Interesting Words. Heard a strange or new word? Share it with us!

[Barry Northern]

Diegogarcity

I remembered hearing this word on an old podictionary podcast, so after several attempts at trying to spell it for google I gave up and listened to the podcast (it's 21m:22s in). Now that I know how to spell it of course, google delivers . . .

"(For those of you who are wondering, diegogarcity is a term coined by Aldiboronti on the Wordorigins discussion forum for the coincidence of just learning something new, such as a new word, and then seeing it in several places immediately afterwords. It is a play on serendipity, as Serendip is an old name for Sri Lanka. For this concept, Aldi chose another Indian Ocean island as the namesake.)"

[Barry Northern]

Marge

Not a new word this, but strange and apparently archaic. I came across it a lot in Lord Dunsany's works, so it can't have fallen out of usage that long ago (80-90 years ago?). Used in context it is perfectly understandable, as it sounds like a similar word, with a similar meaning in common usage today: margin (or edge).

[Barry Northern]

Stevedore

I've heard this word before, but it came up in Raymond E. Feist's King of Foxes during a scene at a dock, and I decided to look it up rather than guess at its meaning from context. According to wikipedia the word stevedore originated in Spain or Portugal, and entered the English language through its use by sailors. It started as a phonetic spelling of Spanish estibador or Portuguese estivador = "a man who stuffs", here in the sense of "a man who loads ships", which was the original meaning of stevedore.

As so often happens the word is actually an ingrained mistake. By the way, if you like etymology you should definitely check out the podictionary podcast.

Wikipedia goes on to say that in the United Kingdom, men who load and unload ships are usually called dockers while in the United States and Canada the term longshoreman, derived from "man-along-the-shore," is used.

I suspect this is why the word seems unfamiliar.

[fraser]

I write song words from time to time, seprate from writing the song itself, so often the number of syllables won't fit with the intended delivery of the singing.
When it happens I really like just removing syllables or letters or inserting some to make it fit and coming up with nonsense words or sentences as a result.

so '...triangluate this' became '...try and angulate this
'
nonsense words i've discovered in the process:
Theed, Akhart, Averigid.
Averigid seems to explain itself, but i have no idea what the others would mean :)

[Barry Northern]

Theed, Akhart, Averigid.
Averigid seems to explain itself, but i have no idea what the others would mean :)

Theed and Akhart sound like a couple of really good names for towns in a fantasy book. I might have to use those. I've no idea what averigid means though; average rigidity?

[Barry Northern]

Housecarl

Another old word I came across in King of Foxes.

Housecarls were household troops, personal warriors and equivalent to a bodyguard to Scandinavian lords and kings. The anglicized term comes from the Old Norse term huskarl or huscarl (literally, 'house man', i.e., armed man (churl) in the service of a specific house.)

[Jodi MacArthur]

Hoosegow ~ jail.

Scuttlebutt ~ rumors

I don't know if you can find these in a dictionary anymore, but I've been doing research on old cowboy words and slang for a short story of mine called Riff Raff. A Writer's Guide To The Old West is a great site. They retrieved the Old West words and phrases from books and newspapers from the mid to late 1800's time period. Very cool.

[Barry Northern]

Scuttlebut I'd heard of, but Hoosegow is a great one, and that resource sounds good too. I used to listen to an interesting etymology podcast called podictionary. I think I'll resubscribe because it had some great words, and great stories behind the words. I think that's where I heard scuttlebut actually.

Jodi MacArthur said:

Hoosegow ~ jail.

Scuttlebutt ~ rumors

I don't know if you can find these in a dictionary anymore, but I've been doing research on old cowboy words and slang for a short story of mine called Riff Raff. A Writer's Guide To The Old West is a great site. They retrieved the Old West words and phrases from books and newspapers from the mid to late 1800's time period. Very cool.

[Barry Northern]

Pulchritude

pul⋅chri⋅tude [puhl-kri-tood, -tyood]
–noun physical beauty; comeliness.

Origin:
1350–1400; ME < L pulchritūdō beauty, equiv. to pulchri- (comb. form of pulcher beautiful) + -tūdō -tude

Synonyms:
loveliness, beauteousness, fairness.

Adjective Form:
Pulchritudinous

[Barry Northern]

Fribbler

A verb to describe someone who is vocal in their appreciation of women, but who is also nervous of their consent. For example: "He fribbled his colleague in front of everyone in the office, and then backed off as soon as he noticed she was interested."