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He kept the truck in two wheel drive and drove in second gear. The light of the unrisen moon before him spread out along the dark placard hills like scrimlights in a theatre.

I searched the word in a few dictionaries, and none of them included it as an adjective. ChatGPT says the word could not be used as an adjective. I could only assume that Cormac McCarthy meant the hills that resembled a placard sign (flat, maybe). Or has it got anything to do with the French 'placard' meaning a closet?

The quote is from the book "No Country for Old Men".

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    You don't say which book of McCarthy's this quotation is from. Commented Mar 27 at 11:07
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    Note that McCarthy often used words in poetic, opaque ways, pushing them further than most would in order to create a striking image (and the hits often paid for the misses). As for this one, maybe it's an alternative spelling of the relatively rare "plaquered", trying to say something about the hills' patchy or dappled colour, perhaps. Commented Mar 27 at 11:57
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    @MichaelHarvey - yes perhaps. Like flat silhouettes/cut outs, lit from behind with diffuse lighting (scrim lighting). That's plausible. Commented Mar 27 at 12:46
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    Placards in Brechtian theatre were signs with writing on (like the placards people carry on protests), so I think the more likely meaning is a flat thing as Merriam-Webster's "a small card or metal plaque", by analogy with the shape of the hills. A scrim is used to soften light, as Michael Harvey says; I don't think McCarthy suggests the hills are translucent like actual scrims. I think the overall meaning is pretty clear, even if the precise type of placard is unclear. Commented Mar 27 at 13:04
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    It's in Merriam Webster. In English, nouns are often used as noun adjuncts (adjectivally). So placard hills are hills like placards. The hills seem like signs or posters i.e. flat against the skyline. Brechtian theatre here is overreach. The moon, notr yet risen, made the hills look flat like signs. Commented Mar 27 at 15:40

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It's a metaphorical use, so you won't find it in the dictionary.

The clue is in the word scrimlight. This is a theatre technique where a light is placed behind a flat sheet with a painting on it, to create the backdrop for a scene on stage.

It would seem that "placard" is being used, along with this reference to scrimlight, to suggest that the scene resembled a flat, scenery backdrop.

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    Thank you for the answer! Commented Mar 28 at 2:44

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