Vocabulary Misconception

I get most of my vocabulary from reading, thus I often garner definitions from the context, rather than a dictionary definition.  (My pronunciation similarly suffers; when I was a kid I though youth was pronounced like mouth. My mom still won't let me live that down...)

Just today, for example, I learned that laconic means using or involving the use of a minimum of words : concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious.  To me this makes it synonomus with terse.  However, I've always linked laconic with the word languid, meaning drooping or flagging from/as if from exhaustion, sluggish in character or disposition, or lacking in force or quickness of movement.  Oddly enough, I've also associated a slightly more elegant meaning with the word languid, associating it more with Greek royalty lounging in chaises, receiving grapes and being fanned with palm leaves, than with someone drooping with exhaustion.


I guess the moral of this is to have a dictionary on hand while reading, for instant definition (and pronunciation)