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Are you saying your character is describing someone as meretricious? If that's the word he would use, by all means use it. I have absolutely no problem making the reader work a little to expand his...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T11:59:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2039 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T01:22:23Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2039 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Are you saying your character is describing someone as meretricious? If that's the word he would use, by all means use it. I have absolutely no problem making the reader work a little to expand his/her vocabulary. I have actually learned words from stopping and looking something up ("gravid" meaning pregnant and "guerdon" meaning gift are the two which leap to mind, both from Anne McCaffrey).
If it's the right word, use it.
> The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter — it's the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning. — Mark Twain
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2011-03-17T00:28:14Z (over 13 years ago)
Original score: 6