320 symbols beginning with C. Each one is read four ways, and every source is named so you can check it.
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- Credit cardA piece of plastic that lets you spend money you have not got, which is either a convenience or a trap depending entirely on the month.
- CrucifixionA Roman method of public execution designed to take a long time and be seen, which is why it was used on the enslaved and the rebellious.
- Customs postA desk where a stranger may open your luggage in front of other people, and where having nothing to hide does not stop it feeling like something.
- Care homeA building where people live at the end of their lives among strangers, and which most families arrive at after saying they never would.
- CurrantTwo different fruits under one name, one a tiny dried grape and the other a fresh berry, which causes more confusion than either deserves.
- CobblerSomebody who repairs shoes rather than making them, which is a distinction the trade itself insisted on for centuries.
- CerberusThe dog at the threshold, remembered for stopping people leaving rather than for stopping them coming in.
- ChimeraAn animal made of other animals, and the oldest name we have for something that will not resolve into one thing.
- CockatriceA creature hatched from a cock's egg, which is to say from something that cannot happen, and dangerous for exactly that reason.
- CooperA maker of barrels, holding staves together with hoops and no glue, so the vessel is watertight because of pressure alone.
- CoronerThe official whose job is to establish how somebody died, working for the record rather than for the family.
- CoracleA small round boat of hide over a frame, light enough to be carried on the back, and steered with one hand in a figure of eight.
- ChiselA blade driven by something else, so it does no work on its own and every cut is a decision made twice.
- CrowbarA lever for opening what was fixed shut, which works by concentrating a small effort into a force nothing local can resist.
- ChurnA vessel for turning cream into butter by agitation alone, where nothing is added and the change is sudden after a long nothing.
- CisternA tank for holding water that fell somewhere else, filled by waiting rather than by drawing.
- CrucibleA container built to survive the heat that destroys what is put in it, so the vessel outlasts the thing it holds.
- CarvingMaking a shape by taking material away, so every decision is subtraction and none of them can be reversed.
- ChantingRepeating words in unison until the meaning goes and something else takes its place.
- CloakA garment with no fastening at the sides, which conceals by hanging rather than by fitting, and can be dropped in one movement.
- CallusThickened skin built where something rubs repeatedly, so the body records a habit by hardening against it.
- CollarboneThe most commonly broken bone in the body, and the only rigid connection between the arm and the rest of the skeleton.
- CorneaThe clear front of the eye, which has no blood supply at all, because any vessel running through it would be visible as an obstruction.
- CirrusThe highest cloud, made entirely of ice, which is why it is thin and casts almost no shadow.
- CumulusThe heaped cloud with a flat base, which forms at the exact height where rising air cools to its dew point, so the flatness is a temperature.
- CartographerA person who decides what to leave out, because a map that included everything would be the same size as the place.
- CormorantA diving bird that has to hang its wings out to dry afterwards, because its feathers are not waterproof like other seabirds'.
- CurlewA wader with a long curved bill and a call that sounds like its own name, heard mostly over empty ground.
- CrocusA flower that comes up before its leaves, and one species of which produces the most expensive spice by weight in the world.
- ColumbineA flower whose spurred petals were seen as five doves in a ring, and whose other name comes from the eagle's claw.
- CowslipA meadow flower that grew everywhere, nearly vanished when the meadows were ploughed, and has come back along road verges.
- CelandineA small yellow flower that opens in sunshine and shuts when it clouds over, so a bank of them tracks the weather.
- CornflowerA blue weed of cornfields that was so common it named the colour, and that herbicides nearly removed from the country entirely.
- CicadaAn insect that spends years underground as a nymph and a few weeks above it, and some kinds emerge only in prime-numbered years.
- CinnamonA bark traded across the world for centuries at enormous prices, protected by stories its sellers made up about where it came from.
- CloveA dried flower bud that grew on a handful of islands and nowhere else, which made those islands worth a war.
- CassavaA root that feeds hundreds of millions and that will poison anyone who eats it without processing it properly first.
- ChicoryA blue-flowered plant whose roasted root has stood in for coffee whenever coffee could not be got, and stayed in the recipe afterwards.
- CarpA long-lived freshwater fish, farmed in monastery ponds across Europe and kept as a coloured ornament in the east.
- CuttlefishA mollusc that changes colour and pattern across its whole skin in an instant, and is colour-blind while doing it.
- CivetA small nocturnal mammal whose scent gland supplied perfumery for centuries and which is now better known for coffee.
- ChinchillaA rodent with the densest fur of any land mammal, which is why it cannot get wet and why it was nearly wiped out.
- ChandlerA maker of candles, working in tallow or wax, whose product was the only way to extend a day and was rationed accordingly.
- CuratorSomeone who decides what is kept and what is shown, and whose largest decisions are about the things nobody will ever see.
- CapeA garment with no sleeves that covers by hanging, and that reads as authority or as concealment depending on nothing but context.
- CassockA long plain robe worn as daily dress by clergy, which is a uniform that removes the question of what to wear.
- ChemiseThe plain linen layer worn next to the skin under everything else, washed constantly while the outer clothes were almost never washed at all.
- CorduroyA ribbed cotton cloth hard-wearing enough to have dressed working men for generations, and then to have become a marker of a particular kind of aca...
- CravatA length of cloth wound at the throat, which took skill to tie and was ruined by a single crease, so a man might use several before leaving.
- CrinolineA framework of hoops that held a skirt out from the body, which freed the wearer of many pounds of petticoat and put her in a cage.
- CapstanA vertical drum turned by men walking round it with bars, which multiplies effort by having everyone push at once in a circle.
- CaravelA small ship with sails that could work against the wind, which is what made it possible to sail out and get back.
- CastanetsA pair of shells held in one hand, played by the fingers rather than by striking, so both hands can play independently.
- CelloA bowed instrument held between the knees, pitched in the range of a human voice, and played in a posture that puts it against the body.
- CampanileA bell tower standing apart from the church it serves, so the sound and the building are in two places.
- CarnelianA red-orange stone soft enough to carve and hard enough to last, which is why so many ancient seals are made of it.
- CartilageThe smooth tissue on the ends of bones, which has no blood supply and therefore does not heal when it is damaged.
- CertaintyThe feeling of being sure, which is a state of the person rather than a property of the thing they are sure about.
- ClaritySeeing a thing plainly, which usually arrives suddenly and afterwards makes the previous confusion hard to reconstruct.
- CardamomA pod that has to be picked by hand just before it opens, which is why it is among the most expensive spices there is.
- CorianderA herb that a proportion of people taste as soap, for a reason in their own genes rather than in the plant.
- CranberryA bog fruit harvested by flooding the field, because the berries have air pockets inside and float to the surface.
- CuminA seed that has been confused with caraway for so long that several languages use one word for both.
- CapybaraThe largest rodent there is, semi-aquatic and so placid that almost every other animal treats it as furniture.
- ChamoisA mountain antelope whose name is on a cloth in nearly every kitchen, almost none of which has anything to do with the animal.
- ConfectionerA maker of sugar work, whose finest pieces were built to be looked at and then destroyed by being eaten.
- CostermongerA street seller working from a barrow, whose cry was how the goods were advertised in a city with no other way to do it.
- CalicoA plain cotton cloth named after the Indian port it was shipped from, whose import was banned to protect the wool trade.
- CambricA very fine linen named after the town that made it, thin enough to be a test of a laundress and of a needle.
- ClavichordThe quietest keyboard there is, and the only early one where pressing harder makes the note louder and lets it be bent.
- CornetA brass instrument that looks like a trumpet and sounds rounder, because its tube widens gradually rather than staying parallel.
- CragA steep rock face left standing where softer ground was scraped away, which is why so many castles are on one.
- ChromiumA metal named for colour, since its compounds come in almost every one, and used mostly as an invisible layer on something else.
- CobaltA metal named after the goblin that miners blamed, because its ore looked like silver and poisoned the people smelting it.
- ChalcedonyQuartz with crystals too small to see, which is why it is translucent and takes a carved line where coarse quartz would shatter.
- CitrineA yellow quartz, most of which on the market is amethyst that has been heated until it changed colour.
- CarawayA seed used in bread and cake across northern Europe, and the other half of the confusion that has followed cumin for centuries.
- ChardA leaf vegetable that is the same species as beetroot, bred for the top instead of the root.
- ChiveThe smallest onion, and the only one growing wild across both Europe and North America without anybody carrying it there.
- ChancelThe part of a church beyond the screen, named after the lattice that separated it, so the name is the barrier rather than the space.
- ColonnadeA row of columns carrying a roof, which is a wall with most of it removed and the load put into the gaps.
- ChiffonA sheer floating fabric whose name comes from the French for rag, which is what the offcuts it was made from were.
- CaracalA desert cat with long black ear tufts that can take a bird out of the air from a standing jump.
- CatamaranA vessel with two hulls, which gets its stability from width rather than from weight, so it carries no ballast at all.
- CutterA fast single-masted vessel, built for chasing rather than carrying, and the word survives as the name for a coastguard ship of any size.
- ClampA device that holds two things together while something else does the actual joining, and is then taken off.
- CorncrakeA bird of hay meadows that calls all night and vanished from most of Britain when mowing machinery arrived.
- ChaffinchA common finch that sings in regional dialects, so a bird from one valley can be told from one twenty miles away.
- CamelliaAn ornamental shrub of which one species is the tea plant, so half the world drinks the leaves of a garden flower.
- CampionA hedgerow flower whose swollen calyx behind the petals is a bladder that inflates, and which opens for moths at night.
- ClematisA climber whose seed heads are silver and feathered, giving it the country names traveller's joy and old man's beard.
- CyclamenA flower whose stalk coils into a spring after flowering, pulling the seed head down to the ground and holding it there.
- ConstableA police officer whose title comes from the count of the stable, so the word began as the man in charge of the horses.
- CounterfeitFalse money, whose making was treason rather than theft, because it attacked the sovereign rather than the person holding it.
- CrozierA bishop's staff shaped as a shepherd's crook, carried by somebody who has almost certainly never handled a sheep.
- ChasubleThe outermost vestment, a poncho with a hole for the head, whose name means little house because it covers the whole person.
- CodicilAn addition to a will, which alters it without replacing it, so the original and the change have to be read together.
- CreditMoney advanced on the belief that it will come back, from credo, meaning I believe, so the word is a statement of faith.
- CharnelA place where bones are kept, and a word now used almost entirely as an adjective for a scene of slaughter.
- ColanderA bowl full of holes, which is useless for everything a bowl is for and perfect for the one thing it does.
- CleaverA heavy blade that cuts by weight rather than by sharpness, so it is deliberately blunter than a knife.
- CrutchA support that transfers weight from a leg to an arm, and which does damage if the weight is taken under the arm.
- CompressA cloth applied with pressure and a temperature, where the choice between hot and cold reverses depending on how old the injury is.
- ConvalescenceThe period of getting strong again after illness, which was once prescribed and scheduled and now largely is not.
- CrossbowA bow held horizontally and released by a trigger, which let an untrained man kill an armoured one and was condemned for it.
- CutlassA short heavy blade made for fighting on a ship, where there is no room to swing anything longer.
- CofferA strongbox, and by extension the money in it, so a state's coffers are a piece of furniture standing for a treasury.
- CreelA wicker basket carried on the back for fish or peat, made so that the load rides high and close to the spine.
- ConkersHorse chestnuts drilled and hung on knotted string, struck against each other until one breaks, with the winner inheriting the loser's score.
- CharadesA word acted without speech, where the difficulty is not the word but the ban on the one thing that would settle it.
- CrampA muscle contracting and refusing to let go, which turns a part of the body into something happening to you rather than something you are doing.
- ChillCold that comes from inside, which is why a room can be warm and the person in it can still be cold and be telling the truth.
- CrockA glazed earthenware jar for keeping things under fat or brine, and also the word for something that has stopped working.
- CenturyA hundred years, numbered so that the count and the digits never agree, which trips everybody every time.
- CurfewAn order to be indoors after a certain hour, named for the older order to cover the fire so the town would not burn down in the night.
- Carbon paperA sheet that makes the copy at the same instant as the original, so the record and the letter are one action rather than two.
- CinderFuel that has burnt through and gone out, which looks like an ember and is not, and the difference is the entire point.
- ChimeBells struck in a tune rather than counted, so the hour is recognised by melody before anybody starts counting the strokes.
- ClatterMany small hard things striking each other at once, which is the sound of something being dropped and never of something being placed.
- CreakThe noise of a house cooling, which is why it happens at night and why it sounds so much like somebody walking about.