.) Once established in the language, however, "wheedle" became a favorite of some of the language's most illustrious writers. "Wheedle" and related forms appear in the writings of Wordsworth, Dickens, Kipling, Dryden, Swift, Scott, Tennyson, and Pope, among others.

yegg \YEG\ noun

: safecracker; also : robber

Example sentence:
"[Her] attorney does admit that his client had developed 'platonic' relationships with two cons, a couple of yeggs named Ollie and Marvin, but only to gather information." (Fort Collins Coloradoan, December 6, 2002)

Did you know?
"Safecracker" first appeared in print in English around 1825, but English speakers evidently felt that they needed a more colorful word for this rather colorful profession. No one is quite sure where "yegg" came from. It first appeared in the New York Evening Post on June 23, 1903, in an article about "the prompt breaking up of the organized gangs of professional beggars and yeggs." By 1905, it had acquired the variant "yeggmen," which was printed in the New York Times in reference to unsavory characters captured in the Bowery District. "Yegg" has always been, and continues to be, less common than "safecracker," but it still turns up once in a while.

widdershins \WID-er-shinz\ adverb

: in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction : counterclockwise

Example sentence:
In the book, the members of the coven hold hands and dance widdershins around the fire.

Did you know?
By the mid-1500s, English speakers had adopted "widdershins" (which is from the Middle High German "wider," meaning "back against," and "sinnen," meaning "to travel") for anything following a path that is opposite to the apparent direction of the sun as it travels across the sky in the Northern Hemisphere (or opposite the direction of the movement of the shadow on a sundial or the hands on a clock). In its earliest known uses, "widdershins" was used to describe cases of bad hair in which unruly locks stood on end or fell the wrong way. But because many people in times past considered the widdershins direction to be "backwards," it has long been associated with magic, witchcraft, and, sometimes, the devil.