Fantastic WORDS
A treasury of curious, rare, and delightful words.
WORDS are our favorite thing. We have collected them for only a few years so there aren't thousands or even hundreds in our list, but we hope you will enjoy our WORDS. We will be adding to this list and we hope you will add your fantastic words too. Eventually we may get these into alphabetical order!
Ostensively — apparently, purportedly, but perhaps not actually: portray as a blue-collar type, ostensively a carpenter.
Ostensibly — apparently or purportedly though not necessarily true.
Instantiate — find an instance of a word or particular usage of a word.
Bloviate — talk at length, especially in an inflated or empty way.
Petrichor — the distinctive, usually pleasant earthy scent produced by the first rain falling on soil after a long, warm dry spell.
Reposte — a quick or clever reply to an insult or criticism.
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.
Vibecession — a neologism that refers to a disconnect between the economy of a country and the general public's negative perception of it.
Dunning–Kruger effect (cognitive bias about one's own skill) — specific over-confidence of people unskilled at a particular task; people with limited competence in a particular domain who overestimate their abilities.
Armigerous — bearing arms; entitled to bear a coat of arms
Geosmin — chemical smelled when it rains, released by soil-dwelling bacteria (like Streptomyces).
Jeremiad — literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom. A lamentation; a complaining tirade: used with a spice of ridicule or mockery.
Obsequious — obedient or attentive to an excessive survile degree.
Histones — proteins that package the DNA into chromosomes.
Malapert — boldly disrespectful to a person of higher standing.
Initialize — to set, to format, to prepare
Pykrete — mixture of sawdust and ice.
Neologism — any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is accepted into mainstream language.
Portmanteau — a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.
Erdős number — describes the "collabor-ative 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?
Inductive reasoning — various methods of reasoning in which broad generalizations or principles are derived from a body of observations; draws general conclusions that apply to many situations.
Deductive reasoning — the process of drawing valid inferences. An inference is valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, meaning that it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false.
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.
Inference — a conclusion reached on the basis on evidence and reasoning.
Redound — to have a result that is an advantage to someone: (A good relationship with one's colleagues redounds to everyone's benefit.)
Assume — suppose to be the case
Presume — suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability.
Inter-reg’ num — a period when normal government is suspended especially between successive reigns or regimes.
Mendacious — lying
Koan — a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provide enlightenment.
Harvard sentences — sentences used to test intelligibility in situations where speech is supposed to be less than intelligible.
Anechoic — free from echo.
Benighted — in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance, typically owing to lack of opportunity.
Querent — one who queries or questions
Cachinnate — to laugh loudly or immoderately.
Ellipsis — words left out of a clause.
Elliptical clause — a clause with an ellipsis.
Hobson’s choice — take what’s offered or nothing.
Repine — to feel or express discontent or unhappiness; to fret.
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, and is the opposite of a falsism.
Aphorism — a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle, often handed down by tradition from generation to generation.
Abductive reasoning — a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from a set of observations.