Where did you learn that word?

[SiouxChief]

There are only a handful of words where I can remember *exactly* when & where I learned the word. (Perhaps I'm in the minority here by only remembering a handful.)

For example, I learned the word "caprice" while reading, "The Count of Monte Cristo".
"Bailiwick" I learned while reading Cliff Stoll's, "The Cuckoo's Egg", and I learned the word "haver" from the Proclaimers' song, "500 Miles".

So, which words do you specifically remember learning? It can be from a book, song, movie, or elsewhere as long as it's a specific event. "High School English Class" doesn't cut it.

[rucciface]

I specifically remember my mother teaching what "disobeyed" meant. This was one day before I had started school and was in trouble with her for some reason.

Me: "Why am I being punished?"
Mom: "Because you disobeyed me, didn't you?"
Me: "I don't know."
Mom: "You don't know whether or not you disobeyed me?"
Me: "No. I don't know what disobeyed means."

Then the explanation.

[athelas]

I remember getting "cusp" from Stranger in a Strange Land.

I also remember, at age 6, asking my parents what the word "phenomenon" meant. I didn't understand the explanation, however.

[E. Thorp]

Like the OP -- and, I suspect, nearly every American who knows the word -- I learned "haver" from The Proclaimers.

I remember my grandfather, on a long car trip in his green Mercedes, explaining the meaning of "merge."

And I somehow made it all the way to 4th grade without ever hearing or reading "fuck." I still remember the bathroom wall it was written on. Took me a little longer to work out the precise meaning, though.

[Nature's Call]

My grade 8 teacher made a big deal about his favourite word. The way he said that word was so compelling - it seemed something magical. We had to look it up. After the build up, it was a bit of a disappointment to learn the meaning of the word "gossamer" But I never forgot it!

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

I was working late one night (about midnight) and my wife called me to ask how to spell "egregious." She was a court reporter, and an attorney had used it. She was looking it up under "A" in the dictionary. Another engineer knew the word, and now everyone in my family uses it regularly.

I looked up the word "latigo" after hearing it in a Garth Brooks song. I've been riding horses since I was a kid and owned them for years, and never heard that word.

[rowrrbazzle]

When I was an adult, "epicene" and "inchoate" in two of Isaac Asimov's stories. Actually, I don't remember EXACTLY which stories, but I do remember my surprise that I couldn't infer what they meant from the context and I HAD to look them up. At the time and even now, I don't remember the previous time that had happened. Since then, of course, I've had to look up many words.

[Khadaji]

Ennui - Paul Atreides uses it Dune. I had to look it up.

[Archergal]

I always think of the phrase "non sequitur" at times like this. I learned it from Star Trek: TOS, on the episode about Nomad. (aka Spock eyebrow smilie).

I also always remember two words I learned from Simon and Garfunkle: desultory, and philippic, from the song.

[Lightray]

I got "lambent", "argent", and "puissance" all from the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson. He used those a lot.

[CalMeacham]

"Soporific" -- used in a diatribe by Barbara Feldon's hippie character in an episode of (IIRC) the Name of the Game.


"Sop-o-rific!

The world has eaten too much lettuce, and now it's soporific!"


I had to look it up after that.

October 2, 1970,. according to iMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0656991/

[Larry Mudd]

Originally Posted by rowrrbazzle

When I was an adult, "epicene" and "inchoate" in two of Isaac Asimov's stories.

I remember looking up "epicene" while reading Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat trilogy, in 1988.

In another thread I was reminded of "ineluctable," which I first stumbled upon along Sandymount strand, erm - in James Joyce's Ulysses.

"Anamnesis." Philip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion.

"Lordosis." I learned this word from an ex-girlfriend who was an enthusiastic runner. She cited a study that showed that mice that ran in a wheel for extended periods of time tended towards lordosis, which she explained meant increased libido. I found it was an interesting word, and looked it up immediately.

It actually means "curvature of the spine." I could never persuade her of that, and she kept bragging about her "total lordosis."

[Dunawake]

I learned the word "shibboleth" early on here at the Dope in some thread on vocabulary. Any legitimate word that sounds like it came out an H.P. Lovecraft story is awesome by me

[Scarlett67]

Not a word, but a phrase: When I was in the fifth grade (ca. 1978), our teacher was reading Banner in the Sky, a book about a kid climbing the Citadel in the Alps, aloud to the class. At one point the kids stops "to relieve himself." Mr. D stopped to point out that that was a subtle way to say that he stopped to take a piss. (OK, so Mr. D didn't actually say "take a piss," but you gather my meaning.)

I learned "crackpot" from Jean Merrill's The Pushcart War, still a favorite of Mr. S's and mine for personal reasons.

[descamisado]

I told this girl in second grade that I despised her, simply because I liked the way the word "despise" sounded.

After she told, the teacher basically said to me, "That word doesn't mean what you think it means."

[samclem]

Vaginal. My younger sister musta had a yeast infection or something. But I remember picking up her prescription bottle and trying to pronounce the word by sounding it out. I might have been 14 or so. Hey! This was 1958. We didn't know much back then.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by E. Thorp

Like the OP -- and, I suspect, nearly every American who knows the word -- I learned "haver" from The Proclaimers.

I remember my grandfather, on a long car trip in his green Mercedes, explaining the meaning of "merge."

And I somehow made it all the way to 4th grade without ever hearing or reading "fuck." I still remember the bathroom wall it was written on. Took me a little longer to work out the precise meaning, though.

I was a sheltered child and remember very, very clearly reading "shit" on a bathroom wall in third grade. It was written in purple crayon. We all got a big lecture on writing dirty words, but I didn't even know what it was!

I learned "sodomized" and "orgasm" from The Stand when I was maybe eleven or twelve. Do you have any idea how hard it is to figure out what those words mean from the dictionary?

Like everybody else in the world, I got words like "carious", "telic", "crepitation", and "etoliated" from Stephen R. Donaldson. Man does love his funny little words.

[Siam Sam]

I learned "supercallifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins.

[Mbossa]

I learned some of the more 'technical' terms for various sexual acts by looking up dirty words in the dictionary and reading their definitions. 'Coitus', 'fellatio' and 'cunnilingus' fall squarely in this category.

[glee]

'jejune' from Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Khadaji

Ennui - Paul Atreides uses it Dune. I had to look it up.

I remember learning that word very well. Had to look it up after seeing Edward Gorey use it in his delightfully macabre "Gashleycrumb Tinies," about 26 little kids, named in alphabetical order, who die in various unpleasant ways. "E is for Edward, who died of ennui," as I recall.

When I was 11 or so I called another boy a "slut" once, not knowing what it meant but knowing it was an insult, and was gently corrected by my mom.

Lightray, I looked up and learned "puissance" after reading it in Thomas Berger's great Arthurian novel Arthur Rex in high school. Also learned "recreant," "catamite" and "zounds" from that book.

I read a lot as a kid and often knew a word before I knew its pronunciation. For instance, I said "despot" with a silent "t" (like "depot," I reasoned) before being set right.

[Gala Matrix Fire]

Pulchritudinous - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Pachyderm - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Pusillanimous - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Give me a while to think about it, and I'll come up with a lot more.

[Nature's Call]

For the record (in the order they appear in this thread):

caprice: an abrupt change in feeling, opinion, or action, proceeding from some whim or fancy; a freak; a notion.

bailiwick: the area over which a bailiff has jurisdiction

haver: to maunder; to talk foolishly; to chatter.

disobey: to transgress the commands of one in authority

cusp: point formed by two intersecting arcs

phenomenon: That which strikes one as strange, unusual, or unaccountable

merge: to join or combine

fuck: to have sexual intercourse (with). [vulgar slang]

gossamer: characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy

egregious: conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible

latigo: a strap for tightening a saddle girth

epicene: having an ambiguous sexual identity

inchoate: only partly in existence; imperfectly formed

ennui: the feeling of being bored by something tedious

non sequitur: a reply that has no relevance to what preceded it

desultory: marked by lack of definite plan or regularity or purpose

philippic: a speech of violent denunciation

lambent: softly bright or radiant

argent: lustrous gray; covered with or tinged with the color of silver

puissance: power to influence or coerce

soporific: sleep inducing

ineluctable: impossible to avoid or evade

anamnesis: the ability to recall past occurrences

lordosis: a curvature of the spine forwards, usually in the lumbar region

shibboleth: a favorite saying of a sect or political group

to relieve oneself: to urinate

crackpot: a whimsically eccentric person

despise: look down on with disdain

vaginal: of or relating to the vagina

shit: obscene terms for feces

sodomy: anal intercourse committed by a man with a man or woman

orgasm: the moment of most intense pleasure in sexual intercourse

carious: affected with cavities or decay

telic: denoting the final end or purpose, as distinguished from ecbatic

crepitation: the sharp sound of snapping noises

etoliate: ????

supercallifragilisticexpialidocious: something about being atrociously precocious

coitus: the act of sexual procreation between a man and a woman; the man's penis is inserted into the woman's vagina and excited until orgasm and ejaculation occur

fellatio: oral stimulation of the penis

cunnilingus: oral stimulation of the vulva or clitoris

jejune: lacking matter; empty; void of substance

slut: an untidy woman; a slattern

recreant: having deserted a cause or principle

catamite: a boy kept for unnatural purposes

zounds: An exclamation formerly used as an oath, and an expression of anger or wonder.

despot: a cruel and oppressive dictator

pulchritudinous: used of persons only; having great physical beauty

pachyderm: any of various nonruminant hoofed mammals having very thick skin: elephant; rhinoceros; hippopotamus

pusillanimous: contemptibly fearful

[Nature's Call]

Here are the scripts I used to get all of those definitions:

Copy/paste these into their respective filenames, put both files in c:\windows\system32. From a command prompt you can then type something like define egregious or define "non sequitur" (sorry, Windows only)

define.bat

@echo off
cls

cscript //nologo GetDefinition.vbs %1

GetDefinition.vbs

Dim objArg
Set objArg = WScript.Arguments

If objArg.Count <> 1 Then
	WScript.Echo "USAGE: cscript //nologo " + WScript.ScriptName + " <word>"
	WScript.Quit 1
End If

word = objArg(0)

Set definitions = GetDefinitions(word)

Count = 0
If Not definitions is nothing Then
	WScript.Echo ""	

	For each definition in definitions
		WScript.Echo definition.text
		WScript.Echo ""
		Count = Count + 1
	Next
End If

If Count = 0 Then
	WScript.Echo "No definitions found for """ + word + """"
End If




'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Function GetDefinitions(word)
    set xmlhttp = CreateObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")
    url = "http://services.aonaware.com/DictService/DictService.asmx"
    xmlhttp.open "POST", url,false
    
    xmlhttp.setRequestHeader "SOAPAction", "http://services.aonaware.com/webservices/Define"
    xmlhttp.setRequestHeader "Content-type", "text/xml"
    
    xmlhttp.send "<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema' xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'><soap:Body><Define xmlns='http://services.aonaware.com/webservices/'><word>" + word + "</word></Define></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>"

    Set resp = xmlhttp.responsexml
    If not resp is nothing and not resp.documentElement is nothing Then
        Set GetDefinitions = resp.documentElement.selectNodes("//WordDefinition")
    Else
        Set GetDefinitions = Nothing
    End If
        
End Function

[zagloba]

Alternatively, you can use the Answers extension to Firefox, the just alt-click on a word to see its definition in a popup.

[dwc1970]

• Asinine- A friend's mom who always complained about everything used this word around me when I was 11. I thought it was quite funny.
• Bollox- First read it in MAD magazine.
• Charisma- Learned this one in church.
• Debonair- George Carlin routine where he told an entire story using words that rhyme with "air".
• Evaporate- I was seven years old when I asked my mom why spilled water will disappear after awhile if it's not wiped up. She said this is called "evaporation." When I tried to look it up in my children's dictionary, I was looking for the word "vaporate". I didn't hear the "e" at the beginning.
• Mirage- When I was four years old I asked my Mom why it looks like there's water on the road but then it disappears when you get close to it. She explained this is a mirage, which is caused by the heat radiating off the surface (or words a four-year-old would understand).
• Obliterate- When we were 11 a friend of mine used this word to describe what he was doing to the dense grouping of mushrooms he was shooting away in the arcade game Centipede. I thought it was just a word he made up.
• Pedestrian- I saw a sign that read "PED XING". I asked my mom what a "ped" is. She explained that it was short for "pedestrian", a person walking alongside or across the roadway.

[SiouxChief]

You can also easily look up word definitions in Safari (and other apps) on Mac OSX by double-clicking a word to select, then right-click and choose "Look up in Dictionary".

Originally Posted by bluethree

Pulchritudinous - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Pachyderm - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Pusillanimous - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Give me a while to think about it, and I'll come up with a lot more.

Was this from Foghorn Leghorn, by any chance? That rooster had a huge vocabulary.

[Gala Matrix Fire]

Originally Posted by SiouxChief

Was this from Foghorn Leghorn, by any chance? That rooster had a huge vocabulary.

I have to admit that I don't remember specifically. I think the pulchritudinous pachyderms was in a cartoon with Bugs Bunny and a circus, and pusillanimous might have had to do with Elmer Fudd, but I'm not sure.

We looked up words in the dictionary all the time. Dad used to do this to us all the time:
Us: Dad, what does 'pulchritudinous' mean?
Dad: It's pretty much the same thing as 'resplendent.'
Us: *groan* What does 'resplendent' mean?
Dad: Why don't you look it up?

Dad got a perfect score on the SAT verbal.

[Yeeter]

Well, I don't want to offend anyone, but I can recall specifically being in the backseat of Dad's Jeep Cherokee, when my sister's friend Denise told us she had named her rabbit "jigaboo." I laughed because I had never heard this before and it sounded like a funny made up word. I didn't realize it was a racial epithet until I saw it used in some Police Academy movie.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by bluethree

I have to admit that I don't remember specifically. I think the pulchritudinous pachyderms was in a cartoon with Bugs Bunny and a circus, and pusillanimous might have had to do with Elmer Fudd, but I'm not sure.

We looked up words in the dictionary all the time. Dad used to do this to us all the time:
Us: Dad, what does 'pulchritudinous' mean?
Dad: It's pretty much the same thing as 'resplendent.'
Us: *groan* What does 'resplendent' mean?
Dad: Why don't you look it up?

Dad got a perfect score on the SAT verbal.

When asked how to spell something, my mom would say "D-I-C-T-I-O..."

[ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness]

dildo - Heard it at Little League practice, decided it was some funny new insult, and called my sister one at dinnertime. My parents let it go after it became clear I didn't know what it meant. After dinner I checked my dictionary, then the unabridged one. Ooohh, that's why they were shocked
Most recently I picked up palaver from Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

[Public Animal No. 9]

Originally Posted by bluethree

Pulchritudinous - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Pachyderm - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Pusillanimous - Bugs Bunny cartoon
Give me a while to think about it, and I'll come up with a lot more.

Accoutrements - Daffy Duck: "Pardon me whilst I adjust my accoutrements."

[Indygrrl]

Onomatopoeic

From the book, Christine, by Stephen King: "Oh God, what an onomatopoeic family, I thought. For Christ's sake don't put a bank-shang-a-lang on them, Pops--they might make poopy kaka in their pants."

I loved that quote so much, but I had to look up onomatopoeic before I could truly appreciate it. I think that was in fifth grade.

[Gala Matrix Fire]

Defenestrate - In a comic in an issue of Heavy Metal magazine. Some guy was being sentenced to death by immediate defenestration. Cool word.

Then I told my dad about it and he told me about The Defenestration of Prague.

[SiouxChief]

Originally Posted by bluethree

Defenestrate - In a comic in an issue of Heavy Metal magazine. Some guy was being sentenced to death by immediate defenestration. Cool word.

Then I told my dad about it and he told me about The Defenestration of Prague.

Ooh, my new favorite word. New novel idea for Sue Grafton: "D is for Defenestration"

[gigi]

I learned "plethora" after having no idea on the PSAT. Come to think of it, I think I learned quite a few words studying for the PSAT. And I figured out "implode" while taking the PSAT.

[Elendil's Heir]

When I was a Boy Scout camp counselor, far from any dictionary that the Scouts might consult, I had a sign up in the waterfront area: "Defenestrating prohibited." When the boys asked me what it meant, I just smiled.

[CalMeacham]

I saw a sign that read "PED XING". I asked my mom what a "ped" is. She explained that it was short for "pedestrian", a person walking alongside or across the roadway.

As I wrote in a long-ago thread, Ped Xing was the ancient Chinese inventor of the Crosswalk, and to this day they commemorate it by writing his name in Pinyin at many such crosswalks.

[OpalCat]

Originally Posted by E. Thorp

Like the OP -- and, I suspect, nearly every American who knows the word -- I learned "haver" from The Proclaimers.

Me too! I have a cover of that song somewhere, too, and it's hilarious because it goes "When I haver--WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS!!!--I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you" or something. It's awesome

[Aioua]

Reciprocity. Learned form one of my favorite english teachers who, while we were all writing short stories or something (him included), exclaimed out loud that he couldn't remember the word and tried to give us a definition. But it is such an akward word that he could barely define it--and none of us knew it anyway. He came in the next day and prouldy spelt out reciprocity on the board.
Oddly enough, I still have a hard time remembering the word. It usually goes like "what's that word that's so hard to remeber? ... ah! I can't remember!"

It's almost impossible to actually use in a non-technical sentence. My favorite use (which I basically made up) is "This reciprocal saw reciprocates with greater reciprocity than the old model."

[Archergal]

Originally Posted by Nature's Call

etoliate: ????

If you check under the correct spelling, etiolate, you get this: :
1 : to bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight
2 a : to make pale b : to deprive of natural vigor : make feeble

[gigi]

Originally Posted by Aioua

It's almost impossible to actually use in a non-technical sentence. My favorite use (which I basically made up) is "This reciprocal saw reciprocates with greater reciprocity than the old model."

Ask any of the chickies in my pen
They'll tell you I'm the biggest mother hen
I love 'em all and all of them love me
Because the system works
The system called reciprocity...

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Originally Posted by Aioua

Reciprocity. Learned form one of my favorite english teachers who, while we were all writing short stories or something (him included), exclaimed out loud that he couldn't remember the word and tried to give us a definition. But it is such an akward word that he could barely define it--and none of us knew it anyway. He came in the next day and prouldy spelt out reciprocity on the board.
Oddly enough, I still have a hard time remembering the word. It usually goes like "what's that word that's so hard to remeber? ... ah! I can't remember!"

It's almost impossible to actually use in a non-technical sentence. My favorite use (which I basically made up) is "This reciprocal saw reciprocates with greater reciprocity than the old model."

That word doesn't mean what you think it means. Here's how you use it:

Hey, I can get into this zoo with my membership card from the other zoo at home. The two of them have reciprocity.

[Aioua]

Originally Posted by InvisibleWombat

That word doesn't mean what you think it means. Here's how you use it:

Hey, I can get into this zoo with my membership card from the other zoo at home. The two of them have reciprocity.

Oh, I admit the way I used it is totally garbage. But words are more fun if you tear them apart and re-define them. I think my teacher used it along the lines of "the receprocity of their relationship was called into serious doubt."

[NJ_Kef]

Originally Posted by Elendil's Heir

When I was 11 or so I called another boy a "slut" once, not knowing what it meant but knowing it was an insult, and was gently corrected by my mom.

Lightray, I looked up and learned "puissance" after reading it in Thomas Berger's great Arthurian novel Arthur Rex in high school. Also learned "recreant," "catamite" and "zounds" from that book.

I read a lot as a kid and often knew a word before I knew its pronunciation. For instance, I said "despot" with a silent "t" (like "depot," I reasoned) before being set right.

Elendil’s Heir: when I was 14 or 15 I called my sister a slut intending only to insult her, not call her virtue into question. I picked up the word from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories… There were a great many slang terms, curse words, and pejoratives that I was not exposed to until my mid teens.

I didn’t learn any new words from Thomas Berger, but in my late twenties I laughed myself silly reading about six Berger novels in a row. Thanks for jogging my memory. I just found Vital Parts on my bookshelf. Now I have something to read on the bus tomorrow.

I pronounced grotesque “grot-esk-cue” until age 12 when I read X-men #41 . The villain of the month assumed the name Grotesk after being called grotesque by the Beast (irony unintended, I think).

Originally Posted by dwc1970:
I saw a sign that read "PED XING". I asked my mom what a "ped" is. She explained that it was short for "pedestrian", a person walking alongside or across the roadway.

12 year old NJ_Kef: “Dad, don’t hit those people crossing the street.”
Aunt Helen: “They’re called pedestrians.”
NJ_Kef: “Dad, don’t hit the pedestrians.”

12 year old NJ_Kef: “Look at that neat graveyard.”
Aunt Helen: “Don’t say graveyard. It’s a cemetery.”
NJ_Kef has spent the rest of his life wondering what distinguishes a graveyard from a cemetery. Sometimes he thinks he knows. Sometimes he’s still 12 years old.

Originally Posted by SiouxChief:
and I learned the word "haver" from the Proclaimers' song, "500 Miles".

I learned the word “haver” from the OP. I can’t wait to use it! Thanks, I owe you one!

[OpalCat]

I called my cat a "silly slut" once when I was a kid. I thought I was making up a word, like calling him a cutie wootie or something. Boy did I get into massive trouble for that. Lots of yelling and making me feel like utter crap :/ Personally I thought it was overkill seeing that I didn't even know it was a real word.

[Maggie the Ocelot]

Lightray, I looked up and learned "puissance" after reading it in Thomas Berger's great Arthurian novel Arthur Rex in high school. Also learned "recreant," "catamite" and "zounds" from that book.

I read that one. I mentally labelled it the "homophobic Arthur book", because it used the phrase "commit foul buggery" enough times to give me the giggles. Seriously, it was REALLY obsessed with gay sex.

[Gala Matrix Fire]

Theological Seminary.
In a compilation of old Peanuts cartoons, during a baseball game, Charlie Brown and Lucy and maybe Linus and Schroeder get into what I took to be an intellectual discussion, and Charlie Brown said something about his game turning into a theological seminary.
I used the term with my dad, thinking it meant something like 'think tank,' not realizing what 'theological' meant, and he said something about my wanting to be a priest. I was mortified that I had misunderstood the term, but I tried to bluff my way out of it.

[Lightray]

Originally Posted by Nature's Call

catamite: a boy kept for unnatural purposes

Ack. I don't remember where I read that one, but I distinctly remember looking it up in the dictionary (while reading waaaay past my grade level) and getting almost exactly that definition. Which is of absolutely no use in figuring out what a catamite is or does or is for.

I mean, really, "unnatural purposes"? Is he being used to add artificial colorings and flavors to snack-foods? Employed as a topiary-gardener? What???

I was young enough that I just assumed that it had something to do with bad things happening to cats -- of which, I approved, naturally -- and went on reading. Years later I stumbled across it again in a context that explained everything, and had an "oooooh!" moment.

[Morbo]

I learned "detumescently" from an Ebert review. It was before his new website was up - I read it in his book I Hated, Hated HATED This Movie - so that puts me learning it probably right after Christmas 2000.

"Pelvic splanchnic ganglion": Futurama.