# Newest words you have learned **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 26, 2004, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294 "2004-06-26T07:47:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![START](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/1 "2004-06-26T07:47:16Z")
I like to learn new words and use them when possible. A few words are these; Esoteric, Priapic, Opaque ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/2 "2004-06-26T07:48:09Z")
juxtapose ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/3 "2004-06-26T08:16:20Z")
Resistentialism ---
**Author:** ![Chimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@Chimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimpy)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/4 "2004-06-26T10:55:51Z")
Dudelsackpfeifer ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/5 "2004-06-26T13:28:19Z")
_s’évertuer_, meaning “to do one’s utmost (to do something).” ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/6 "2004-06-26T15:22:44Z")
Ataraxy. I keep forgetting what it means though, and having to look it up again. If I wasn’t hallucinating, I think I saw a doper named Ataraxy, too. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/7 "2004-06-26T15:35:11Z")
Here in England we are well aware that foreigners who learn our language often speak it better than we do. An Italian friend of mine used the word ‘animus’ in conversation the other day. Great word, quite useful to know, but I doubt a single native English speaker has ever used it. My favourite word in the whole world is the Italian for tortoise: ‘Tartaruga’. Words don’t get any better than that. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/8 "2004-06-26T22:41:37Z")
No native speaker has ever used the word “animus” … ? **Ianzin** , I know for a fact you’ve seen “The Web Planet”, just for starters 😉 … and, even outside the context of 1960s _Doctor Who_ villains, “animus” is a handy word, and at only three syllables it hardly even counts as a sesquipedalianism … I was intrigued to discover that “vug” is a real word, outside of Philip K. Dick novels. Turns out it’s Cornish dialect for a rock cavity lined with crystals (a geode, maybe?). Of course, once I’d seen the word in this context for the first time, I found myself spotting it in all sorts of places shortly thereafter. You might say I was completely surrounded by vugs. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/9 "2004-06-26T23:11:09Z")
I get a new “Word of the Day” by email every day. Most words most doper would know already, but **sempiternal** might not be one of them. It means of never ending duration; having beginning but no end; everlasting; endless. Example sentence In all the works on view, Mariani conjures a sempiternal realm that exists parallel to mundane reality and which is accessible through art, reverie and the imagination. ``` — Gerard Mccarthy, "Carlo Maria Mariani at Hackett-Freedman," Art in America, September 1999 ``` Sempiternal comes from Medieval Latin sempiternalis, from Latin sempiternus, a contraction of semperaeternus, from semper, “always” + aeternus, “eternal.” Synonyms include enduring, eternal, everlasting and perpetual. ---
**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/10 "2004-06-26T23:43:12Z")
A frind found the word _usufruct_, and I’m now quite enamored with it. It has a useful meaning, and is nicely u-ey. not a recent acquisition, but I like the chemical names _tetraflluoroethane_ and _hexametaphosphate_. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/11 "2004-06-27T01:57:21Z")
**gardyloo!** – this one is going to come in soooo handy when I’m in polite company and need a reasonable substitute for _bullshit_. It’s an old word from Edinburgh. It was used as a warning that the contents of the…uh…slop jar were about to be tossed out the window into the street or yard below. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/12 "2004-06-27T10:53:03Z")
I find it absurd That ‘lucubrate’ Being just one word can translate as working hard, pedanticly, pretentiously, perspiringly, or not, by night Or candlelight! ---
**Author:** ![LorieSmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@LorieSmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LorieSmurf)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/13 "2004-06-27T11:09:34Z")
> [@START](#): > > I like to learn new words and use them when possible. > A few words are these; Esoteric, Priapic, Opaque Uh…what sort of circumstances led you to know the word _priapic_? That means what i think it means, doesn’t it? Hope you don’t need to use it in a real sentence soon 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Helena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c68b51/32.png) [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/14 "2004-06-27T16:29:37Z")
I called up my sister to ask her about hares and rabbits, and she used the words _precocial_ and _altricial_ on me. ---
**Author:** ![Spezza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Spezza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spezza)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/15 "2004-06-27T18:05:34Z")
_Oolong_; and my personal favorite which I have never had the oppertunity to use yet in conversation (I’m anxiously waiting): _Conurbation_. ---
**Author:** ![START](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/16 "2004-06-27T18:10:30Z")
> [@LorieSmurf](#): > > Uh…what sort of circumstances led you to know the word _priapic_? That means what i think it means, doesn’t it? Hope you don’t need to use it in a real sentence soon 😛 I will need to look priapic up again because I thought it meant something that is inanimate but given great value and taken care of with great care…such as a “Priapic car” but I could be dead wrong and now I am afraid to know what it might really mean. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Improv\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Improv\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improv_Geek)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/17 "2004-06-27T18:15:32Z")
_ludacrurare_ – Latin meaning “to work by lamp light.” Cicero used it to describe his working habits because it was very uncommon to continue working into the night, life shut down after sunset usually. But Cicero was a workaholic. ---
**Author:** ![Zahava424](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/76d3ee/32.png) [@Zahava424](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zahava424)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/18 "2004-06-27T19:00:50Z")
Penumbra (not specifically referring to the area around the sun). ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/19 "2004-06-27T22:18:20Z")
This word came up in a crossword puzzle recently: subdeb. I had absolutely no idea what it could mean. It’s a shortened form of [subdebutante](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=subdebutante). ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294/20 "2004-06-27T22:35:59Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > This word came up in a crossword puzzle recently: subdeb. I had absolutely no idea what it could mean. It’s a shortened form of [subdebutante](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=subdebutante). jiggermast also came up in a crossword puzzle - today, in fact. Specifically, the clue reads: Like a jiggermast [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com)’s definition reads spoiler/n : any small mast on a sailing vessel; especially the mizzenmast of a yawl [syn: jigger]/spoiler. The answer consists of just three letters: Spoiler/aft/Spoiler I hope I did the spoiler thing right. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newest-words-you-have-learned/252294.md?page=2)