Every year I make a list of 100 words. These are words that I find interesting, or exotic, or just strike my fancy. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to them, but over the course of the following year I try to memorize and use the words in a list. I’ve been doing this for a while and my previous lists are still online.
And now, without further ado. The words of 2009. Most of the definitions are from dictionary.com. Many of these words have multiple meanings and parts of speech. I choose the meaning and part of speech that I found the most intriguing.
1. Abulia: n: a symptom of mental disorder involving impairment or loss of volition.
2. Absquatulate: v: Slang. to flee; abscond
3. Aestival: adj: Of, relating to, or appearing in summer.
4. Afflatus: n: inspiration; an impelling mental force acting from within.
5. Affray: n: a public fight; a noisy quarrel; brawl.
6. Amative: adj: disposed to love; amorous
7. Ambisinister: adj: clumsy or unskillful with both hands.
8. Anodyne: n: anything that relieves distress or pain:
9. Argal: conjunction, adv Literary. therefore: used facetiously to indicate that the reasoning that had gone before or the conclusion that follows is specious or absurd
10. Atrabilious: adj: gloomy; morose; melancholy; morbid
11. Bagatelle: n: something of little value or importance; a trifle
12. Bedizen: V: to dress or adorn in a showy, gaudy, or tasteless manner.
13. Bescumber: v.t: To discharge ordure or dung upon
14. Bespoke: adj: (of clothes) made to individual order; custom-made:
15. Bibulous: adj: fond of or addicted to drink
16. Bruit: v: to voice abroad; rumor (used chiefly in the passive and often fol. by about):
17. Cadastre: n: A public record, survey, or map of the value, extent, and ownership of land as a basis of taxation
18. Caitiff: n: a base, despicable person
19. Callipygian: adj: having well-shaped buttocks
20. Calumny: pl. n: a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something:
21. Caterwaul: v: to utter long wailing cries, as cats in rutting time
22. Cavil: v: to oppose by inconsequential, frivolous, or sham objections
23. Cenotaph: n: a sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person whose body is buried elsewhere.
24. Clochard: n: a beggar; vagrant; tramp
25. Comity: n: a state of mutual harmony, friendship, and respect, esp. between or among nations or people; civility
26. Contumacious: adj: stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient
27. Deracinate: v: to isolate or alienate (a person) from a native or customary culture or environment
28. Dextral: adj: of, pertaining to, or on the right side; right
29. Dilatory: adj: tending to delay or procrastinate; slow; tardy
30. Dishabille: n: the state of being dressed in a careless, disheveled, or disorderly style or manner; undress
31. Epeolatry: n: The worship of words.
32. Epigone: n: an undistinguished imitator, follower, or successor of an important writer, painter
33. Ersatz: adj: substitute, artificial and often inferior; using substitute components
34. Espalier: n: a trellis or framework on which the trunk and branches of fruit trees or shrubs are trained to grow in one plane
35. Excrescence: n: an abnormal outgrowth, usually harmless, on an animal or vegetable body
36. Factitious: adj: Produced artificially rather than by a natural process.
37. Fainéant: adj: lazy, idle
38. Flummadiddle: n: nonesense
39. Friable: adj: easily crumbled or reduced to powder; crumbly
40. Gamine: n: a diminutive or very slender girl, esp. one who is pert, impudent, or playfully mischievous
41. Gelid: adj: very cold; icy
42. Gestalt: n. pl: an instance or example of such a unified whole.
43. Gimcrack: n: a showy, useless trifle; gewgaw
44. Gloaming: n: twilight; dusk
45. Gnomic: adj: expressing what is generally or universally true
46. Guerdon: n: a reward, recompense, or requital.
47. Hirsute: adj: hairy
48. Hypergelasts: n: someone who laughs excessively
49. Imprimatur: n: official sanction or approval; support:
50. Inchoate: adj: not yet completed or fully developed; rudimentary
51. Inculcate: v: to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly
52. Ineluctable: adj: incapable of being evaded; inescapable
53. Insouciant: adj: free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant
54. Inveigle: v: to entice, lure, or ensnare by flattery or artful talk or inducements
55. Importunate: adj: urgent or persistent in solicitation, sometimes annoyingly so
56. Lachrymose: adj: suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful
57. Lissom: adj: lithesome or lithe, esp. of body; supple; flexible
58. Lucullan: adj: (esp. of banquets, parties, etc.) marked by lavishness and richness; sumptuous
59. Louche: adj: dubious; shady; disreputable
60. Malinger: v: to pretend illness, esp. in order to shirk one’s duty, avoid work, etc.
61. Magniloquent: adj: speaking or expressed in a lofty or grandiose style; pompous; bombastic; boastfu
62. Manichean: n: a believer in religious or philosophical dualism
63. Maquillage: n: Cosmetic or theatrical makeup
64. Maugre: preposition: in spite of; notwithstanding
65. Mawkish: adj: characterized by sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin
66. Mendacious: adj: telling lies, esp. habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful
67. Merkin: n: false hair for the female pudenda
68. Miasma: n.pl: a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere
69. Misoneism: n: hatred or dislike of what is new or represents change.
70. Monadnock: n: A mountain or rocky mass that has resisted erosion and stands isolated in an essentially level area. Also called an inselberg
71. Nostrum: n: a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims and with no demonstrable value; quack medicine.
72. Objurgate: v: to express strong disapproval; to criticize severely
73. obsequy: n: a funeral rite or ceremony.
74. Pellucid: adj: allowing the maximum passage of light, as glass; translucent
75. Perdurable: adj: very durable; permanent; imperishable
76. Purlieu: n: an outlying district or region, as of a town or city
77. Persiflage: n: light, bantering talk or writing
78. Perspicacity: n: keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration.
79. Pestiferous: adj: Producing or breeding infectious disease.
80. Probity: n: integrity and uprightness; honesty.
81. Prolix: adj: Tediously wordy
82. Quietus: n. pl: a finishing stroke; anything that effectually ends or settles
83. Recherche: adj: very rare, exotic, or choice; arcane; obscure
84. Repine: v: to be fretfully discontented; fret; complain
85. Rodomontade: n: vainglorious boasting or bragging; pretentious, blustering talk
86. Roister: v: to act in a swaggering, boisterous, or uproarious manne
87. Rollick: v: To move or act in a playful, carefree manner.
88. Ruminate: v: to chew the cud, as a ruminant
89. Sempiternal: adj: everlasting; eternal
90. Sinistral: adj: of, pertaining to, or on the left side; left
91. Skeuomorph: n: an ornament or design on an object copied from a form of the object when made from another material or by other techniques, as an imitation metal rivet mark found on handles of prehistoric pottery
92. Stentorian: adj: very loud or powerful in sound
93. subfusc: adj: dark and dull; dingy; drab:
94. Tarradiddle: n: A petty falsehood; a fib
95. Temerarious: adj: reckless; rash
96. Tocsin: n: a signal, esp. of alarm, sounded on a bell or bells
97. Topiary: adj: (of a plant) clipped or trimmed into fantastic shapes.
98. Univocalic: n: A piece of writing that uses only one of the vowels.
99. Vexillology: n: the study of flags
100. Virago: n.pl: a loud-voiced, ill-tempered, scolding woman; shrew
I’ve been researching a lot and after skimming trough this all I could say is “finally somebody who writes besides obsessing #with his# website info”. great job. You just made the internet a better place after 1/2 the bloggers only doing this to get paid for every word.
[...] 2007 2008 2009 2010 [...]