Vocab Day- Chincherinchee!

The original plan was to go through the alphabet hunting down cool verbs, because verbs are pretty important connections to have if you want to write. But then I came across this word...




Chincherinchee (n.)


Which, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, is a


"white flowered South African lily."




Now, as a suppoet (supposed poet [with an unfortunate wit deficiency]), "Chincherinchee" caught my ear and attention for a couple of reasons.


First, Ch Ch Ch! And especially the pinging first syllable "chin" followed by a swooping "cherin" leaping gleefully into sky with an infinite "chee!" The word is all colors of sparkling periwinkles and blue steel springs.


Second, there's this kind of silly old tradition of flower symbolism and nature fixation in poetry's history ("I should have thought/ in a dream you would have bought/ some lovely, perilous thing/ orchids piled in a great sheath"? or Those woods on That evening? And who could deny the eternal poetry of Roses?), so, that "chincherinchee" is a flower, and a white flower, and a lily, makes it a prime candidate for all kinds of sloppy sappery about virgins and maidens and that whole lot.


I hope to see several prize winning poems in the near future comparing dear loves to chimpanzees and chincherinchees.


Figure 3a- chincherinchee in its natural habitat