# Words You Want To Use, But Don't Know WITF They Mean **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 17, 2009, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730 "2009-05-17T07:01:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/21 "2009-05-18T08:41:36Z")
Here’s a collection of absolute crackers I came across. It was literally a run-out sale of words - the Macquarie Dictionary was trying to decide whether or not these words were in fact extinct or so moribund as not to be worth putting in the dictionary anymore, so they organised a bit of a news story to see if anyone came to their rescue. I’ve been dying to use them. But I doubt I ever will. How do I Mrs Prosequi that she is “full of muliebrity”?. But I am tempted by “Me fail maths and English? That’s compossible!” Abstergent: Cleansing Agrestic: Rural Apodeictic: Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration Caducity: Perishableness Caliginosity: Dimness Compossible: Possible in coexistence with something else Embrangle: To confuse Exuviate: To shed Fatidical: Prophetic Fubsy: Squat Griseous: Somewhat grey Malison: A curse Mansuetude: Gentleness Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman Niddering: Cowardly Nitid: Bright Olid: Foul-smelling Oppugnant: Combative Periapt: An amulet Recrement: Refuse Roborant: Tending to fortify Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight Vaticinate: Prophesy Vilipend: To treat with contempt ---
**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/22 "2009-05-18T10:20:06Z")
Oh! A new word for me–_Embrangle_! I love it! _Periapt_ is (or was) one of the magical items in Dungeons and Dragons, so I doubt it’ll become extinct soon. _Skirr_… I’ve read that word recently, but I’m not sure where. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/23 "2009-05-18T13:09:06Z")
**Quintessential** - For some time I thought this word meant “very essential”, as in five times as essential as everything else. Turns out it just means “typical” or “a good example of”. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Owl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@Mister\_Owl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Owl)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/24 "2009-05-18T13:14:44Z")
Cromulent ---
**Author:** ![Emily\_Litella](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emily_litella/32/3370_2.png) [@Emily\_Litella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emily_Litella)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/25 "2009-05-19T18:21:44Z")
Diffident. I think it means not caring much, but I’m not sure. I’ve been diffident about looking it up. If it doesn’t mean that, boy, will I be embarazar. Edit: Nope. It means: 1. lacking confidence in one’s own ability, worth, or fitness; timid; shy. 2. restrained or reserved in manner, conduct, etc. 3. Archaic. distrustful. ---
**Author:** ![myriad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@myriad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myriad)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/26 "2009-05-19T20:33:19Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > I think **nonplussed** ’s definition needs to be changed legitimately to “unsurprised”. I find myself constantly re-looking up this word’s definition as it just won’t stick in my head. I was just getting ready to put this word down–yet still only had a fuzzy explanation of why I can’t grasp it…you just described it perfectly. I just cannot accept the definition–it’s just–wrong! ~and Myriads an awesome word!! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/27 "2009-05-19T21:38:55Z")
Maybe a year or so ago, my mother and I discovered during a game of Fictionary (like Balderdash, but there’s no board and you use a dictionary instead of a stack of cards) that we both had the same (wrong) meaning of “akimbo”–we were always picturing limbs willy-nilly all over the place. > [@DSeid](#): > > Not quite on topic but I used to _read_ the word “alcove” all the time but never heard it said and in my head consistently switched the l and the c so when I used it in spoken language myself I would say “aclove” and got bemused looks even more often than if I had pronounced it correctly. In sixth grade, I walked up to my teacher after she’d finished writing that spelling unit’s words on the board and informed her that she’d misspelled “derbis.” Because in my head, there was the word “debris,” which I’d only heard spoken, and the word “derbis,” which I’d only seen written. This happened for a number of other words, too. :smack: > [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > The other day I wrote **eponymous** when referring to a titular character. I wasn’t 100% sure it meant what I thought it meant, so I wikied it. > > It sort of does, figuratively, but technically **eponymous** means that a place is named after a person, like Alexandria. Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! An easy way to think of an eponym is that it’s the reverse of a namesake–an eponym gives its name to something else, whereas a namesake takes its name from something else. So, if something is eponymous, it means it’s the thing for which something else is named. So you can speak, for example, of the eponymous character in \*Hamlet \*(which would be Hamlet). I only know this because eponymous is the name I use on 90% of the webbernets. (Which is why it’s weirding me out to see it bolded so much in the posts in this thread–I keep thinking people are speaking to or about me! 😃 > [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > Exuviate: To shed > Fubsy: Squat > Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight These, at a minimum, I’m quite sure I knew… not that I’d use them in conversation, but. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/28 "2009-05-19T22:08:07Z")
> [@dwc1970](#): > > **Quintessential** - For some time I thought this word meant “very essential”, as in five times as essential as everything else. Turns out it just means “typical” or “a good example of”. Well, it really means something more like “the ultimate example of”. Like “7-11 is the quintessential convenience store.” I’ve never let not being sure of a word’s meaning keep me from using it. 😛 I once wrote an essay about a story where one group won by way of burning something, and I called it a [Pyrrhic victory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory). ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/29 "2009-05-19T22:40:21Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > Here’s a collection of absolute crackers I came across. It was literally a run-out sale of words - the Macquarie Dictionary was trying to decide whether or not these words were in fact extinct or so moribund as not to be worth putting in the dictionary anymore, so they organised a bit of a news story to see if anyone came to their rescue. I’d say this one should be retained: > [@](#): > > Malison: A curse When I was a kid, I read a comics digest which included a story called [_Mr. Malison’s Mansion_](http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=W+WDCD+26-19). Since I knew that the “mal-” prefix meant "bad"or “badly” in such words as “malady” and “malnourished”, I figured out from the title that Malison would be a bad guy. However, I didn’t check a dictionary to see if “malison” was an actual word. Years later, I came across the word [_benison_](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/benison) and remembered that Captain Nemo yarn. I subsequently realized that _malison_ must be the antonym of _benison_. Although the former term is marked as “archaic” in [this entry](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/malison), the fact that its antonym is still in relatively common use argues for the dictionary’s retention of _malison_ as “the other side of the coin”, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![Bravo\_Romeo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bravo\_Romeo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bravo_Romeo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/30 "2009-05-20T01:41:05Z")
I think the word “anachronism” is just great and I frequently use it on people at work who would never pick up on the fact that I have no idea what it means. Something to do with time. ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/31 "2009-05-20T01:57:55Z")
I think I’ve looked up the definition of “hermeneutic” a million times, but when I encounter the word, I can never remember the definition. “Solipsism” also falls into that category. I really want “touchstone” to mean something like talisman – a thing or place or person or idea that can focus or ground you when you “touch” it. Too bad it doesn’t mean that. I have two cats. “Exuviate” is so becoming part of my vocabulary! ---
**Author:** ![RachelChristine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RachelChristine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RachelChristine)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/32 "2009-05-20T02:20:31Z")
Ubiquitous. Which I probably just misspelled too. Someone used it in another post I just read and I remembered that I cannot recall this word’s meaning any time! I’m so glad to know I’m not the only person who has words they just can’t wrap their mind around. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/33 "2009-05-20T04:10:04Z")
Preternatural is one that gets stuck in my brain pod. I can’t see to remember what it means. I also get tripped up on non sequitur. I’ve caught myself using niggardly (correctly, but absent-mindedly) in casual situations only to be given very strange looks. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/34 "2009-05-20T15:14:52Z")
**inveigh inveigle** Even after I’ve looked up words like these, as I just now did, I won’t use them. They are obscure enough that people won’t know what I’m saying. If I use a mysterious word, I haven’t communicated anything. I might as well have mooed. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/35 "2009-05-20T15:30:18Z")
Ineffable. Actually I know what it means but I can’t seem to put it into words. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/36 "2009-05-20T17:00:55Z")
**cjepson** : 😃 ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/37 "2009-05-20T18:38:21Z")
I never knew what **misogynist** meant until I looked it up just now while getting Google to correct my spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Kingspades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecae2f/32.png) [@Kingspades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kingspades)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/38 "2009-05-20T20:52:37Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > [_benison_](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/benison) Ooh, I like benison. Especially in chili. I use the word [droll](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/droll) to mean “a joke so unfunny as to be funny.” You know, sort of like the opening of this post. I suppose it’s not far from the given meaning, considering I use it to point out things that are humorous in an odd way. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/39 "2009-07-26T15:07:31Z")
… but aren’t : _Titmouse_. I think that’s a bird, but just the name makes me wanna grab and protect my nipples. :eek: How about **y’all**?😃 Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730/40 "2009-07-26T16:14:19Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Not quite on topic but I used to _read_ the word “alcove” all the time but never heard it said and in my head consistently switched the l and the c so when I used it in spoken language myself I would say “aclove” and got bemused looks even more often than if I had pronounced it correctly. I have that problem all the time. I also drop syllables- for example, I used to read “covenant” as “convent”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-you-want-to-use-but-dont-know-witf-they-mean/496730.md?page=3)