I like words. I know a fair few of them. I want to know more. What are your favorite esoteric words?
Epeolatry: The worship of words.
One that seems to be new to a lot of people: sardonic or sardonism. It is kind of like sarcasm or facetiousness, but darker. The definition is grimfully mocking.
“I was just being sarcastic. Don’t be so defensive and serious.”
“I was being sardonic. Did you take offense to that? Good.”
Callipygian - to have a nice ass.
Fantastic!
I recently learned ‘bucolic’ - relating to or typical of rural life. It’s based on the greek word for shepherd.
I read it in a review of the fantastic BBC show ‘The Derectorists’ and found it very fitting.
It’s a good one!
I just thought of one that I’ve never had cause to use in conversation: “philomot,” meaning “having the color of a dead leaf.”
Palimpsest - it’s like a document that’s been re-used but still shows some of the previous words underneath. Or a bit like a whiteboard that has ‘burnt-in’ marker showing after being erased.
I like it! Thanks!
I hate saying it, it feels bad in my mouth. Anthropomorphize is kind of fun though.
Why do you hate saying it?
It just feels awkward to say clearly and quickly.
Whenever I say it, I am unsure whether I’ve added an extra syllable.
Encumbered, obsequious, defenestration, solastalgia
Yesterday I was trying to think of the difference between audacious and bodacious and I could really use some help with that.
One is about boobs and one is about confidence.
There’s probably some overlap.
- syzygy
- diurnal
- gnathion
Diurnal’s cool, but its not Crepuscular cool.
True, it’s usually lower temperature by then.
Hey, you should be friends with my Yiddish cephalopod friend.
Discombobulated!
I love disconcerting
I don’t care for esoterism but I love words and I keep a journal where I note any new words I learn, nice proverbs and citations and anything I find pretty. It is basically my personnal dictionary.
One of my last entries was : lixivifaction.Sure, there are many great words regardless of popularity, but esoteric one are more likely to be new to me!
That one doesn’t turn up in my DDG search, could you elaborate?
Oups I added an extra f : lixiviaction. So it was my phone that change it because it just change it a second tome. It is a french word but I imagine it could also exist in english build the same way. It is the extraction of soluble principale by washing. From latin “lixivius”. To leach. I found a wiktionary page for it : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lixiviate#English
Try these on for size:
Epicaricacy - Schadenfreude, but sounds fancier
Coprophagous - shit eating. As in: “A coprophagous grin”
Epicaricacy is one of my favorites and actually predates schadenfreude! We should use it more!
I mean, I don’t much like reading about poop, but if I’m going to the latter sounds like a good adjective with which to do so.
That link isn’t clickable for me, but from context I’m guessing it’s a German word, in which case you’re clearly cheating.
I love this!!
Contemporaneously. (At precisely the same time).
I always loved this one! Good choice.
