For Independence Day, I began sneaking difficult words into my column each week to test your vocabularies. Now, my fellow Americans, on Labor Day, my labors are done.

Did you notice those words the past two months, or did you skip over them, the way we often do when reading? I hope you cracked open your dictionary or searched their definitions on the Web. Better yet, I hope you already knew those words.

I didn't know most of them myself, so it was fun to learn as I tested you. I had run across them while reading 1,000 Most Challenging Words, written in 1987 by Norman Schur, a lexicographer (look it up). He was as witty as he was omniscient.

I began my campaign in July with mention of the "haptic experience" of slicing a watermelon. Haptic (HAP-tik) is an adjective pertaining to the sense of touch, Mr. Schur tells us. Moreover, haptics is the science of interpreting data obtained through touch.

A week later, I called my leftover stir-fry goluptious . Goluptious (gol-UP-shus) is slang for delicious, delightful or splendid, and it can be spelled a great number of ways.

Next, I said my suppers on vacation were "a sapid feast." (Apparently, all I ever write about is food!) Sapid (SAP-id) describes anything having flavor and is Latin for "flavored."

It also means agreeable, palatable, interesting or exhilarating, it so can describe such things as conversation or writing; it is the opposite of "insipid."

(The day after reading "sapid" in Mr. Schur's book, I reached for my dictionary to find another word, and it opened to the page topped by "sapid." I took that as a sign to include it in the column.)

As July closed, I suggested that the strange wording of the Second Amendment resulted in "a gallimaufry of connotations."

1,000 Most Challenging Words tells us that a gallimaufry is "a jumble, a hodgepodge, a mishmash, a farrago, a salmagundi, a potpourri, an olio, a confused medley." Mr. Schur states the obvious when he writes that gallimaufry "has a very gallimaufry of synonyms" -- and even more words for us to look up.

In French, gallimaufry is a ragout (ra-GOO), and it can be a literal stew or a figurative one.

In that same column, I mentioned plaudit , which was not in the book but was suggested by co-worker Lindsey Stewart, who had seen it in reading. It means a round of applause or praise.

Next, I said my granddaughters' obsessions "divagate from boys to cell phones to awful music to eating." To divagate (DYE-vuh-gate) is to stray, wander or ramble and, in speaking, to digress.

The next challenging word I cited was in "a nimiety of rules." A nimiety (nih-MY-ih-tee) is too much of something, an overabundance. It is the opposite of "paucity" or "dearth." (Even before Mr. Schur, I had always intended my first novel to be called A Paucity of Dearth. But I divagate.)

I wrote about the troglodytes in traffic who drive dangerously. Troglodyte (TROG-luh-dite) is a blend of words meaning "get into" and "cave," so it literally is a cave man but includes a hermit or a coarse person.

One of Joan Crawford's last films was the truly bad Trog (1970), in which she studies a cave man who had been found alive. That troglodyte was not Fred Flintstone, of course, because Fred lived in a house.

After visiting the Augusta Museum of History recently, I wrote that finding the admission to cost only $1 was a lagniappe.

Lagniappe (LAN YAP) was not in Mr. Schur's book, either. It is used mainly in Louisiana to mean something extra given to the customer during a transaction; a gratuity. It seemed to fit at the time.

My space is up, and I never got to write about abecedarian, mussitate, tetragram or picayune (also from Lindsey). Maybe next time, though, so keep your dictionary handy.

Reach Glynn Moore at (706) 823-3419 or glynn.moore@augustachronicle.com.