My own private etymology

I have always had a certain love for words. Out of that has grown a love for certain words. These are the ones that will appear once in a book and become the focal point of its meaning. They leap off the page each time I see them.

I concede there are words that relate to the obvious, the mundane, the conspicuous. And then there are those that redefine the world in which I find myself.

Ersatz. Used time and again by Philip K. Dick meaning fake or substitute.

Melancholy. Affectionately used by Charles Dickens to express sadness or gloom.

These are two words that inspire me to search for a deeper meaning, to develop my own etymology. I don't want to settle for the dictionary definition since doing so is too limiting. Too restrictive. There's always some other way of looking at them. Some other meaning we aren't given, or meant to discover.