I was out for coffee with a friend and she used 'defenestrate' in a proper sentence. Since I'm always looking to learn obscure words, what are some of your favorites? I'm very fond of 'callipygian'(nice ass) and 'pulchritudinous'(beautiful).

Well, I like 'lagniappe' a little more than other words.

And I like 'inconceivable', although I'm not sure I quite know what it means.

And I feel suprised and a bit lucky when I can fit 'serendipitous' into a sentance.

In Response to zamphir (#9359):

I bet you also enjoy 'ubiquity'.

In Response to jen (#9366):

I enjoy 'ubiquity' everywhere.

onomasiology, noun: the study of the means of expressing a given concept

onomatology, noun: onomastics; the study of the origin, history, and use of proper names

In Response to zamphir (#9367):

You've wounded me. Which brings me to one of my favorites: schadenfreude.

Defenstrate is neater once you know that 'Fenster' is the german word for Window.

Besides also enjoying defenestration, I'm very partial to elatedness. It's got a nice ring to it. Much better than elation.

I like to point out malapropisms as well (when possible), much to the disdain of those around me.

'Sesquipedalian' (multisyllabic)

Also 'limnopaeic'. And 'undulating'.

I also liked evanescence until that pop group used it. Now it's cheapened :(

There is an old word game with the unfortunate name "Probe". Each player has a deck of cards with letter on them, plus some blank cards. You place the cards on a rack so as to spell out a word (with blanks optionally at the beginning and end to hide the length of your word).

Players try to guess the letters in each others' words (and, ultimately, to guess the other players' words). You get points for each letter you guess, and a bonus for guessing the word with lots of letters still hidden.

Unfortunately, it was well known among my college friends that the word "defenestrate" really amuses me. (Incidentally, did you know that in addition to its traditional usage, it is sometimes used to describe the task of installing Linux on a box that formerly ran certain MS operating systems?) They guessed my word after one letter.

Because of the nature of the game, it turns out that 'A' (with a lot of blank padding) was a very successful word.

It's cold in Alaska.

This week's 10 dolla woids:

Ratiocination: Thinking.
Exequious: Depressing (literally Funereal, uh funeral-like)
Execrable: Crappy.

I used them all today :)

In Response to mcgrue (#9420):

I liked the word better before it sold out.

In Response to mcgrue (#9420):

I was about to yell and rant about you calling them a pop group, but then I realised that the populace has managed to turn them into one.

Regardless, I still like their sound.

Of similar sound, I still enjoy effervescence

In Response to themysticalone (#9439):

A word completely invented by the Alka Seltzer marketing people. It did not exist in the English lexicon prior to their marketing campaign.

In Response to Clan_Hanna (#9450):

A word completely invented by the Alka Seltzer marketing people. It did not exist in the English lexicon prior to their marketing campaign.

Bullshit.

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to albionsoft (#9451):

Why would Alka Seltzer invent the word 'bullshit'?

In Response to Clan_Hanna (#9450):

Are you sure it was invented by the Alka-Selzer people? My chem teachers seemed to think differently of the matter.

In Response to Clan_Hanna (#9450):

The Oxford English Dictionary has examples of it (the word, not the marketing campaign) dating back to 1651.

I learned a new word today.

picaresque

All thanks to Amazon.com.

In Response to zamphir (#9460):

Is that the new pokemon? I heard they were doing an amazon exclusive.

peregrinate, perambulate
sycophantic, obsequious

Of course, the best use of the word obsequious has to be in an the Simpsons episode "Homer vs. Patty and Selma":

Selma: Come on, Homer: you can't spell "obsequious" without I-O-U.
Homer: I'll have to trust you on that.

In Response to jen (#9459):

Yes, here's the citation:

1651 A Midsummer's Wind II.ii This effervescence doth soothe stomach's grief/Plop plop! Fizz fizz! 'Tis my source of relief!

I've always liked the sound of lackadaisical, which of course means not having the quality of being a daisy [quinion.com].

I also like comestible which really does mean something you can eat.

Defenestrate has been a favorite of mine for quite some time because of its narrow definition for such a fancy word.

I recently used two other nifty words in an e-mail:
surmise
coalesce

A favorite I've mentioned before:
antipodal

I always like the words;

tritonality -The simultaneous use of three keys in a musical composition.

abrogate -to annul, to abolish authoritatively or formally, to cancel

and
dictatress wich basically means a female director

I've recently used [b]heuristic[/b] a lot.

It's a term a professor of mine said was a lot like "black magic." I found it to be largely true, but heuristic methods are reasonably useful in engineering.

From dictionary.com:

  1. A rule of thumb, simplification, or educated guess that reduces or limits the search for solutions in domains that are difficult and poorly understood. Unlike algorithms, heuristics do not guarantee optimal, or even feasible, solutions and are often used with no theoretical guarantee.