The Word Thread

[Alien Vision]

Oh yeah. I forgot that part, sorry.

 

[solitonmedic]

My favorite word:

Climax: turning point of a narrative work is its point of highest tension or drama or when the action starts in which the solution is given.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_(narrative)#cite_note-Herrick-0

 

[Vermanubis]

Heliotrope - Purplish
Jacinthe - Orange
Testaceous - Brick-red
Coquelicot - Brilliant-red
Chrysochlorous - Gold-green

Some neat color words.

 

[Vermanubis]

Macaronic
1. Of or containing a mixture of vernacular words with Latin words or with vernacular words given Latinate endings.
2. Of or involving a mixture of two or more languages.

... I guess Spanglish could be considered macaronic?

Macaronic is such a useful word. Wo liebe wo de useful worten. (macaroni of Chinese, German and English )

Adoxography - Skilled writing on an unimportant subject

Brontide - The low rumbling of distant thunder

Cacoethes - A bad habit or insatiable urge

Brontide is one I didn't know! I always love learning weather-related/sensory words.

Edit: Agh, I always hit the wrong button and end up double posting.

 

[Virgilijus]

Tergiversation: the avoidance of a straight forward question.

 

[infiniteV115]

Sesquipedalianism - The tendency to use unnecessarily large words
Sesqui is latin for "one and a half times the size", and pedalian is "of the foot".
Got the root breakdown from wiki, so that might not be correct. Definition is correct, though.
Kinda funny

Aa - A basaltic lava having a rough surface
This I learned from playing scrabble online. It's in the 2-letter-word dictionary XD

Qat (also kat, khat and gat, but who cares about those spellings XD) - Some sort of bush
Also from scrabble.

 

[DerpDaBerp]

Tergiversation: the avoidance of a straight forward question.

ooh, that's a solid one


pangram: a sentence, verse, etc., that includes all the letters of the alphabet

zugzwang: a situation in which a player is limited to moves that have a damaging effect.

hobson jobson: the alteration of a word borrowed from a foreign language to accord more closely with the linguistic patterns of the borrowing language.

 

[infiniteV115]

I can actually be proud to say that I already knew zugzwang, and I don't speak German at all.
I must be some kind of awesome or something.

 

[DerpDaBerp]

Cracked.com's words that need to be banned from the English language, lol

Moist
Jowls
Bulbous
Yolk
Slurp
Pulp

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-words-we-should-ban-because-they-make-me-uncomfortable/

 

[Lindenburg Showdown]

I love the word "Androgynous." It isn't exactly uncommon, but a lot of people don't know what it means.

"Having an ambiguous sexual identity."

It's pretty easy to use, and an overall useful word. Don't know what that man/woman is? He/she is androgynous! It's also an unoffensive less offensive way of saying "that person doesn't look like a man or a woman!"

Edit: I hate scrabble words and if you use them when actually writing you should have your fingertips removed and replaced by whatever letters were involved in the scrabble word you were using.

 

[Virgilijus]

Suzerain: A feudal lord to whom fealty was due. A nation that controls another nation in international affairs but allows it domestic sovereignty.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Bedlam - Confusion or chaos.

 

[GoldShadow]

Jolie laide - French term that literally means "pretty and ugly" used to describe a woman who is attractive but not conventionally good looking, ie attractive but in a weird way.


Man, the French have a word for everything.

 

[Virgilijus]

Too busy making up words instead of winning their wars, I always say.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Aporia: Philosophical confusion

Apotheosis: the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god

Probably two of my most favorite words right there.

 

[Wizzrobe]

batrachophagous: one who eats frogs

 

[DerpDaBerp]

While pachyderm is used to refer to elephants
it is also used to describe "a person who is not sensitive to criticism, ridicule, etc."

 

[Jim Morrison]

Entelechy:
The condition of a thing whose essence is fully realized

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Oops, forgot another favorite.

Denouement: the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel.

 

[DerpDaBerp]

So I learned 'alright' is, in fact, not a word at all, but an all-round incorrect abbreviation

Which leads me to another word

philistine: me

 

[GoldShadow]

I learned about the "alright/all right" thing several months ago

Fun fact: If I looked back through my post history, I could probably figure out exactly when this was based on when I stopped using "alright" and started using "all right".

Also a fun relevant word: pedant.

 

[Yonder]

Droll: Having a humorous, whimsical, or odd quality

Yonder: Far away