Over the course of each year I compile a list of words that strike me amusing, or fun to say, or interesting, or baffelingly strange. Now that the end of the year is here, it’s time for me to unravel my self-compiled dictionary of strange for the amusement of many, or just me. Enjoy!
Previous Lists
- Absquatulate: v: to flee, abscond
- Affranchise: v.tr: To make or set free
- Agrestic: adj: rural; rustic, unpolished; awkward:
- Ailurophile: n: a person who likes cats; cat fancier.
- Apocope: n: loss or omission of the last letter, syllable, or part of a word.
- Asthenic: adj: having a slight build or slender body structure
- Atrabilious: adj: gloomy; morose; melancholy; morbid.
- Aubade: n: a song greeting the dawn
- Beldam: n: an old woman; a hag
- Bibelot: n: a trinket
- Boeotian n or adj: dull; obtuse; without cultural refinement.
- Bromidic: adj: pertaining or proper to a platitude;
- Brouhaha: n: excited public interest, discussion, or the like, as the clamor attending some sensational event;
- Caliginous: adj: misty; dim; dark.
- Clishmaclaver: n: gossip; idle or foolish talk.
- Chatoyant: adj: changing in luster or color:
- Cockalorum: n: a self-important little man
- Cozen: v.tr.: to cheat; to defraud; to deceive, usually by petty tricks.
- Cygnet: n: a young swan.
- Dandiprat: n: A little fellow; an urchin; a dwarf: a word of fondness or contempt.
- Demisemisequavar: n: a thirty-second note
- Demontic: adj: of or pertaining to the ordinary, everyday, current form of a language; vernacular:
- Discalced: adj: without shoes.
- Dishabille: n: the state of being dressed in a careless, disheveled, or disorderly style or manner; undress.
- Divagate: v: to wander; stray.
- Ecdysiast:n:a stripper
- Embonpoint: n: plumpness of person; stoutness
- Enceinte: adj: pregnant; with child.
- Epanorthosis: n: The immediate rephrasing of something said in order to correct it or to make it stronger. Usually indicated by no, nay, rather, I mean, etc.Example: I’ve warned you a thousand, no, a million times.
- Epizeuxis: n: A figure of speech by which a word is repeated with vehemence or emphasis,
- Eristic: adj: Pertaining to controversy or disputation; controversial.
- Eremite: n: a recluse, especially for religious reasons
- Exiguous: adj: scanty; meager; small; slender:
- Farouche: adj: sullenly unsociable or shy.
- Fletcherize: v: to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.
- Fossick: v: to hunt; seek; ferret out.
- Fulgurate: v: to flash or dart like lightning.
- Futilitarian: adj: believing that human hopes are vain, and human strivings unjustified.
- Gainsay:v: to deny, dispute, or contradict.
- Gamboge:n: yellow or yellow-orange.
- Gloaming:n: twilight; dusk.
- Guacamole:n: a dip of mashed avocado mixed with tomato, onion, and seasonings.
- Hegira: n: any flight or journey to a more desirable or congenial place.
- Impecunious: adj: habitually without money
- Jactitation:n: a false boast or claim that causes injury to another.
- Kismet:n: fate; destiny.
- Lagniappe:n: a small gift given with a purchase to a customer, by way of compliment or for good measure; bonus.
- Lapidary: adj: Of or pertaining to the art of cutting stones or engraving on them.
- Leptorrhine: adj: having a long narrow nose
- Lineament: n: A linear topographic feature, as of the earth.
- Liminal:adj: relating to the point (or threshold) beyond which a sensation becomes too faint to be experienced
- Loam: n: earth or soil
- Locum: n: someone (physician or clergyman) who substitutes temporarily for another member of the same profession
- Lollop:v: to move forward with a bounding or leaping motion.
- Lucifugous: adj: avoiding light
- Maffick: v.tr: To celebrate boisterously
- Maguscule: n: large, as either capital or uncial letters.
- Matutinal: adj: Relating to or occuring in the morning; early.
- Megrim:n: low spirits; the blues.
- Misogamy: n: hatred of marriage
- Muliebrity: n: the state of being a woman.
- Mummery: n: Pantomime as enacted by mummers; a show or performance of mummers.
- Mussitate:v: to mutter; mumble.
- Nepenthe:n: anything inducing a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness, esp. of sorrow or trouble.
- Noctivagant: adj: Pertaining to going about in the night; night-wandering.
- Obnubilate: v.tr: To cloud over, obscure, or darken.
- Oleaginous: adj: having the nature or qualities of oil.
- Orthoepyn: the study of correct pronunciation.
- Palladian:adj: pertaining to wisdom, knowledge, or study
- Pelf: n: money, riches
- Pother:Noun: 1. A commotion or fuss. 2. Mental turmoil. 3. A smothering cloud of dust or smoke.
- Precatory: adj: Expressing a request
- Prosopography:n: a study of a collection of persons or characters, esp. their appearances, careers, personalities, etc., within a historical, literary, or social context. a description of a person’s appearance, career, personality, etc.
- Quisling:n: a person who betrays his or her own country by aiding an invading enemy, often serving later in a puppet government; fifth columnist.
- Shivaree:n: a mock serenade with kettles, pans, horns, and other noisemakers given for a newly married couple; charivari. an elaborate, noisy celebration.
- Sinople: n: term used in heraldry to denote the color red, also the color green
- Simulacrum: n: Something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities.
- Soigné:adj: carefully or elegantly done, operated, or designed.
- Solferino:n: vivid purplish pink.
- Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia:n: brain freeze
- Spoor: na; a track or trail, esp. that of a wild animal pursued as game.
- Subtilize:v: to elevate in character; sublimate. to make (the mind, senses, etc.) keen or discerning; sharpen. to introduce subtleties into or argue subtly about.
- Suspire:v: to sigh.
- Susurrus:n: a soft murmuring or rustling sound; whisper.
- Swain:n: a male admirer or lover.
- Tarradiddle: n: A petty falsehood; a fib.
- Traduce: v: to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame
- Tramontane:adj: being or situated beyond the mountains.
- Trichotillomania:n: a compulsion to pull out one’s hair.
- Valetudinarian:n: a person who is excessively concerned about his or her poor health or ailments.
- Vatic: adj: Of or related to a prophet or a prophecy: prophetic.
- Vellicate: v.tr.: To twitch or to cause to twitch.
- Vermillion:n: a bright red to reddish-orange colour
- Vespertine: adj: Of, pertaining to, or occurring in the evening.
- Videlicet: adv: That is; namely; to wit. (used to introduce examples or details).
- Vitiate:v: to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil.
- Ullage: n: the amount by which the contents fall short of filling a container, as a cask or bottle.
- Uncial: Of or relating to a style of writing characterized by somewhat rounded capital letters and found especially in Greek and Latin manuscripts of the fourth to the eighth century a.d.
- Woebegone:adj: beset with woe; affected by woe, esp. in appearance.
- Zaftig: adj: full-bodied; well-proportioned.
