Vocab at the Movies: Vertigo
Today’s film selection is a classic: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Despite being a popular name for nightclubs, vertigo is a horrible medical condition characterized by a feeling of spinning (a feeling so violent it can often lead to vomiting and incapacitation). Thus: a terrible name for a nightclub, but a pretty good name for a horror movie.
The more versatile word vertiginous can be used to refer to anything liable to cause vertigo (either literally or metaphorically). For instance:
The fiftieth-floor apartment was a great deal, but she couldn’t take the vertiginous heights.
Successful traders are those who can control their emotions even in a vertiginous financial environment.
On a somewhat related note, the word vortical (not a typo!) means “relating to a vortex.”