Came across a new word today.

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So Iam reading a book in which it outlined the persecutions the Czechs were imposing on the Sudeaten Germans and read the line:- "an old lady was defenestrated".

Maybe you all know and read this word every other day, but I never read it before in my life.

Until I looked it up, I imagined it was some gruesome procedure like disemboweling.

If you never heard of it, post your guess what you think it might be without looking it up.

I won't give it away, but I can tell you that the connotation for defenestration is much different than its denotation.

I know what it means because Donald Barthelme is one of my favorite writers, I looked it up when he used it.

Cool word! I had to look it up but I like it. Will totally use it in the future...

I wish I remembered why, but I actually knew the word!

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"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I know it because of a band named "Defenestration"
Yeah I was expecting something more gruesome also. Although I suppose the end result would be pretty nasty.

Look at the root - fenester. I believe fenster is german for window; I think that it's similar in dutch.

Some people get off on using words like this - I'd rather have 'hurled through the window' etc. but I suppose it depends on what context the whole thing is in, anyway.

When ignorant voices tintinnabulate
It makes me want to self-defenestrate