I used the word Jiggery-pokery the other day. My dad was surprised and said his dad used to use it.
Another one - Kerfuffle (fuss)
post your fave unusual words(s)
Or don’t.
'sup to you.
“to redd up”, as in to tidy up
I had an English teacher in high school who drilled us on vocabulary each Friday. I thought this was one I’d never see. But damn, a weak later I was re-reading Jane Eyre, and towards the end, after Rochester has been blinded and Jane combs his hair, she states “There, sir, you are all redd up and made decent.”
I guess Mr. Eubanks knew what he was doing.
Lambaste.
Lovely word.
Cockerjeetie–from my grandmother (who may have made it up). It means crooked, out of place, perhaps irrevocably so. “And I couldn’t get the car window to roll down because it was cockerjeetie.”
Childer (children)
Moider (fuss)
Skriking (crying)
(I am in a pre-coffee state, and am now hearing Queen singing “Gamahuche, Gamahuche – will you do the fandango?” This is a train of thought that must be taken out of service immediately.)
As for me, the word that makes me happy is “thimble rigger”.
Brouhaha. (That’s the word on my screen-saver at work at the moment.)
I’ll second “kerfuffle,” another wonderful word.
Plethora.
I’ve always liked “curmudgeon,” but it seems that a lot of younger folks have never heard it. Because they don’t know the word, they have trouble grasping precisely what it is that I want to be when I grow up.
I learned ‘dreckly’ from my grandmother. The best I can figure, the word is an alteration in both pronunciation and meaning (eventually vs. immediately) of ‘directly’:
“We called the fillin’ station and told 'em the car wouldn’t start. Well, we sit around there a good little bit and dreckly here they come out to the house and fixed it where it’d run.”
From Texas:
stupnagle (idiot)
pshaw! (mild cuss)
shoot! (annoyance)
Davenport (couch)
My grandma said that all the time and we used to think it was so funny.
I like lambaste as well. I’ll add “bloviate.”
Guttersnipe: A person of the lowest class.
Milksop: A man lacking courage and other qualities deemed manly.
Tart: A woman considered to be sexually promiscuous.
Mazard. Also nonsense words that Scrooge would have used, including but not limited to:
humbug
balderdash
etc.
Hogwash is good, too.
“Huzzah!”
My late uncle used to say “kittywumpus” for something that had gone awry usually referring to having put something together wrong. As in: “Move that rafter over to the left three inches or the whole house will be kittywumpus.”
I once heard my grandmother referr to men who ride motorcycles as “crazy gallutes.”
Thanks to Bill Bryson, I discovered “slubberdegullion” - a slovenly person.
I also like “druthers” - as in "I’d rather . . . " but said “If I had my druthers…”
Nertz.