lucubration

lu•cu•bra•tion (loo-kyoo-BREY-shuhn)  n

Definition:
1. laborious work, study, thought, etc., esp. at night
2. the result of such activity, as a learned speech or dissertation
3. any literary effort, esp. of a pretentious or solemn nature (often in the plural: lucubrations)
4. to write in a scholarly fashion; produce scholarship

lucubrate verb

Origin:
1595; from L. lucubrationem (nom. lucubratio) "nocturnal study, night work," from lucubratus, pp. of lucubrare, lit. "to work by artificial light," from stem of lucere "to shine"

Related:
Related Words: from lucere: lucent, lucid, luminary, luster

Sentence Examples:
• "It has, among other unusualities, (I hope you like the gentleness of the word!) those dashes which—You ought to have learned by this time that They don't like to read over dashes."
"Why not?" asked I, again. "I like them. And, they are my own!"
"Well, you know a dash necessitates lucubration. It stands for something which you trust your reader to supply. That is unfair. If you are writing a book and receiving an honorarium for it, do not expect him to do it. It is a bit like eating. One does not go to a restaurant, and pay for his food, then cook it himself."
-The Way of the Gods, John Luther Long

• This man--why, he was clean to look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly lucubrations, and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary existence. -Revolution and Other Essays, Jack London

• Verbosity --This is the power of writing two columns in answer to a three-line paragraph--of twisting, turning, transmogrifying, dissecting, kicking, cuffing, illustrating, turning inside out, and outside in again the aforesaid paragraph. The real master of this art will show his skill by the great number of times in which he will manage to say "We" in the course of his lucubration. -Punchinelli

The Storyline
While once he had aspirations to write a history of the late middle ages, today his lucubrations produced an undifferentiated mix of fact and fiction that helped explain his intolerable circumstances.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

disquisition

dis•qui•si•tion (dis-kwuh-ZISH-uhn)  n

Definition:
a lengthy, formal discourse that analyses or explains some topic; a dissertation or treatise

disquisitive, disquisitory adjective 

Origin:

c.1600, from L. disquisitionem (nom. disquisitio) "an inquiry, investigation," noun of action from pp. stem of disquirere "inquire," from dis- "apart" + quaerere "seek, ask". Sense of "long speech" first recorded 1640s.

Related:
Synonyms: discourse, commentary, dissertation, exposition, treatise
Related Words: query quaere "ask," imperative of quaerere
require re- "repeatedly" + quaerere "ask, seek"
conquer com-, intensive prefix, + quaerere "to seek, acquire"
question quæstionem "a seeking, inquiry," from root of quaerere
acquisition ad- "extra" + quaerere "to seek to obtain"
exquisite ex- "out" + quaerere "to seek"
inquire in- "into" + quærere "ask, seek"

Sentence Examples:
• New England ports, the Houstons of their era, and fortunes were built with whale oil money. At one point, the United States exported a million gallons a year to Europe, according to Philip Hoare, author of “The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea,” an obsessive disquisition on all matters cetacean, published in March. -2010

• I consider the English alphabet only as it is English; and even in this narrow disquisition I follow the example of former grammarians, perhaps with more reverence than judgment, because by writing in English I suppose my reader already acquainted with the English language, and consequently able to pronounce the letters of which I teach the pronunciation; and because of sounds in general it may be observed, that words are unable to describe them. -A Grammar of the English Tongue, Samuel Johnson

• I remember once reading a very comical disquisition in one of Buffon's works on the question as to whether or not a crocodile was to be classified as an insect; and the instructive feature in the disquisition was this, that although a crocodile differs from an insect as regards every conceivable particular of its internal anatomy, no allusion at all is made to this fact, while the whole discussion is made to turn on the hardness of the external casing of a crocodile resembling the hardness of the external casing of a beetle; and when at last Buffon decides that, on the whole, a crocodile had better not be classified as an insect, the only reason given is, that as a crocodile is so very large an animal, it would make “altogether too terrible an insect.” -The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, George John Romanes

The Storyline
This, in turn, elicited a lengthy disquisition from her mother on the topic of "taking life more seriously."

Why This Word:
Disquisition is just a good, solid word every person with an inquisitive mind ought to have in their vocabulary.

Sources: Wiktionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day