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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