Look Up Every Unfamiliar Word You See
Anthony Burgess used the word “marmoreal” in his fascinating book Language Made Plain first published in 1964. This paragrapgh was taken from page 138 of the Flamingo edition published in 1984 by Fontana Paperbacks:
The point about selecting a passage of verse or prose which shall give aesthetic pleasure, and then submitting it to linguistic analysis, is precisely that the end of learning a language can be presented along with the process of learning. In studying grammar, we swim miserably in a marmoreal sea of abstractions, wondering at the point of it all. In reading—however haltingly—even a very few lines of a Roman poet, we do not wonder; the point is there before us.
From Wiktionary—marmoreal:
Adjective
- Resembling marble or a marble statue.
Etymonline.com on marmoreal.