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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 some 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, in which case the definition is usually based on those in my trusty Chambers, Oxford and Penguin dictionaries.  Occasionally I’ll refer to Johnson’s; my edition is dated 1811, so it’s useful for archaisms.

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 (as in Burns’ “The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley”)

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 (opposite is Katabatic: a downward movement, e.g. a downdraught off a mountain)

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

Katabatic: see Anabatic

Lum: chimney (see Auld Reekie above)

Meronym: a word whose relation to another is that of part:whole (e.g. paw:dog or hinge:door) [from the Greek "meros", part]

Mundungus: (noun) from the Spanish meaning ‘entrails’; in English, the stench of tobacco

Neritic: living in shallow coastal waters

Paraprosdokian: figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation (e.g. “Where’s there’s a will, there’s a family”)

Pelagic: the ocean equivalent of nomadic – a pelagic fish travels long distances, e.g. to different regions for summer and winter

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