I would like to use this thread as a depot for strange words. You know, words that are found mostly just in puzzles and sometimes even in standardized tests. The SAT gave up analogies, the GRE still has them. Many of the words used for these analogy questions were, from what I can remember, archaic or strange. Otherwise intelligent students are penalized for not knowing odd words like the word stygian. Crosswords, anacrostics, anagrams, and other word puzzles also make frequent use of strange words as well. For example, here is a word that I anagramed in a daily word jumble recently-- the word bauble.

Bauble:1. a showy, usually cheap, ornament; trinket; gewgaw.
2. a jester's scepter.

Here is a word I came across (no pun intended) in a crossword puzzle last week-- the word sylph.

sylph: 1. a slender, graceful woman or girl.
2. (in folklore) one of a race of supernatural beings supposed to inhabit the air.

So, if you come across strange archaic words during your reading and/or puzzling adventures please try to remember to leave the words here along with, if your time permits, their definition and how you stumbled upon them. Thanks.

An acquaintance of mine [with a college degree who is headmaster of a private school no less!] didn't know the word calumny.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/calumny

I once used 'plumbic' as equivalent of 'gray' in a post here, and almost got stoned.

That´s my contribution.

__________________
"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

Here is a word that prevented me from solving a puzzle the other day:

Prattle: 1. to talk in a foolish or simple-minded way; chatter; babble.
2. to utter by chattering or babbling.

You mean like on Fun & Games?

platykurtotic

__________________
Bibio, ergo sum.

I would like to introduce the multi-defined word "souse" which I teased out while working on today's jumble. The definition, straight from dictionary.com, is as follows:

Souse:
–verb (used with object) 1. to plunge into water or other liquid; immerse.
2. to drench, as with water.
3. to dash or pour, as water.
4. to steep in pickling brine; pickle.
–verb (used without object) 5. to plunge into water or other liquid.
6. to be soaked or drenched.
7. to be steeping or soaking in something.
–noun 8. an act of sousing.
9. something kept or steeped in pickle, esp. the head, ears, and feet of a pig.
10. a liquid used as a pickle.
11. Slang. a drunkard.

Ignis-fatuus -pl. Ignes-fatui
A meteor that flits about over marshy grounds; called also Will-o-the-wisp, Jack-a-lantern.
I know of the willo the wisp and that its from the gases in the marshy ground but I was corrected by a elderly farmer who was quite upset that I used the common name for it. I had to get out a ancient dictionary to find the proper name he had called it.

__________________
Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.

Varium et mutabile semper foemina.

if you have a 'language' problem / question / curiosity.....refer to Mr William Safire or his weekly columns in newspapers...he'll keep you informed / entertained till the cows come home to roost....BAUT's very own grammarian-in-chief, Gillianren, worships at his altar (me, not far behind) and will help out any one with curiosity , point in the right direction...

Fledermaus where did you get this 'ignis-fatuus' (lovely meteor). thanks......sounds Finnish / Magyar...

must check out the willo'-the-wisp....

__________________
clear skies

I have seen the willo-the-wisp and was really frightended as a child it was chrissy who told me what they were!
The ignis-fatuus was what the old fellow called it and I have a old Blackies Standard Dictionary from 1946 and was the only place I could find it! There are some really old words in there no longer used, also lots of lovely Latin.I was given this by a elderly nieghbour when I was 7 to keep me occupied and is still doing the job!

__________________
Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.

Varium et mutabile semper foemina.

aaw! how nice....cherish it....

__________________
clear skies

Man, I can think of about a hundred German words that English-speakers would find absurd, but for now I'll just pipe in with one of my favourites:

Sauerstoffflasche.

It's a perfectly normal word (meaning 'oxygen tank' or 'oxygen bottle') that you'd find in any dictionary. So what's so weird? Well, count the 'f's in the middle. Yes, I spelled it right. Trios of 'l's, 'd's, and other letters are also fairly common.

- J

I do and I shall ..

__________________
Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.

Varium et mutabile semper foemina.

Jay...your triple cascade reminds me of Bess's esses

__________________
clear skies

I'll list "supersede," only because it is the only English word ending in "sede", and is commonly misspelled for that reason. Every other English "-sede" (as in, to give) word is spelled with "cede" (or "ceed"? trying to think of a ceed word....). (wait, if cedere is "to give", doesn't that mean "precede" means "forgive"?)

__________________
-----
Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

haa! funny vance!

yah...and so

mouse : plural...mice!
house : plural....hice?!

though some people do pronounce it 'hice'..apparently Queen's english

there's a book i had, lost it a couple of years ago, by Willard Espy, called Another Word Almanac. i never have come across the first volume as yet.
have to scour second-hand booksellers, for both books.

Mr Espy put together a riotously funny compilation of pure delight.

any other BAUTer read(s) it!....i am soooo jealous.

__________________
clear skies

Guess I do read a lot, because only 1 of these words I didn't recognize (Sauerstoffflasche).

Three f's, huh? Germans...go figure.

Either that or I'm a bit older than most thread participants.

there's 'nother.....sauerstofffrei ...anaerobic / oxygen-free

Nadme

I am sure BAUTers here span the whole spectrum of age range

and that you are joking

__________________
clear skies

stoichiometry is a good one: calculation of the quantitative relationship between reactants and products in chemical reactions.

With the probably apocryphal story of the student who told the prof, "I couldn't calculate the stoichiometry because I didn't have a stoichiometer."

__________________
The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Here's an astronomical one: syzygy. I was told it means a spring tide, but apparently it means an alignment of three heavenly bodies, usually the earth, moon and sun. From the Greek syzygia, which sort of explains the weird spelling.

A couple I use regularly in hydraulic engineering: thalweg - a line along the deepest points of a river channel (German). Also riprap, rocks used fror erosion protection. That's commonly known, I think, but Spellcheck still underlines it, even after I've used it hundreds of times.

Geology has many excellent odd words.

Slickensides: striations in rock along shear planes

Orogeny: Mountain building

__________________
The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.