Fantastic WORDS
A treasury of curious, rare, and delightful words.
WORDS are our favorite thing. We have collected fantastic WORDS for only a few years so there aren’t thousands or even hundreds in our list, but we hope you will enjoy them. We will be adding to this list periodically, and we hope you will add your fantastic words too. See our Submissions page.
Anechoic — free from echo.
Anomie — social instability caused by erosion of standards and values.
Aphorism— a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle, often handed down by tradition from generation to generation.
Armigerous— bearing arms; entitled to bear a coat of arms.
Assume — suppose to be the case. (See presume.)
Benighted — in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance, typically owing to lack of opportunity.
Bloviate — talk at length, especially in an inflated or empty way.
Cachinnate — to laugh loudly or immoderately.
Calque — a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation.
Craquelure — a fine pattern of dense cracking formed on the surface of materials.
Dunning–Kruger effect — over-confidence of people unskilled at a particular task; people with limited competence in a particular domain who overestimate their abilities.
Ellipsis — words left out of a clause.
Elliptical clause — a clause with an ellipsis.
Erdős number — describes the “collaborative distance” between mathematician Paul Erdős and a mathematician who is a co-author of a research paper with another person who has a finite Erdös number. Paul Erdös' number is zero. If Alice collaborated with Paul, her Erdös number is one. If Bob collaborated with Alice but not Paul, Bob's number is two. Bob's collaborators would have Erdös number three and so on.
Epigenome — the layers of coding that exists on top of the genetic code. Do epigenetic marks alter gene expression or do changes in gene expression alter the marks?
Falsism — an assertion or statement the falsity of which is plainly apparent. (See truism.)
Ferroequinologist — one who has an interest in “iron horses,” aka trains.
Genericize — to cause to become generic, especially as a produce sold without a brand name
Geosmin — chemical smelled when it rains, released by soil-dwelling bacteria (like Streptomyces). (See petrichor.)
Gormless — lacking sense or initiative; foolish.
Graupel—granular snow pellets
Harvard sentences — sentences used to test intelligibility in situations where speech is supposed to be less than intelligible.
Histones — proteins that package the DNA into chromosomes.
Hobson’s choice — take what’s offered or nothing.
Inference— a conclusion reached on the basis on evidence and reasoning.
Initialize — to set, to format, to prepare.
Instantiate — find an instance of a word or particular usage of a word.
Inter-reg’ num — a period when normal govern-ment is suspended especially between successive reigns or regimes.
Jeremiad — literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom; a complaining tirade: used with a spice of ridicule or mockery.
Koan — a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provide enlightenment.
Kyphosis — excessive outward curvature of the spine, causing hunching of the back.
Layed — no longer considered a proper word and only has archaic properties. It can only be used to invite an old age feeling. Laid is the correct past tense of lay.
Malapert — boldly disrespectful to a person of higher standing.
Mendacious — lying.
Nonagenarian—a person who is from 90 to 99 years old.
Neologism — any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is accepted into mainstream language.
Obsequious — obedient or attentive to an excessive survile degree.
Ostensively — showing an example of something rather than explaining it in words.
Ostensibly — apparently or seemingly so—though not necessarily true.
Petitionary— a formal or written request or plea made to an authority or organized body (such as a court).
Petrichor— the distinctive, usually pleasant earthy scent produced by the first rain falling on soil after a long, warm dry spell. (See geosmin.)
Portmanteau— a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.
Paraprosdokian — a rhetorical term for an unexpected shift in meaning at the end of a sentence, stanza, series, or short passage, also called the surprise ending. It is often used for comic effect.
Presume — suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability. (See assume.)
Prolixity — being excessively lengthy, detailed, or wordy.
Pykrete— mixture of sawdust and ice.
Querent — one who queries or questions.
Reasoning —
Abductive reasoning — a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from a set of observations.
Deductive reasoning — the process of drawing valid inferences. An inference is valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises; it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false.
Inductive reasoning — various methods of reasoning in which broad generalizations or principles are derived from a body of observations that apply to many situations.
Redound — to have a result that is an advantage to someone: (A good relationship with one's colleagues redounds to everyone's benefit.)
Repine — to feel or express discontent or unhappiness; to fret.
Reposte — a quick or clever reply to an insult or criticism.
Revenant — a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead.
Ruction — a disturbance or quarrel.
Skive — avoid work or a duty by staying away or leaving early.
Truism — a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device. (See falsism.)
Twerking — a type of dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner.
Vibecession — a neologism that refers to a disconnect between the economy of a country and the general public's negative perception of it.