What new words have you learned recently?

[Willie the Duck]

cephalophore (n): a saint depicted carrying their own severed head. I'm absolutely flummoxed as to why this word exists.

To be fair, every field of study is going to have incredibly specific jargon that to an outsider seems incomprehensible, and art would not be an exception. If you are getting an art degree, you have to have ways to discuss things, so why not break it down into a million tiny bits?

I remember learning (as a teen) about names for sub-parts of the body like the Tragus of the ear or the Philtrum of the lip and thinking how silly it was for each of them to have this specialized name no one would remember, and my teacher saying, "the people who need to make these distinctions will remember."