My son recently discovered a list of English words that are no longer being used, and shared it with me. I thought that was such an interesting idea that I decided to look up other obsolete words. I found quite a few of them, and chose some to share:
Apricity – the sun’s warmth on a cold winter’s day
Beef-witted – stupid
Brabble – to argue loudly about something inconsequential
Callipygian – having beautifully shaped buttocks
Cockalorum – a little man with a high opinion of himself
Corrade – to scrape together from various sources
Crapulous – the feeling of being ill from eating/drinking too much
Curglaff – the shock felt when first plunging into cold water (I find this to be very unpleasant, which is why I would never want to join the polar bear club)
Curmuring – a low rumbling sound produced by the bowels
Deliciate – to indulge oneself
Elflock –hair that has been tangled, as if matted by elves
Englishable – something that may be rendered into English
Freck – to move swiftly or nimbly
Frigorific – causing or producing cold
Fudgel – pretend to work
Fuzzle- to make drunk
Gorgonize – to have a paralyzing or mesmerizing effect on someone (apparently not necessarily in a bad way, despite the reference to Gorgons)
Groak – to quietly watch someone while they eat, hoping to be invited to join them
Grumpish – a form of grumpy (I can’t figure out why this one went away – it’s funnier than ‘grumpy’)
Hugger-mugger – to act in a secretive manner
Jargogle – to confuse, bamboozle
Jirble – to pour a liquid with an unsteady hand
Lethophobia – the fear of oblivion
Ludibrious – ridiculous
Lumming – heavy rain
Lunting – walking while smoking a pipe
Malagrugrous – dismal
Monsterful – wonderful and extraordinary
Quidnunc – an inquisitive, gossipy person
Quockerwodger – a wooden puppet controlled by strings; can be used as an insult
Resistentialism – the seemingly malevolent behavior displayed by inanimate objects (I’m tempted to remove the word ‘seemingly’ from that sometimes)
Slubberdegullion – a slovenly, slobbering person
Slugabed – lazy person who stays in bed late
Snowbroth – freshly melted snow
Supererogate – to do more than duty requires
Twaddle – to gossip or talk idly (funny the similarity to Twitter…)
Zafty – a person very easily imposed upon
It’s interesting how language evolves over time. New words come into use, and others fall out of use. I think it might be a good idea to sometimes bring some words back. What do you think?
