coruscating

A rough diamond. A word that scrapes coarsely like a skate with nicked edges, but at its core is a sparkling star. Somehow this glittering word has managed to come forth without the [g] or [l] so common in words for shiny things, and no [S] (“sh”) either; it presents rather with the unpleasant hint of excoriating and perhaps scorching and rusting. But in the sparks produced by its voiceless stops come flashes of brilliance, like a diamond caught in the light of passing train windows. It has not had its moment of movie glamour as its fraternal twin coruscant has, starring as a scintillant planet; but it has also not suffered the ignominy of sophistical consonant assimilation (place and manner!) visited upon this latter, which lost its second [k] for its close-up. The twins are the lingering twinkles of a Latin light, coruscare. This word has considerable longevity and steadiness, remaining untarnished and unchanged in meaning through the ages, likely due to its rarely being exposed to the air.