Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word:
CRAQUELURE
You've seen the pattern of fine cracks in the paint and varnish of a painting, caused by shrinkage, but you may not have known that there is a term for it,
craquelure
(pronounced krak-LOOR). It comes from the French verb
craqueler
, "to crackle."
Example:
Like many literal words, it lends itself to metaphor. When Jonathan Swift writes in one of his birthday poems to Stella that she has "An angel's face, a little crack'd," he alludes to the craquelure that the passage of years produces on the skin. Even his affection carried a sting in it.