[Game] Find a difficult vocabulary word

The Game Room
1

When looking up a word at http://dictionary.reference.com I noticed that to the right of their “Origin” map, they have a difficulty index for that word.

The way I interpret their difficulty index is to count the number of lines from the right. So, the lower the number the more difficult the word.

For example, the word sparge has a difficulty index of 9
The word flagitious rates an 8,
williwaw scores a 7
valetudinarian scores a 6 and both
kakistocracy and sesquipedalian rank at number 5.

Since the SDMB has a membership of many sesquipedalian sharpshooters, I thought it might be fun if we could find words that rank with an even lower difficulty index.

2

As usually, one will run into arguments where proper names begin. Pont-l’Évêque scores slightly above 2, as does Götterdämmerung.

3

“Fewmet” isn’t even in this dictionary. Thus, I give it a -1.

Spraints isn’t in there either. I detect a theme…

4

Pulchritude comes it at about 6, whereas scordatura comes in at 7. That seems off to me.

5

These both show over 3 to me.

Along those lines, idée fixe is a 4.

How cheating is it to use words of clearly foreign derivation?

6

concinnity has a 7
pleroma doesn’t have an origin map
quisquillous isn’t even listed.

7

Yes, the rankings of difficulty are no doubt based on a subjective method rather than some strict mathematical analysis.
In fact, when I looked for words to use, I searched several online vocabulary lists (preparation for the GRE, SAT, etc.). The funny thing is that of the 6 words I used in the OP, the ones I found using my own memory were the ones that rank a 5. Those words that rank 6 through 9, I found on vocabulary lists.
Anyway, I found a word that ranks a 4 - sui generis.
(I’m sure many of us have at least seen that word even if it ranks a 4 whereas until yesterday, I never even heard of sparge (9) or flagitious (8).