Many times I’ve posted about “words and phrases I hate,” but now let’s walk on the sunnier side and list the words we like (phrases would be too onerous). I was inspired by the tweet below that Matthew sent me from Jonathan Eisen, evolutionary biologist and brother of Wormageddon instigator Michael Eisen:
My daughter & I have been compiling lists of some of our favorite words. Here are my current top10 (her's next)#MyFavoriteWords
Crepuscular
Soliloquy
Cornucopia
Perpendicular
Cacophony
Phalanges
Crestfallen
Gargoyle
Troubadour
MalachiteWhat are yours?
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) August 7, 2020
These words seem to be chosen because of their sounds, which, I suppose, is the best criterion for having a favorite word. Mine, however are a mixture of sound and meaning. And I don’t have a list, so I’ll just put a few down off the top of my head:
ratiocination (learned from Hitchens)
rodomontade
particolored
uxorious (learned on my own, but Hitchens used it often)
jeremiad
subfusc
exiguous
usufructs
unctuous
argot
gamine
noisome
farrago
arrant
sedulous
lubricious
That’s a good selection. Your turn (put one or more of your favorites below).
Deciduous
Obsequious
Scintillating
Gregarious
Ostensibly
This sounds so much like you’re describing someone in not quite flattering terms.
I love these too.
Cool! Good words! 🙂
Protean
Screed
Ubiquitous
Antipodian
Fallacy
unctuous
hallelujah
evolution
happenstance
straphanger
accommodate
malleable
poltroon
aggrandizement
bioluminescent
lubrication (first polysyllabic word I was able to sound out when learning to read–it was on a service station)
+1 unctuous – a Hitchens word, as I see it.
Unctuous=Eddie Haskell
“That’s a beautiful dress, Mrs. Cleaver.”
On radioopensource.org/hitchens-v-god Hitch was going back and forth with Princeton professor Eddie Glaude. He critiqued Glaude’s logorrhea as “white noise . . . Not a single thing you just said made a word of sense to me . . . I make my living analyzing(?) words.” He pointedly reflected on Glaude’s “unctuous tone.”
Nice
I remember it vaguely from a debate ( of course) but perhaps with Francis Collins?!? Can’t recall… I seem to recall he said “people dying of their teeth”..
“Poltroon” is a good one!
Check out your Oxford Dictionary, then ask: would I vote for one.
“poltroon”
I have a paperback history of Washington I read once in the late 70’s. He referred to someone as “a damn poltroon.” Funny what one can’t forget from a book.
Sort of the same flavour as scofflaw
Hemidemisemiquaver
+1
Was that from John Barth, or was that a hemisemidemigod?
I don’t think Dr Spooner would approve: more likely a drum roll.
“I don’t think Dr Spooner would approve: more likely a drum roll.”
Would you rather have a well-oiled bicycle or a well-boiled icicle?
I guess that would depend on the reading on my mirthometer.
I suppose that, theoretically, a well-boiled icicle could exist, but only if there were absolutely no air pressure. If there were actually a choice between the two, therefore, both would have to be at zero air pressure. But with no air pressure around, a well-oiled bicycle would have blown-out tires and so would be useless. The boiled icicle would still be useful in all the ways that an unboiled icicle is, e.g. stab your foe in the heart, return him to normal pressure, and no murder weapon can be found. Whereas, its much more difficult to stab with a bicycle, especially when it’s so slippery with all the oil.
I like the well-tempered clavier.
much better than an irritable clavicle
Mine all seem to have an Ancient language structure:
Potentate
Avuncular
Pugnacious
Loquacious
Risible
don’t you mean “wisible”?
😂
wuv the wisible wing-ed kekulean constrictor?
😁 Only when you need to throw someone to the floor roughly.
Hooray! Been looking forward to this one!…. (still looking forward to more WIH … is that an acronym yet?)…
BYW Sullivan’s dish is out – excellent writing.
Lenticular
syzygy (astronomical)
And scrabble game winner.
That was the title of an X-Files episode. That’s the only reason I know what the term means.
I’d forgotten about that!
Not one of the better episodes, IMHO!
Yeah, I was just looking it up. I guess that’s why I forgot it.
This reminded me of a CA town I’m the Mojave. Zzyzx.
“Zzyzx.”
Does that have a certain meaning or provenance? When I was in the USN, in 1983 in Olongopo City in the Philippines, I saw a most excellent all-female pop/rock vocal quartet (three Filipinas and one Aussie who was fluent in Tagalog), with a five-piece band, named “Zzyzx.” (I was sufficiently smitten to persist in acquiring
a video of them and to remember their names – Anna, Pat, Max and Lie). I should have asked them what “Zzyzx” means. I wonder how life is for them now.)
According to Wikipedia:
According to Wikipedia:
I always remember the “Zzyzx Road” exit sign pictured on the Wikipedia page from when I was a child on family trips passing through the desert on I-15.
I believe there is/was mining company named Zyzxx, and Soda Springs CA changed to Zzyzx. Love the sign on I15
Great words!
avuncular
ludic (just learned it)
halcyon
i’m sure I have many more but gotta get a “word” in edgewise before you are inundated!
halcyon is a good one.
Serendipity. Come on, one can say dipity and still be taken seriously.
I was going to say that was my favourite, ever after I came across it accidentally…
😀
Definitely my favourite. 😊
For years, my favorite word has been “antimacassar.” I like it because it’s such a formidable-looking and -sounding word for what it defines.
tintinnabulation
unctuous
edgewise (h/t uommibatto)
multiverse
aboutness
gaslight
I’m sure there are a lot more but I lack a quick way to access them.
I learned tintinabulation from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “The Bells.”
Whoops! My Control+C apparently didn’t work right. This is the poem:
https://poets.org/poem/bells
Me, too,and as an example of onomotopeia(sp?)
“Discombobulated”—the word sounds like the state it describes.
You beat me to it with discombobulated.
I think my mother coined the word gooferfeathers for burrs that stick to dogs.
As does phlegm, when you hear it. Not that it’s one of my favorite words.
Which makes me remember that onomatopoeia is one of my favourite words.
Nice!
Speaking of which, I like “cattywumpus.”
Or kittywampus
I wonder if “cattywumpus” has some connection to the legend of the “Wampus cat.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampus_cat
“Cattywompus.”
My mother used to refer to my brother and me as “Wampus Pig” and “Wampus Cat.” I don’t recall which was which.
phlebotomy
hysteresis
interstitial
splendiferous
folderol
defenestration
Oh I like defenestration….one that’s tricky for English speakers but probably easy for German and French speakers.
+1
I love that word!
But now that I think of it, shouldn’t there be a verb for removing a window? You can rehang a window, replace a window, upgrade a window, but only after removing the one that’s already there.
And along the same lines of thought if defenestration also means to kick someone out of power, I think if you change your mind it could be refenestration.
refenestration: bring back Obama.
Which might, with any luck, also result in reforestation
Yeah, without actually defenestrating yourself.
me too
One of the most important and possibly fascinating words for a reader of history is – sovereignty.
It has been the struggle since the beginning and not so easy to spell either.
I’m partial to “equinox” and “quixotic,” because they are the only words I know in the English language that have both a Q and an X.
That’s exquisite.
Ooh, I missed one, thank you, darwinwins!
Chancellor of the Exchequer
windowsill
mischief
flabbergasted
perceptive,-ion
fetch (a great word not much used any more)
ineluctable
agenbite
coherent
synchronous
To go with fetch (for sound) also “wretch”. As in “he was such a wretch”.
Anodyne
Oh wow what an expressive word – learned it right here!
Ever since reading Sir Thomas Urquhart’s translation of Rabelais I have been very fond of “Metagrobolize.”
Sample sentence:
“I find my brains altogether metagrabolized and confounded, and my spirits in a most duncical puzzle at the bitter talk of this devilish, hellish, damned fool.”
For more of Sir Thomas’s translation magic and way with bizarre words, here is a sentence from chapter XXV of Gargantua and Pantagruel, book one:
“The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets”.
“Shite-a-bed scoundrels.” I have to use that one someday.
You and Johnny Depp (allegedly)…
Two of the most important words today:
positive
negative
recrudescence (leared from Hitchens)
recalcitrant (Cormac McCarthy)
buggered (Hugh Grant)
obsequious (religion/dogs)
cipher (math, but applies to humans too)
idempotent (quantum mechanics)
proffer (Hitchens/WEIT)
prating knave (you know who)
firmament (Hamlet/McCarthy)
Words are easier to remember when you remember where you get them from
From some “restoration rake” period movie. “Saucy,” as in “saucy wench.”
contrafibularities
Anaspeptic
Compunctuous
Pericombobulation
And my favourite
Interfrastically
You should get Baldrick to write them down.
As part of his cunning plan?
I can’t recall if any of these words were on my SATS, but I’m guessing not many. Otherwise, I would have been in big trouble.😊
Noctilucent
widdershins, does it mean:
(a) something made out of (goat) horn
(b) shinbone protection
(c) counterclock-wise
It comes from Middle Low German weddersinne, and that’s close to the german “widersinnig” — literally “against one’s senses”, i.e. irrational. English meaning is counter-clock-wise.
Three more:
snowclone
anodyne
diatribe
Lugubrious
I love that one!
regarding ‘lugubrious’, it is used in our household to describe desserts with far too much cream and sugar. Yes, I know that’s not it’s actual meaning, but….
I don’t know where this will be posted given the current WordPress peculiarity (not a bad word in itself:
Cwtch …
Plethora
Solipsistic
Squamous
Fuck
Conglomerate
I was going to write “fuck” as well. I love swearing in Germanic languages. A lot to do with pooping too.
So happy to get a response Diana.
You are a contributor to this website, if I’m not mistaken. Is that right?
Anyway, I just love the word “fuck.” It’s such a versatile word.
Nah I’m just a regular reader. I just blab a lot.
Antidisestablishmentarianism
That was my favourite until my mid-teens when I discovered deoppilation and floccinaucinihilipilification, not that they are much use.
On the other hand, for playing hangman, phlox was a sure fire winner.
Puts you in interesting company: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-17156658/mp-uses-29-letter-word-floccinaucinihilipilification
And then there’s pneum onoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis :https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis#English
duende
defeasible
boffin
artificer
troilism
fabula and syuzhet
ablate
hypodescent
rubicund
rebarbative
asperity
involute
malversation
sunder
proleptic
immiserate
catafalque
apodictic
lachrymal
execrate
plutophagy
fissiparous
hysteresis
propitiate
apotropaic
barratry
premonitory
mononymous
nescience
palter
connoissance
theophanous
supererogatory
patinate
I like lachrymal!
Pyrrhic as in pyrrhic victory which sadly I’ve used twice this week to describe encounters and outcomes.
“Another victory and we’re doomed!”
😀
Love pyrrhic!
Languid
Chiaroscuro
Eschew obfuscation
Person
Woman
Man
Camera
TV
Oh wait, that’s a different list.
I
You
The
Thing
Is
What would we do without them?
I kid. As others have mentioned, it’s hard to come up with favourite words until one happens to encounter them. But among the ones that others have presented, I’m particularly partial to “quixotic” and “avuncular” for some reason.
I am familiar with all of Eisen’s words (presumably “hers” isn’t one of his favourites as he hasn’t spelled it properly), but as for our host’s—-yikes I thought I had a good vocabulary but I need a dictionary.
For a future post, I suggest words you can never remember the meaning of. Two of mine are “shibboleth” and “palimpsest”, although I may be finally coming to grips with them.
And I thought if I answered, “moist” it would be funny. This is even better.
Man
Woman
Birth
Death
Infinity
Try to remember the meaning of lethologica.
Yeah, “I have the best words”. LOL
apoplectic is a good one too as is acerbic.
covfefe
Hmm. The fact that Superfluous doesn’t make anyone’s list strikes me as odd.
Australopithecus, because it’s fun to say.
Hepatic encephalopathy. A term I use to explain to people that doctors can charge more if they use latin and greek words because they sound impressive.
Ha ha I’ve been arguing for years that doctors and others in the medical vocations use Greek and Latin to sound important and separate themselves as educated from their patients. My favourite examples are the podiatrist calling my condition “pes planus” for “flat feet” and my dentist calling my mouth guard a “bruxism device”. In retaliation I call my podiatrist “my foot doctor” and my dentist “my tooth guy”. 😀
Yep. Sometimes they make good joke fodder, at least, as in Jerry Seinfeld’s treatment of “rhinoplasty.”
Ha ha yes or when he is accused of being an “anti-dentite”.
Indeed; salpingo-oophorectomy
Oh yes the word oophorectomy is a favourite because when your ovaries are removed it’s like someone punched you and you went “ooph”. Nephrology is good too because I think of Nefertiti.
And I believe the root referring to the fallopian tube means trumpet; appropriate
I was really disappointed when I learned French, because it turned out that “grand mal” seizure and “Petit mal” seizure mean “really bad” and “kind of bad.”
It’s no wonder French people are so cranky.
Metatron…a figure of Jewish mysticism that sounds like a futuristic super-robot.
Or a kind of Jurassic dinosaur.
Wonderful!
asymptotic.
That’s enough for me for now.
It’s certainly close enough for the time being. 🙂
Reminds me of a mildly dirty joke told by a calculus professor I had who was teaching calculus for engineers. I won’t tell the joke, but you can already tell what it would be, I’m sure.
My students used to titter over asymptotes.
Priapic
or the condition “priapism”.
Sequoia
Yosemite!
That’s two words.
One of my favourites though I didn’t remember to list it. I also like seraglio, imbroglio, fracas, and ennui, even though these are non-English words.
oh! oui, oui to ennui!
the word.
non, non to the state
Also ettui. I love cyan, cinnabar, vermilion, chartreuse, celadon, malachite, and rosewood. I just like how certain words sound and slip off the tongue. Like chimichurri and chimichanga!
sanction — because of its seemingly contradictory meanings
antidisestablishmentarianism – because I learned to spell it as a first grader, and because it aligns with my position on the state support of the church (ha!)
verisimilitude — just because
Cleave is another one of those words with diametrically opposed meanings.
As is in today’s usage the word “nonplussed,” which can mean both nonplussed and, well, plussed, I guess.
As in either upset or nonchalant/unbothered.
But not minused😬
“nonplussed and, well, plussed . . . .”
I’m reminded that I need to learn when to use “uncanny,” and when to use “canny.”
Like people using infamous when they mean famous.
Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!
“Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”
If something can catch fire, is it “flammable” or “inflammable”?
That double-edged prefix “in-” is a pesky (“peckish”?) thing.
The Pope is what you call therrre, ahhh, inflammable.
This reminds me of one of my favorites used when teaching immunology – anamnestic. The root refers to memory; put an a in front [amnesia] and you have forgetting; put an an in front and you have not forgetting, or memory!
Like ravel and unravel meaning the same thing.
“Like ravel and unravel meaning the same thing.”
I’m reminded of sanctions “for” and “against.”
✔️
What I could think of off the top of my head, having never really thought about favorite words. I mean, in one sense I’d have to include f!@# in any favorites list, but . . .
mundify
frabjous
codswallop
mellifluous
unctuous
loquacious
pulchrify
mistral
islet
dongle
Ha ha. I used the word “dongle” in IT at work one day and some people laughed at the word. They didn’t have an IT background and had just joined so I think that’s why as I’ve been saying “dongle” since the 90s when I started working. I asked around and everyone else knew what it was. I do like saying it too as it sounds like it is a bit salacious.
Exactly! It’s fun to say and sort of makes me giggle or at least smile, in my head at least.
Be careful: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/techie-adria-richards-fired-after-tweeting-about-mens-comments/
Donglegate.
I remember that. An early example of cancel culture.
Everybody on both sides got cancelled, which goes to show how crazy the whole thing is.
MAC: Mutually Assured Cancellation
I guess that’s what happens when the Woke meet the anti-Woke…!
Dongle was used in IT even before the 90s. It was around when I entered the field professionally in 1974. Dongles were part of a copy protection scheme. A dongle would be attached to an I/O port. When the software product ran, it first read data from the port. If it didn’t read some magic number, or failed to find the device at all, it refused to run or ran only in “demo mode”. Customers could install the software for free but they had to pay for the dongle that would allow it to run.
Yes I’m aware the terminology has a long history but I didn’t start working until the 90s.
dingle, dangle, jingle jangle. Dingleberry.
Shuboshuate. As in, he couldn’t get inside quickly enough. He had to shuboshuate outside on the ground.
gardyloo
The perfect embodiment of a rarely achieveable state, and then only transiently so:
pellucid.
ambivalence, as in:
Does ambivalence
Make much sense?
I don’t know or much care,
Anytime or anywhere
So I’ll just sit on the fence!
skeptic, as in:
Every scientist is a skeptic;
Against Faith it’s an antiseptic.
And if you believe this,
Then I must insist,
You’re not being scientific!
Somnambulism
Jeopardize! I can imagine the word lounging on a jungle branch flicking its tail.
Acquiesce! Even sounds like water.
And ‘soliloquy’. My wife was grumbling once about what a bunch of ingrates we are, and I murmured to my eldest that mum could just say ‘monologue #3’ and save time. Marisa paused and said thoughtfully that ‘it’s more of a soliloquy really, as nobody’s listening’. A nice word.
I emailed Scott Adams with that gag as I thought it would go nicely in a Dilbert cartoon, but alas he never used it.
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.
infinitesimal.
sommelier
portmanteau
reconnoitre
ambrosia
limn
cephalopelvic disproportion (phrase)
contour
curvaceous
concur
gleam
gloaming
iridescent
verdant
sequester
cloistered
hunger
elucidate
sandwich
linguine
languid
bisque
rosebud
risible
soiree
splendour
splendiferous
serendipity
sanctimonious
succulent
unctuous
wily
unremarkable (when used by doctors)
(the one that always makes me giggle is ‘Bespoke’)
hippopotamus
mulled
incurious
fatuous
provenance
folly
finagle
parsimonious
persimmons
flummox
labyrinth
serpentine
probity
persiflage
Due to my blue collar origins, I only learned what a sommelier was a couple years ago.
I learned this years ago from a gentleman who was a wine connoisseur.
ontic
residuation
bloviating
equiprimordial
soi-disant
Truncate
quaff
sequestered
pontificate
piwakawaka (NZ fantail)
hunch
munch
bandolier
umbrella
Huruhuru: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/brands-mori-named-pubic-hair-scli-intl/index.html
There’s an apocryphal story that when Pepsi began selling its product in Thailand in the 70s, the slogan “Come alive, you’re in the Pepsi generation” was mistakenly translated as “Pepsi makes your ancestors return from the dead.”
I read the story in a copy of the The Old Farmer’s Almanac when I was a kid and I’ve never forgotten it. Snopes couldn’t verify the story, but I want it to be true!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/come-alive/
I’d buy Pepsi if I saw an ad like that and I hate Pepsi. I’d sim to build a huge ancestor army.
Sim=aim
They could do A Walking Dead cross-promotion or something.
Or Game of Thrones white walkers.
And the one guy said he was angry because using Maori word was cu,turns, appropriation and you shouldn’t just use someone else’s language. Good grief. I had a dog called Kuri when I was a kid. Kuri is Maori for dog. No Maori I to,d about it ever told me I culturally appropriated them. Besides, I’d just say I meant to call my place “pubic hair” so there!
I meant “cultural” you’ll see where. It was because of the so many languages in English. I subconsciously couldn’t appropriate anymore.
We had a previous cat called ‘Neko-san’ (Mr Cat in Japanese), and none of our Japanese friends found that inappropriate. Our now senior cat is called ‘Xhimi’ which is Tibetan for cat, and again no problems, although I know only two Tibetans, and one of them gave me the word.
Good grief – the whole success of English is down to its ability to assimilate foreign words. And without the Latin and Germanic influences it would barely exist at all…!
cockamamie
statistics
Sound: mellifluous
Meaning: expatiate
On Jerry’s list, too: exiguous
Snark: ex-president Trump
Personal reasons too hard to explain: lieu
Gubernatorial is also a favourite.
How about fiduciary? That one had me ignorantly giggling the first time I heard it.
That is a good one.
“Gubernatorial is also a favourite.
That is a good one.”
For some states it may be “Goobernatorial.”
Take your lists and scramble the words to make fantastic band names:
Unctuous Munch
Phalanges of the Crestfallen
The Lugubrious Boffins
A Cacophony of Troubadours
LOL.
If only Jethro Tull had been named Unctuous Munch, Ian Anderson could have had a field day.
insegrievious
Glad to see subfusc on your list! I thought I was the only one.
Also,:
-galore
-syzygy (good hangman word)
I prefer orthogonal to perpendicular. You can end an argument simply by saying something like “My views are orthogonal to yours.” They say “Huh?” and go away.
“What are you doing using your big school words? Just use normal people words and I’ll understand what you’re talking about.” – Ricky
Lucky for me, I didn’t argue with Ricky.
I, a statistician, would take it to mean that your views are “independent” of mine.
Yes. And you would be right.
Well, darwinwins, so far you have only half-disappointed me–whereas all the rest have whole-disappointed me. At least you got covfefe right–but you did not list the word that has become the most important word in my vocabulary, and which should be the most important for everyone: bigly.
Chocolate.
It rolls over the tongue.
[No, really, all my favorites were taken. Can maybe add “mollusk” since it sounds funny with Swedish as mother tongue. Like chocolate taste, no real reason, it just works out that way.]
Oh, seeing the lede, I should likely add this:
[ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-reexamine-nicknames-for-cosmic-objects/ ]
The Universe is Woke.
Wow! Look at all those favorite words!
A great question.
I have one word to add: Hammurabi
As in the code of Hammurabi. He was the king who implemented the early legal system. A first of an important aspect of civilization. Nice word.
… and there’s kohlrabi. 🙂
A poem is coming together in my mind…
Quodlibet. It describes this comment thread perfectly.
Underpants. Are they pants that go under something or they an adjective turned into a noun? When you wear both underpants and pants, do you have underpants under pants or are you really wearing under-underpants?
Perspicacious. Is that stinky thinking?
Poultry
Bungle
Covert
Crepuscule / Crepuscular
penal substitution — I don’t believe in it, and I enjoy saying that Christians do.
… and all of the 7 words you can’t say on television.
I hope the underpants(or pants, as the Brits call them) dilemma doesn’t keep you up at night.🤓I was helping my 4-yr.-old granddaughter change out of her bathing suit recently and asked her if she needed help with her underpants. She kinda humphed and said “I call them uNderwear or just undies.”
Then, after successfully dealing with her undies, she proceeded to put both legs through the same leg of the stretchy shorts attached to her skirt, and was happy to leave them like that.
Gotchies
I’ll have to introduce her to that term.
I’ve heard the shorts inside a skirt called “skorts” – it might be a British thing, although I don’t think so.
Yes,a skort it is, but maybe I was womansplaining for the “gentlemen” in the group🤓
The whole thing is a skort. Gotchies are Canadian slang for underwear.
And western Pennsylvania “gutchies”.
Litotes
Nibble
adamantine – favorite word by far because it is so mellifluous to hear, your cheeks and lips pull back when saying it, causing you to smile, and the mental image that it provokes elicits a feeling of timeless strength
flocculent – one sees a flock of sheep when enunciating it: very apropos
pluripotent – saying is playing, and it conjures a fun mental image
just fun to say:
falafel
subtle
luscious
Adamantine also makes me think of Wolverine, which is a bonus.
I see that syzygy was claimed quite early on, so I’ll have to offer instead, on an astronomical or mathematical theme:
almucantar
loxodrome
herpolhode
I took a guess at meanings before looking them up:
almucantar – A song begging for alms.
loxodrome – Where liquid oxygen is loaded.
herpolhode – A harness for snakes and lizards.
I was incorrect.
Also, as of this morning:
huruhuru
You may need to read this news article for context:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/beer-brand-and-leather-store-unwittingly-named-after-maori-word-for-pubic-hair
Sad… too many Greek & Latin words in most replies! Call me a nativist but I like my tongue for its Germanic roots – nice consonant clusters…
Rawish
Damp
Clumsy
Winter
Drizzling
Sleet
Chilleth
Wan
Bleak
Numbed
Earth
That string of words comes from an Elizabethan play…
No surprise that on a beautiful sunny day you went with “winter”, “sleet”, “drizzling” etc. Dom!
This reminds me of an amusing FB post where the other complained about using “you” as a singular pronoun instead of “thou” which resulted in someone using Shakespearan English to complain that the original poster did not use pure enough English which was followed by a Middle English scolding thus:
I especially enjoyed “stynt dy clappe!” since it recalls the German “halt die klappe!”
I have my dictionary out which I’ll have tombs for some of the words here. Adding (or repeating) –
picaresque
onomatopoeia
steatopygous
lucifer (old word for a match)
luminescence
luciferin
osculate
illuminate
cassoulet
bonobo
neandertal
atheist
liberty
equality
humane
Oh, how I hate autocorrect!
Tombs – To use
Favourite Scottish words:
Scunner
Gallus
Glaikit
Shoogle
Bampot
Paradiddle
Salacious
Axolotl
Iconoclast
Fallacy (not to be confused with phallusy – resembling a phallus 🙂
Trumpicide (well, a boy can dream, can’t he?)
There is even a paradiddle-diddle. Which can be played normal hand first, or the other way round, a – dare I say it? – a widdershins paradiddle-diddle.
Widdershins Paradiddle-diddle sounds like a racehorse or the pedigree name of a dog at Crufts.
I once was in a meeting where someone said “that’s fallacious” and another person in the meeting giggled, thinking it was to do with penises.
The iggler was being salacious about falla ious.
Whoah-messed that up! The giggler
was being salacious about fallacious.
Now iggler is one of my favorite words!
Sounds like a Batman villain.
Sounds like a Batman villain.
Yes. The antagonist in an atman film.
Attaboy(man)!
Some of my favorites:
onomatopoeia
vituperate
anathema
facetiously (partly because it has every normal vowel in order)
indeed
Coming late to the game, but I used three of my favorites at the beginning of this poem:
Ars Poetica
Ambiance, feckless, ineluctable:
sometimes you think it would all be clear
if you merely increased your vocabulary,
learning words that line up possibilities
like birds on a wire, or clothespins.
The real trick is to let the whole
menagerie of undone acts leap toward you
so that your surprise is not an act—or,
if an act, an act of recognition you’ve
been saving expressly for strangers.
Commas, quarter-moons, kindnesses:
those metal humps on bridges that the car
goes over and you know there is no
cause for alarm. You gather them in
with, almost, love. They take you home.
Great poem!
I am fond of covfefe. I use it in the same context I once used kerfuffle, though I occasionally revert….
Often use kerfuffle.
Does anyone know if Covfefe has been added to any dictionary of record?
No idea. Some people who looked into the word figured it was a typo for “coffee’.
Then there are some regular words that are indispensable, such as:
guttural, heinous, vanishingly, commiserate, curmudgeon, brain-fart, flimflam, kasbah, shenanigans, carpet-bagger, miserly, penny-farthing, dither, hovel, unmoored, dappled (shade), and other favourites – terse, babbling (brook), flummoxed, brevity, concatenate, contiguous, simplify, cuckolded, duplicitous, bamboozled, egalitarianism, and equanimity, resplendent, transcendence, subsume and sublime.
stupor, decrepitude, ephemeral, ingénue, toothsome.
acrimonious, crinoline, flehmen, ululate
Ululate is harder to say than to do.
I agree!
I’ve sadly seen many women ululating in Beirut (on the news).
That’s very sad and dismal.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had occasion to say “come with me to the casbah.”
My husband used to put on his best movie accent imitation: ” Come with me to the Kasbah, and we will make beautiful music togetha!”
🤣
dastardly. That list reminded me of one of my favourites.
I too love dastardly. Also aplomb, diaphanous, pollywog, polyglot, hunky-dory, scallawag, whorehouse, floozy, crapshoot, fogey and others I fleetingly recall and then forget. :). My OCD is shining through here.
Also succinct. I do love economy of words. Sam Harris is exceptional at this.
Pithy.
Oh pollywog is a good one.
B: What was the name of that one woman who was talking to you at the party last night?
C: Which, the oleaginous one or the one who was unctious?
B: the former
C: she’s polyunsaturated
My favorite word is
Borborygmus
Thanks for teaching me this word! I’ve often wondered about that condition.
TEN FAVORITE WORDS
pulchritude
rigamarole
cantankerous
armamentarium
razzmatazz
momentum
contumacious
discombobulated
legerdemain
onerous
rigamarole – a hybrid tomato and avocado pasta/condiment.
Great words. I use many of them. A few are new to me. I like fulminate, fetid and putrefied too.
susurrus
eucatastrophe
I’m glad I learned these from you. Thanks!
My favorites are words that describe my cats:
– Crepuscular (you already used that)
– Inquisitive
– Exquisite
– Fascinating
= Variegated (I have calicoes and torties)
– Enigmatic
– Sphinxlike
– Gracile
Gracile, except when they wipe out (and lick a paw)😻🐾🐾
Truer words were never spoken!
One Hippopotami
https://youtu.be/FVekfpXJGBc
Love this!! I had never heard it.
The pedant in me is upset by the wrong plural speaking about a singular.
And then of course there’s this: https://youtu.be/1QW85kfakJc
Oh, that’s so cute! Thanks!
It’s a real earworm🎶😬
I see Eisen included “Cacophony”. Only recently did I find out I had been misreading this word as “kack-o-pho-knee” when it’s actually “ker-coffer-knee”.
Also only recently, did I find out about the word “cockamamie”, which amuses me to no end.
I’m enthralled at the idea of pairing it with the former adjective, and with the former being mispronounced.
https://youtu.be/4aOlcTySj0s This video gives a great insight into the latter word, and an idea of usage by those less familiar with it. Right or wrong, it’s very funny, and I think that deliberately pairing it with my misreading of cacophony makes it even funnier.