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Weirds: odd, unusual, interesting and just plain weird words
I’m a copywriter: I love words, the odder the better. I found a lot of these in the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words, which is a fascinating book. Others are Scottish (from the Scottish Pocket Dictionary) or English dialect words. Still others I’ve just fallen over on my way.
If you find a great “weird” do email me and I’ll add it to the list.
FYI: if you know a word, but don’t have a dictionary to hand, you can get a definition by typing “define: [your word]” (without brackets or quote marks) in the search bar of Google. But you won’t find all of these there…
Adfenestrate: to enter by a window; conversely Defenestrate is to exit (or, more normally, be ejected) via a window
Agley, aglee: off the straight, wrong, awry
Agon: a public celebration with competitions and games
Agonal: the agony of death
Airt: direction, way, point of the compass
Aleatory: random – used e.g. in avant-garde music where players are improvising around a motif
Amaranthine: unfading (the flower Amarantus doesn’t fade as it dies)
Ambles (or Umbles): deer guts (hence “humble pie”)
Ambsace: double one (e.g. in dice) or snakeyes – ambo is Latin for “both”
Anabatic: an upward movement or increase
Anchylosis (or Ankylosis): a stiffening of part of the body, often at an odd angle
Anent: opposite, alongside, concerning
Antinomy: a paradox – literally “against the law” }
Antimony: the element stibium } easily confused, these three!
Antonym: opposite (and opposite of synonym) }
Apterous: wingless – from Apterix: wingless bird
Argie-bargie: (g as in “argue”) a quarrel or argument, or haggling
Ashet: large serving plate (qv the French assiette; a relic of Mary Queen of Scots’ time in France?)
Attercap: a spider, or a spiteful person
Auld Reekie: Edinburgh. The reek refers not to a stink, but to smoke (q.v. lang may yer lum reek)
Auriferous: gold-bearing
Auscultate: to listen to interior sounds e.g. with a stethoscope.
Autochthonous (or Autochthonic): native, [ab]original, indigenous, formed where it is now found
Axillary: to do with the armpit
Bahookie (or behouchie): Scots for backside
Balbutiate: to stammer or stutter (balbutiating is the adjective)
Bathycolpous: deep-chested or heavy-bosomed
Batrachian: to do with frogs
Bawbees: money (a bawbee was an English halfpenny, or six Scots pennies)
Baxter: a baker
Beneplacit: a gift (a “good pleasure”)
Benthic: bottom-dwelling (sea or ocean, not anatomy!)
Bidie-in: a person who lives with someone of the opposite sex without marriage
Bing: a heap, pile or slag-heap
Bint: slang (UK) for a girl or woman. Comes from Arabic.
Bisom: Scots term of contempt for a person (usually a woman)
Blether: talk nonsense or too much. Blethers: foolish or boasting talk
Bodacious: complete, thorough (a combination of bold and audacious)
Boke or bowk: to belch or, more commonly, to retch
Bonspiel: a curling match
Bothy: a rough hut used by shepherds, mountaineers, fishermen or farm workers
Braw: fine, well-dressed, excellent; a large sum of money, as in ”a braw penny”
Breeks: trousers, underpants or breeches
Brummagem [ware]: originally from “Birmingham”, now means cheap, tacky stuff from anywhere.
Burglarious: surreptitious, like a burglar
Burke: (from Burke and Hare, early C19th Edinburgh murderers) to kill by suffocation or strangulation
But and ben: the but is the kitchen and the ben the living room of a two-room cottage
Caliginous: misty, dim, murky, obscure, dark
Cob: a male swan
Deipnosophist: a master (or mistress) of the art of dinner-table conversation
Eleemosynary: living on alms (charity) or giving them
Empyreumatic: related to fire (qv [funeral] pyre)
Imperially [to think imp.]: “always to think of something higher and more vast than one’s own national interests” (Sir Winston Churchill)
Irenic (or eirenic): designed to make peace
Lum: chimney (see Auld Reekie above)
Pen: a femal swan
Polyseme: word or phrase that has multiple meanings (the inverse of “synonym”)
Saltchuck: British Columbia, Canada, term for salt water (sea or estuary, not gargling)
Sesquipedalian: many-syllabled (word)
Tawdry: comes from St. Audrey, presumably because they sold cheap, tacky stuff at the annual Fair in her name.
Thestral: dim and dark, with connotations of death and graveyards and such.
Unwitting/unweeting[ly]: unknowing, unknowingly