Amorce, an odd A-word

I’m late to A, B, C, and D for Penny Fuller’s “The A-Z of Unusual Words Challenge”, but I want to try to join for the next letter and I get a kick out of checking off boxes in order. So, before I do competition E, I figure I should do A, B, C and D, even though I can’t vie for the top A-spot and that sweet $1 tip.

The Meaning of Amorce

The word I wanted to do was abyssopelagic, but entrant Mackenzie Davis already, very wisely, nabbed that up here. I browsed and browsed and browsed odd words that start with "A" and finally settled on "amorce".

According to both wiktionary and Collins Dictionary (who was probably robbed by wiktionary for its meaning), it means 'percussion cap' or 'detonator'. It also apparently means 'bait', but bait isn’t what speaks to me, except in that my aunt used some amorces to draw out our joy and spark some of hers.

When I was very little my aunt brought me and my siblings some toys. Those toys were pop guns. As an adult, I’m very much not in favor as guns as toys, which is a sentiment I learned from my mother—who swooned in annoyance when we opened our gifts. But as a child I loved those plastic little silver things. I loved snapping in the red rings, pulling the click click as I ran through the halls, feeling the pop-pop-pop of the little pistol caps, inhaling the smell of the little smoky detonations.

My aunt was quite mischievous, as I think part of the joy of giving us those toys was watching the other adults faint over little girls with loud 'boy' toys.

I hold a competing space in my heart for the joy on her face, and for my poor mother, who never found guns to be much for amusement, and didn’t like any toy representing a gun (especially not the simple wood carving of a shotgun my uncle made for me, just a shape, not much more, with a hole for my thumb, and most certainly she did not like pop guns). To my mother, her father had taught her that guns were always tools, and were under no circumstances playthings.

I’m not sure how to resolve the dissonance between the memory of the amorce of the little toy pistols in my hands and the fact that I grew up to arrive at my mother's sentiments (guns are not toys). But most certainly that dissonance is there and my literal senses were tapped wide into recall (smell, sound, vibration, expressions of the adult, feel of my running body, and me and my siblings' squeaking voices) just on stumbling upon the word:

Amorce.

So here's to and cheers to "Amorce".

Poem:

For some, its amor, amoret, amoré

For others its morsels and more-so and morays

For me its amorce, me & my siblings at play

Amorce. Amorce. Amorce for a day.

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Thanks for visiting my page. I'm adding this little blurb just to see how it works out. If you'd like to see more of my work here are two of my favorite poems that I've written:

Butter Cream: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/butter-cream%3C/p%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}

When we were young: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/when-we-were-young-m7bv010dxa%3C/p%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}

Since I'm now a vocal plus member, I'll see if I can use the editing feature later to add each of the letters of the challenge on as I do them. Right now there is only A (which, spoilers, is this page), but I will add others soon.