In winter, when night’s shade
possesses longer half the world,
and longer in the idle stillness,
by the bemisted moon,
the lazy orient sleeps,
awakened at her customary hour
she would get up by candles.

— Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse, by Aleksandr Pushkin; translated by Vladimir Nabokov, Chapter Two

 

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bemisted moon

bemist; past participle, bemisted

transitive verb

to envelop, involve, or obscure in or as if in mist

 

Bemisted . A word for all of these years I never knew. Such a simple word. Also, beautiful.

 

I couldn’t forbear interrupting my wife, who was writing something, to tell her about my discovery.

I am continually learning new words. And, I think my vocabulary is extensive.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   March 2020