# Your favorite semi-obscure English word, or, boardless Scrabble **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 15, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890 "2010-09-15T21:12:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![snowmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@snowmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowmaster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/1 "2010-09-15T21:12:30Z")
Please enhance our vocabulary with a favorite word of yours that you think less than half of the public could spell or define. No proper nouns, please, and while we all love our schadenfreude, nothing that’s a loan word, or not an obvious one at least. Please give part of speech and definition, and use it in a sentence. I will arbitrarily assign points that don’t matter in the slightest. For obscurity: :rolleyes:Zero points if it’s so fabulously specific/specialized obtuse and obscure as to be ridiculous. :)One point if I didn’t know what it means. :DTwo points if I’ve never heard it before. For usefulness: :rolleyes:Zero points if I will never, ever have the smallest chance to use it in conversation without getting strange, blank looks from those around me. :)One point if I can use it in conversation to look witty and well read. :DTwo points if I can use it in conversation to surreptitiously poke fun at someone. For that certain je ne sais quoi: :rolleyes:Zero points if I have no hope of pronouncing it. :)One points if its a homonym or false cognate with another well known word. :DTwo point if it fits nicely or humourously with your username or title. You should point this out; I’m pretty dense For example: Alacrity (Noun): Cheerful willingness, preparedness or readyness. The scouts greeted with alacrity the tasks of setting up camp and making a fire. I’d give myself a 1 for obscurity (since I had to look it up today), 1 for usefulness and 1 for je ne sais quoi for sounding a lot like angry. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/2 "2010-09-15T21:32:12Z")
This game could become very prosaic. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/3 "2010-09-15T21:47:57Z")
**Malamanteau** , also Malamanteaux (Noun): A Neologism for a portmanteau created by incorrectly combining a malapropism with a neologism. It is itself a portmanteau. In other words, a malamanteu is a new word for a blended word created by wrongly mixing an inappropriate, similar-sounding word with a new word. Usage: Sarah Palin is a malamanteau factory. What’d I win? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/4 "2010-09-15T22:11:11Z")
Defenestration: the act of throwing something out a window. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/5 "2010-09-15T22:15:06Z")
Sorry, but I don’t enage in rodomontade. ---
**Author:** ![HardlySanguine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HardlySanguine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HardlySanguine)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/6 "2010-09-15T22:20:51Z")
**OXBOW** : A U-shaped piece of wood or stream/river **KOINE:** Greek dialect **ORIBI** : antelope **ZEATIN** : plant hormone **PAEAN** : Joyous song **TUN** : A cask **MUUMUU** : Hawaiian dress (gotta love those Hawaiian words for Scrabble) **UNAU** : A TWO toed sloth (as opposed to its more well-known cousin, the three-toed AI) **TSKTSK** : Uhhh, to “tsk” ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/7 "2010-09-15T22:57:28Z")
**sesquipedalian** : a big word that seems like it’s about a foot-and-a-half long. **hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian** : a big word that seems like it’s about the length of a monstrously large hippopotamus’s foot, plus another half of the same foot. **hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia** : fear of really big words. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/8 "2010-09-15T23:01:51Z")
I’ll join on an eleemosynary basis. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/9 "2010-09-15T23:40:01Z")
How about: imago - an insect in its sexually mature adult stage after metamorphosis: larva, chrysalis, imago velleity - the lowest degree of volition - a slight wish or tendency ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/10 "2010-09-16T00:01:03Z")
Couple of my faves; I use them regularly. But I teach about Byzantine architecture. . . Quincunx. Squinch. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/11 "2010-09-17T02:46:03Z")
**boustrophedon** _noun_. An ancient method of writing in which the lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right. Or like ox-turning in plowing or mowing a lawn. **karmadharaya** _noun_. A compound of two words in which the first is an adjective and the second is a substantive. blacksmith, grandson, gentleman ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/12 "2010-09-17T03:09:32Z")
cromulent ---
**Author:** ![dzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@dzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzero)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/13 "2010-09-17T04:08:22Z")
[osculate me, osculate me, baaayyy beeeeee](http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-strange-words-for-body-functions/osculate.html) ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/14 "2010-09-17T04:20:09Z")
**Abecedarian** _adjective_ In alphabetical order. An Abecedarian insult: “Sir, you are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte”. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/15 "2010-09-17T06:12:38Z")
Callipygian and steatopygian. Fun to say, fun meanings. I’m also fond of wrestling slang, which is more useful than you’d think in entirely wrestle-free contexts. From that world, we’ve got kayfabe. (Work is another one that I like, but that doesn’t fit into this thread.) ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/16 "2010-09-17T07:40:55Z")
**Is**. 3rd person singular of the verb “to be”. Meaning = ‘Is’ or alternatively ‘Is not’. e.g. “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”. ---
**Author:** ![Sorrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Sorrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sorrel)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/17 "2010-09-17T10:31:56Z")
Discombobulate. To cause confusion, I know it’s not all that rare I just like the sound of it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/18 "2010-09-17T10:50:20Z")
“Thither” (to there). I think “hither” (to here) & “whither” (to where) are used more. And of course there are “thence” (from there), “hence” (from here), & “whence” (from where). Not terribly obscure, I think, but rarely enough used. For a bonus, “masticate” & “datum” probably both fit your criteria, sadly. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/19 "2010-09-17T10:59:45Z")
“Thither” (to there). My house is over there, I will go thither shortly. I think “hither” (to here) & “whither” (to where) are used more, in the phrases “Come hither,” & “Whither thou goest.” And of course there are “thence” (from there), “hence” (from here), & “whence” (from where). Not terribly obscure, I think, but rarely enough used. For a bonus, “masticate” & “datum” probably both fit your criteria, sadly. Masticating, of course, is done with the mouth, a datum that will give many a titillating image. (to chew, & a unit of information) ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890/20 "2010-09-17T12:44:37Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > cromulent Cromulent is acceptable 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-semi-obscure-english-word-or-boardless-scrabble/553890.md?page=2)