I’m currently reading The Duke and I and the author is constantly using the word “acerbic”. I had never heard of the word before now and had to google the definition. The word has shown up so much that I’m tempted to go through the book and count its appearances lol.
Have you noticed any authors having favorite words that they use page after page?
It was common in the 19th century, since the word simply means “throwing outward” in a generic sense. It shows up in Edgar Allan Poe, too. I once had a book about colloquial Latin that pointed out that on a Roman baseball team, the position of pitcher would be known as the ejaculator.