...and my burgeoning vocabulary

Every time I come across a word I don't know and whose meaning I can't derive from context, I write it down. I don't ever write them in the same place and most often I don't even manage to look them up after I've come across them, so by and large they go unremembered and forever unknown. However, as I've been reading through Brave New World, I've come across a few that I've managed to keep in my memory long enough to consult the OED:

Plinth, (n.), /plɪnθ/

 a. Archit. The square slab at the base of a column; the pedestal.

 b. A block or pedestal on which an object (as a statue, vase, etc.) may be mounted or displayed; (also) the squared base of a piece of furniture.

 That one proved to be rather unremarkable, unless perhaps you're an architect or have always felt the need to refer to a pedestal by a different word or just couldn't adequately describe a square slab with appropriate brevity. I did notice, however, that it's a very fun word to say and repeated it aloud to myself until it sounded like it wasn't even a word anymore which proved to not be too terribly difficult being that I hadn't known it was a word five minutes prior.
Still, it's fun to say.

Solecism, (n.), /ˈsɒləsɪz(ə)m/

1. An impropriety or irregularity in speech or diction; a violation of the rules of grammar or syntax; properly, a faulty concord.

2. A breach or violation of good manners or etiquette; a blunder or impropriety inmanners, etc.

3. An error, incongruity, inconsistency, or impropriety of any kind.

Now this one seems wonderfully useful! Unfortunately, even when Mr. Huxley used it in his book in 1931 it was a little out of date as the OED doesn't have any listings for it since 1884. I think we ought to bring it back, though, especially with all these people foregoing punctuation and confusing homophones for one another.

Pneumatic, (Adj.) /n(j)uˈmæɾɪk/

2e. humorous. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a woman with a well-rounded figure, esp. a large bosom; (of a woman) having a well-rounded figure, esp. large-bosomed.

Now this is a relatively well-known word, however, it comes up in Brave New World very often and none of the definitions I knew actually encompassed the meaning Huxley wants to use it to convey. He uses it to describe the figure of a woman, maybe a particularly plump figure or rounded or just well-endowed, I got that much from the context of it but didn't even know that it could be used this way until I looked in the OED. It seems to be of rare usage in the 20th century, and definitely humorous when you think about it referring to something perhaps inflated with air... 

I've always enjoyed reading books from the 19th and early 20th century, I feel like authors then had a way with words that most people today just don't, and you learn new things linguistically. That said, it could just be that the better authors are the ones that have lasted or that all earlier English sounds good to the modern speaker's ear. Who knows? Who cares? Plinth plinth plinth plinth plinth.