Word of the Day: unusual words you may not have heard of

[ZlodeyVolk]

Wiktionary is a handy reference, too. Lots of dialect words, as well as the regular variety.

 

[AlexH]

arctophile
[ahrk-tuh-fahyl]
noun
1.
a person who is very fond of and is usually a collector of teddy bears.

turophile
[toor-uh-fahyl, tyoor-, tur-]
noun
1.
a connoisseur or lover of cheese.

 

[CTRandall]

Here's one I don't know. Amazingly, Google doesn't know it either. Does anyone here know what it means?

pityomycology

It obviously has something to do with fungi (it comes from a book on woodland ecology in a section dealing with Japanese mycorrhizal fungi). Beyond that, I'm clueless.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Mycology, of course, is the study of fungus. When I searched "pityo" I got a bunch of plants with genus-names starting with that prefix. So, I'm guessing that Pityomycology relates to the study of a specific genus of fungi.

 

[Graymalkin]

nolens volens - like it or not

 

[CTRandall]

Thanks @Alex The G and T Idiot me for not searching just the prefix!

 

[thaddeus6th]

Quafftide: the time when one feels entitled to a drink.

I keep a Sir Edric file for one liners, and have added quite a few words, including the one above, having read them on Susie Dent's Twitter account.

 

[Al Jackson]

I came across a couple of words I'm not familiar with recently, and thought it might be fun to have a thread showcasing perhaps less common words.

Have you ever read?

 

[Vertigo]

I came across a great word at the weekend which might be a challenge to include in your average bit of writing:

defenestration
/ˌdiːfɛnɪˈstreɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
noun: defenestration; plural noun: defenestrations

formal•humorous
the action of throwing someone out of a window.
"death by defenestration has a venerable history"


informal
the action or process of dismissing someone from a position of power or authority.
"that victory resulted in Churchill's own defenestration by the war-weary British electorate"

I just love that we actually a a word for throwing someone out of a window. How good is that?

 

[CTRandall]

Quafftide: the time when one feels entitled to a drink.

Wow, that opens up a whole lot of verbs to abuse! You could put "tide" at the end of almost anything...

 

[thaddeus6th]

Naptide

 

[The Judge]

I've never used defenestration myself, but I've come across it a number of times over the years -- in reading, I hasten to add, not in real life.

One word I was appalled to discover a couple of years ago was noyade -- a mass execution by drowning, as practised in Nantes during the French Revolution.

 

[thaddeus6th]

That's a rather specific term. Never heard of it before it.

Defenestration is a good word. Those who did French or German at school may find the meaning easier to remember (think the French for window is fenetre and the German is Fenster).

 

[J Riff]

We used absquatulate, but had forgotten it. And now, I must absquatulate off to the laundromat.

 

[ZlodeyVolk]

The really strange thing about absquatulate is that my MS Word spellchecker recognised it. Easter egg?

 

[Karn's Return]

Iniquitous: Wicked or sinful, or unjust.

 

[Dan Jones]

One word I was appalled to discover a couple of years ago was noyade -- a mass execution by drowning, as practised in Nantes during the French Revolution.

It seems these nasty practices have their own squalid little corner of the dictionary. Lapidation, for example, means death by stoning.

 

[CTRandall]

Hmm, I wonder if lepidoptation might mean death by butterfly?

 

[Dan Jones]

You'd need a lot of butterflies...

Edit: Or one big ******* butterfly.

 

[-K2-]

You'd need a lot of butterflies...Edit: Or one big ******* butterfly.

Mothra...

K2