Eschatology – End-of-the-world theology, treating of the last or ultimate things: death, judgment, heaven and hell, from the Greek eschatos, extreme, the adjective eschatological – “Death has always been part of the day job; now it is becoming a more eschatological preoccupation, at least for the men.” – Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times, review of the new season of “The Sopranos,” March 10, 2006 – “The sexually neutered commentary is . . . amusing to imagine in its technology and austerity, its attenuated eschatology.” – John Updike, review of “The Possibility of an Island,” The New Yorker, May 29, 2006
Escheat (es-cheat) – In legal proceedings, to revert to the state or crown; as a transitive verb to divest of an estate by confiscation – “The ninepence with which she was to have been rewarded being escheated to the Kenwigs family” – Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby – “To the high honor of Kentucky, as I am informed, she is the owner of some slaves by escheat, and has sold none, but liberated all.” – Abraham Lincoln in Raymond
Eschew – (Not “e-shoo!” as in sneezing, but “es-chew” as in chewing gum) Seldom heard in conversation, but popular with writers, it means to take care to avoid, shun – “One that feared God, and eschewed evil” – Job, 1:1 – “For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks” – John Greenleaf Whittier, Barefoot Boy – “Then, as always, he eschewed serious conversation with me.” – Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. And you could count on the Bard: “What cannot be eschewed must be embraced.” – Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V, scene v, line 251
Esoteric– For the select few, abstruse, originally applied to certain writings of Aristotle that were of a scientific as opposed to a popular character, and afterward to the secret teachings of Pythagoras, hence secret, profound, intended only to be communicated to the initiated, its opposite number Exoteric, external, open, suitable for the general public: “He has ascribed to Kant the foppery of an exoteric and esoteric doctrine.” – Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) – “After I read it, I said ‘It’s brilliant, but it’s quite esoteric.’ Yet is has been performed 281 times at the National, each time to a sellout audience.” – David Gritten, quoting director Nicholas Hytner on the British play “The History Boys,” The Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2006 – “She settled the earphones on her head. On her right, a deep bass hum . . . a radio beam, she thought, used by the Germans or the English for some esoteric purpose. . .” – Alan Furst, The Polish Officer, World War II espionage novel
Espadrille – The thing you would wear on your adorable feet if you were an F. Scott Fitzgerald lady in a romantic story of 1920’s decadence on the Riviera, a canvas shoe with a rope sole, also used in mountain-climbing – “She went inside and dressing in a light gown and espadrilles went out her window again and along the continuous terrace toward the front door, going fast since she found that other private rooms, exuding sleep, gave upon it.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night
Espial – The act of catching sight of, or espying something, as in “Through one of the rents in his gown you espied a fat capon hung round the monk’s waist.” – Henry James – and here is the noun in action: “It would have been difficult for one unused to such espials to have distinguished anything but various tools of uncouth make and shape, great bunches of keys, fragments of iron, half-finished locks . . .” – Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
Esprit de l’escalier (es-pree-de leskalyay )– A little gem of French irony worth including here because we don’t have its parallel in English; esprit, which we know as spirit in esprit de corps, here means wit, and escalier is staircase, and “the wit of the staircase,” credited to the 18th-century French author and encyclopedist Denis Diderot, is that devastating comeback you think of too late, as are going down the staircase after the party on your way home.
