Wild words
December 14th 2008 00:12
Autoantonym
A word which has two meanings, one being the opposite of the other. One example is cleave, which can mean to stick together, or to separate. Another is sanction, which can mean to prevent something happening, or to allow something to happen.
Autological
Aveugle
A word borrowed from the French word aveugler, which means blind. In English, it was used to mean hoodwink. At some point, however, English discarded it and replaced it with the word inveigle. At the same time, or perhaps not, the meaning changed to entice, or persuade by guile. Sometimes I want to speak to English like it's an unruly child. "Sit down and stay still!"
Floccinaucinihilipilification
This is the longest non-technical word (29 letters) in English. It means the act of estimating something as worthless.
Heterological
This is the opposite of autological and means non-self-descriptive. Examples are monosyllabic, misspelled, unpronounceable and vowelless. There is a paradox arising from the question, "Is the word heterological heterological?" Wikipedia offers the following explanation of the paradox, "If the answer is 'yes', heterological is autological (leading to a contradiction). If the answer is 'no', heterological is heterological, again leading to a contradiction." There, we're glad that's cleared up.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeic words describe sounds associated with the word. Examples are meow, rustle, splash, buzz, bang and cock-a-doodle-do. Ever heard the shaggy dog story of the brown paper cowboy? The punch-line is onomatopoeic.
Pigsnye
A term of endearment evoking a pig, which may qualify it for autoanonymity. It is synonymous with "darling". It is sexist: you can only endearingly call a girl a pig. Charles Dickens had two pet terms for his wife, "dearest mouse" and "dearest darling pig".
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilic ovolcanoconiosis
This is the longest word (45 letters) found in most major English dictionaries. It is the technical term for a a lung disease caused by inhalation of silica particles from a volcano.
Yonic
For men, think phallic; for women, think yonic. It is not clear why phallic should be a well-known word and yonic less known.
Yorkshire compliment
A gift of something useless to the giver. Like all the useless handkerchiefs received last Christmas - just be careful, when putting new cards on the parcel, that you don't give them back to the person who gave them to you. Also known as a north-country compliment.
Forgotten English (Jeffrey Kacirk, 2007), Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words (Walter Skeat, 1914), amoebarepublic.wordpress.com, www.wordspy.com
PS This post was inspired by Wilson Pon, who asked for a list of rare words.
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Comment by Norm
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Yonic Noah was always one of my favourite players from yore.
Comment by Chris Champion
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Comment by Janet Collins
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and
or even for anyone who can prounounce them at all.
But the one I like best is:
A gift of something useless to the giver. Like all the useless handkerchiefs received last Christmas - just be careful, when putting new cards on the parcel, that you don't give them back to the person who gave them to you. Also known as a north-country compliment.
Comment by Morgan Bell
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i dont know the word for it, but i marvel at word pairs that seem like they should be opposite in meaning but are actually similar
eg:
"emasculation" and "effemination"
"flammable" and "inflammable"
different word origins i guess?
Comment by Chris Champion
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As for the opposite-sounding but synonymous words, this is very interesting. The people at Write101.com blame tricky Latin prefixes for 'inflammable', which came into common usage in English in the 16th century, and language meddlers, who added 'flammable', for reasons unfathomable, in the 19th century.
Comment by Chris Champion
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