{"id":3000,"date":"2019-01-15T23:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T05:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=3000"},"modified":"2021-07-04T10:54:36","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T15:54:36","slug":"have-you-ever-heard-these-25-obscure-english-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/definitions\/have-you-ever-heard-these-25-obscure-english-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Have You Ever Heard These 25 Obscure English Words?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s something so satisfying about pulling out a $15 word\u2014the kind that you hardly ever get to use, but fits the situation perfectly. On the other hand, that feeling when you can’t\u00a0quite\u00a0<\/em>find the right word for what you’re trying to express is incredibly aggravating. Well, we’re here to help. Here are 25 weird, obscure, and downright cool words hidden in the English language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nEpeolatry:<\/strong>\u00a0The worship of words. What better piece of vocabulary to kick off this list with?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nAglet:<\/strong>\u00a0The little piece of plastic on the end of your shoelaces. (Crossword puzzle fans know this one.)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nGrawlix:<\/strong>\u00a0You know when cartoonists substitute a bunch of punctuation marks for curse words? They’re using grawlix.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nBorborygmus:<\/strong>\u00a0A rumbling in your stomach. Time for lunch!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nAccubation:<\/strong>\u00a0While you quell your borborygmus, you might engage in accubation\u2014the act of comfortably reclining, often during a meal.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nJillick:<\/strong>\u00a0To skip a stone across a surface of water.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nNibling:<\/strong>\u00a0Here’s a handy word you might just now realize you were missing.\u00a0Nibling<\/em>\u00a0is a gender-neutral term for a niece or nephew.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nTatterdemalion:<\/strong>\u00a0Some words just sound like their meaning. A tatterdemalion is somebody wearing tattered clothing. It can also be used as an adjective meaning tattered or ragged in appearance.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nTittle:<\/strong>\u00a0The word\u00a0tittle<\/em>\u00a0has got just one tittle in it, but this sentence has six\u2014no, seven\u2014more. It’s the little dot above a lowercase\u00a0j<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0i<\/em>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nPogonotrophy:<\/strong>\u00a0You probably know someone who engages in pogonotrophy, the act of growing a beard, even if they don’t call it that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nPilgarlic:\u00a0<\/strong>On the opposite end of the spectrum, a pilgarlic is a bald-headed person\u2014usually one you’re mocking or feeling sorry for.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nBalter:<\/strong>\u00a0One thing we can definitely do here at GrammarBook.com is balter. It means “to dance badly.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nPandiculation:<\/strong>\u00a0When you get up in the morning, sit on the edge of your bed, and stretch your arms in all directions, you\u2019re actually pandiculating.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nSciapodous:<\/strong>\u00a0Having large feet. Simple as that.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nNatiform:<\/strong>\u00a0Shaped like a butt. Perfect\u2014no more relying on the peach emoji.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nDefenestrate:<\/strong>\u00a0You’ve got to wonder about the kind of mind that thinks there needs to be a word for throwing someone out of a window.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nBruxism:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you grind your teeth at night? Tell your dentist that you suffer from bruxism.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nPhosphene:<\/strong>\u00a0While you’re pandiculating, you might also press your knuckles into your eyes until little stars appear. Those specks of light are called phosphenes.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nCataglottism:<\/strong>\u00a0Technically, you may already know another word for cataglottism, but it’s a great way to make “french kiss” sound a lot less sexy.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nLemniscate:<\/strong>\u00a0A figure 8 turned on its side\u2014in other words, the infinity symbol.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nObelus:\u00a0<\/strong>The division symbol (\u00f7), which we were surprised had an actual name.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nPreantepenultimate:<\/strong>\u00a0Ultimate<\/em>\u00a0is last,\u00a0penultimate<\/em>\u00a0is second-to-last,\u00a0antepenultimate<\/em>\u00a0is third-to-last, which makes this the preantepenultimate word on this list.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nGriffonage:<\/strong>\u00a0You might call sloppy handwriting “chicken scratch,” but\u00a0griffonage<\/em>\u00a0rolls off the tongue much more easily.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nArchimime:<\/strong>\u00a0Frankly, we didn’t think that this word would mean exactly what it sounds like, but it does. The archimime is the chief buffoon or jester. The boss clown, in other words.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u25cf<\/td>\nTyrotoxism:<\/strong>\u00a0Scratch what we said about\u00a0defenestrate<\/em>\u00a0earlier\u2014the fact that somebody came up with a word for “to poison with cheese” is much more unbelievable.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u2014Reuben Westmaas<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s something so satisfying about pulling out a $15 word\u2014the kind that you hardly ever get to use, but fits the situation perfectly. On the other hand, that feeling when you can’t\u00a0quite\u00a0find the right word for what you’re trying to express is incredibly aggravating. Well, we’re here to help. Here are 25 weird, obscure, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5119,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions\/5119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}