Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Just a little place to collect words that you encounter during your exploits.

Rules:

1. It must be a word that you did not know before, and that you encountered when someone else said or wrote it.
2. No more than one per day, please.
3. English words only.
4. Please provide a definition along with the word so we can all increase our verbosity.
5. Where you encountered it would be nice to know.

Reading an article in the economist, I saw

abstruse: adjective. Difficult to comprehend, RECONDITE. <you're not the only one who finds Einstein's theory of relativity abstruse>

Regarding a post I saw here:

Recondite: adjective. Difficult to comprehend, abstruse.

Giovanni Schwartz wrote:Recondite: adjective. Difficult to comprehend, abstruse.

I'm currently cataloging chemistry theses, so I'm having to look up a bunch of words, but I probably won't post here until I encounter a new word in something I'm reading voluntarily.

Or, you know, something useful.

Ah, but the chemistry-related words might actually prove to be more useful, if I could remember them the next time I had to catalog chemistry theses.

I've moved on from Caitlin Moran's How To Be a Woman to her collection of essays Moranthology. I was reading an essay about how much she hates a certain character (Lola) on a kids' tv show (Charlie and Lola) and found this fascinating word: 'ballache'. I naturally pronounced it in a French manner to rhyme with 'panache' ([buh-lahsh]. I got excited to look up this unknown word and post it on this thread. Turns out I was pronouncing the word wrong and it's a word I very much already knew.

Never fear, though. In the next paragraph I was given a word that I can actually add to this thread:

termagant (n.)
[tur-muh-guhnt]
1. A violent, turbulent, or brawling woman.

From Moranthology (p. 147): "That was very much a ritual I intended to pass on to my own children, until this ... termagant came along."

Hahahaha to baLLACHE.

gam·boge
/gamˈbōj/
Noun
A gum resin produced by various eastern Asian trees, used as a yellow pigment and as a purgative.

In Jasper Fforde, of course.

Glebe: N. Pronounced Glebe. (Rhymes with... the feeb of feeble?)

"When in the sultry glebe I faint..." (Hymns, 109 , v. 2, first line, "The Lord my Pasture will Prepare")

A fancy word for a field.

It means a field. Story about this song: At one of the devotionals in the MTC, we're singing it as the opening song. This was at a time when the gym was only partially open, so our zone was assigned to overflow. Anyway, we're singing this song, but by the end of the first verse, there are two people in the whole room (the big one directly across from the cafeteria, for the record) who are singing: me, and the sister missionary from my zone sitting next to me. Cue the start of the second verse. We're both singing, and get to the "Sultry Glebe" and simultaneously lose it, and bust up laughing. After we finally get ourselves under control and stop laughing at the hilarity of this hymn, and how there's probably no one in the room who know what it's reALLY SAYING, we stop laughing, and realize that THERE REALLY WAS NO ONE IN THE ROOM SINGING BUT THE TWO OF US. And everyone had heard us laughing. It was beautiful, and after that I learned what a glebe was.

The man who gave that devotional that day was Hispanic, had a thick accent, and was talking (at least part of the time) about baptism. Every time he said baptism or baptized, my companion about lost it again.

ir·rupt [ih-ruhpt]
verb (used without object)
1. to break or burst in suddenly.
2. to manifest violent activity or emotion, as a group of persons.
3. (of animals) to increase suddenly in numbers through a lessening of the number of deaths.

fac·ile /ˈfasəl/
Adjective
1. (esp. of a theory or argument) Appearing neat and comprehensive by ignoring the complexities of an issue; superficial.
2. (of a person) Having a superficial or simplistic knowledge or approach.

cal·li·pyg·i·an
/ˌkaləˈpijēən/
adj. Having well-shaped buttocks.

This reminds me of my mom's butt book.

Fainaigue: to shirk, evade work or responsibility.

The way my friend pronounced it (fin-ehg), it sounded similar to finagle. Are they related?

UffishThought wrote:Fainaigue: to shirk, evade work or responsibility.

I've used the word countless times, but have never seen it spelled. Fascinating.

One of my favorite words to spell is yarmulke.

UffishThought wrote:Fainaigue: to shirk, evade work or responsibility.

The way my friend pronounced it (fin-ehg), it sounded similar to finagle. Are they related?

I've never heard of the former, but the OED says that "finagle" comes from "fainaigue" and that "finagle" was originally just an American coinage, but it's since made its way back across the pond.

Ouster (n.)
3. Law The act of forcing one out of possession or occupancy of material property to which one is entitled; illegal or wrongful dispossession.

This word has been used a lot here in Toronto since the ouster of Mayor Rob Ford. I think it is very bizarre to see the -er ending describing an action rather than a person who does the action. 'Ousting' seems like the more natural term to me, but I guess I'm wrong.

Yarjka wrote:Ouster (n.)
3. Law The act of forcing one out of possession or occupancy of material property to which one is entitled; illegal or wrongful dispossession.

This word has been used a lot here in Toronto since the ouster of Mayor Rob Ford. I think it is very bizarre to see the -er ending describing an action rather than a person who does the action. 'Ousting' seems like the more natural term to me, but I guess I'm wrong.

It also has a pretty specific legal meaning and I find it odd to be used colloquially. It may be a more entertaining word to sue, but "removal" seems much more appropriate for what happened to Ford.

My reaction to about half the words posted here is "You didn't know that word?" My reaction to the other half is "No, I'm pretty sure that's not a real word." So, at least I've got the extremes covered.

Anyway, NPR is apparently quite fond of the word "ouster," which is probably why I'm familiar with it: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anpr.org+ouster