sneaks in

[charisstoma]

aphotic \ey-FOH-tik\, adjective:
Lightless; dark.
I sat curled up on the sofa, trapped in the dream from which I had begun to awaken, but still lost in the reminiscence of our aphotic rendezvous.
-- Žakalin Nežić, Goodbye Serbia
The stars and moon outside the windows on the twenty- first floor of Fordum Towers shined in the distance, the sky otherwise ebony and aphotic.
-- Steven Gillis, Water Falls
Coined in the early 1900s, aphotic comes from the Greek word photic meaning "light," as in the word photo, and the prefix a- meaning "not."
ensconce \en-SKONS\, verb:
If you knew how hard I looked for how to spell this word a month or two ago…
1. To settle securely or snugly.
2. To cover or shelter; hide securely.
Here, Ryan would ensconce himself in a hammock.
-- Zadie Smith, White Teeth
This did not trouble him, and he was quite content to ensconce himself in a cosy corner...
-- Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck
They ensconce themselves in their child, in adding and replacing furniture, in discussing insurance and finally buying some.
-- Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
Ensconce is related to the word for a type of fort that defended a bridge or pass. It came to mean "to settle securely" in the late 1500s.
littoral \LIT-er-uhl\, adjective:
I can see getting this confused with literal which has literally nothing to do with the definition of this word.
1. Pertaining to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean.
2. (On ocean shores) of or pertaining to the biogeographic region between the sublittoral zone and the high-water line and sometimes including the supralittoral zone above the high-water line.
3. Of or pertaining to the region of freshwater lake beds from the sublittoral zone up to and including damp areas on shore.
noun:
1. A littoral region.
The extensive artificialization of lake shorelines reduces the native littoral vegetation in quantity and quality.
-- Alex Córdoba-Aguilar, Dragonflies and Damselflies
There was an exuberant fierceness in the littoral here, a vital competition for existence.
-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Littoral stems from the Latin word lītus which meant "shore." It was replaced by the Old English word shore but is still used by scientists.

Comments

[theotherdibbler.livejournal.com]

The only one I didn't already know was 'aphotic', although to be perfectly honest I'd actually gotten the meaning of 'littoral' mixed up with something else. So I knew the word, I just incorrectly remembered what it meant. XD