There have been some real great words mentioned recently on the forum which, IMHO, don't get enough use these days.

ex. dullard, poppycock

My word of the day is kakistocracy.

Points will be given to whoever uses it the best in a sentence.

Kakistocracy abbreviated to Bush...

The Kakistrophic machinations of the country's government landed them repeatedly in the sh*t.
I love this word. I'm all for keeping obscure words alive.

Curmudgeon: a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.

Oooohhh, Cantankerous is also good.

Flippertigibbet.

Two popular deinitions:

1. One who is unreservedly reticent, hence resilient. whose facade would suggest nothing but pure boredom,
whose mind and thoughts wander aimlessly in the midst of everyday life affairs.
2. Foolish young woman

I opt for 2.

This is a great thread Chemgoddess as I love our language. See this (earlier) thread: Found in the post "Whatever happened to literacy?" Started by Mark.

What about smatchet? "n. - a small, nasty person or a nasty child"

Found at:http://www.kokogiak.com/logolepsy/

Thanks Flashman, I really do love it to. My appreciation for the preciseness/creativity of the English language has markedly increased since moving over here.

Smatchet? I've never even heard that one before, but I love it.

I've found since moving here my vocabulary is atrocious, I need to build it back up again.

Flabbergasted. Parlay.

You'd probably like the BBC TV programme Call My Bluff, from which I gather the show has been revived.

It was an extremely funny programme, too.

I've always liked "Nefarious", often used by some of my more northern friends.

Yes! I know I would have. One of my favorite board games in Balderdash which is basically the same premise.



quintessential; myriad; plenipotentiary; quixotic; magnanimous. Some of my faves.

I just love the word titivate. My mum used to shout up the stairs when i hogged the bathroom for too long " If you titivate in front of that mirror any longer, you'll see the devil"!

Another Northern one: "spurious", when used by a garage mechanic. "A spurious part" means a replacement part sourced from a third party, not the vehicle's manufacturer. Main dealers won't give you these. Spurious parts usually save you a fortune.

rambunctious = boisterous, loud, raucous, turbulent. Fantastic word!

Chuckle..
a much underused word, why laugh when you can have a chuckle.

And jesting instead of joking

Caprice rather than capricious, which is also a good word ...

It's unfortuntely true that one's vocabulary doesn't get enriched when speaking to people whose mother-tongue isn't English and one tends to use words that will be readily understood rather than confounding them with more abstruse or colloquial expressions! I like to hear words like the ones already mentioned in this thread, and one or two of my own favourites would be "pernickety; perspicacious; disenchanted; marooned; whimsical; coerced, codswallop" Let's hear some more!

My favs include: Discombobulate, Obfuscate and Scallywag

gregarious; abscond; verbiage; tumultuous; insouciant; lackadaisical


This isn't technically a real word but stems from a great actual word that a friend of mine made it up and I love it. Drunken shutterbuggery.