stelliferous

Pronounced: steh-LIHF-er-us, adj

Notes: Another word I couldn’t guess the meaning of, but after reading it, it makes sense

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Yesterday’s phrase

The phrase mise en abyme means “self-reflection in a literary work, a work of art, etc”

First usage

A fairly recent word; it came into English in the 1960s

Background / Comments

As you probably thought, our word is a French word mise en abyme or mise en abîme (placed into abyss). This term originally applied to heraldic shields in which a smaller shield was put into the center of the shield. I’m not sure how it mutated into the current definition, but examples would be a story within a story, or a dream within a dream… or the infinite reflection one can see in two mirrors facing one another.