Interesting words you learned today

When I get the time, I like to check into Refdesk.com. Also, Wikipedia has a Home Page with neat stuff on it every day.

Nugatory. "Of no real value; trifling or worthless." I'm going to say it all the time now. Your opinion is nugatory. This conversation? Nugatory!

I probably should leave that Word-o-the-Day calendar alone for a while, too.

asshat

Yesterday, really, and I haven't used it in a sentence yet.

Escutcheon. According to dictionary.com, "a shield or shieldlike surface on which a coat of arms is depicted."

Grumphie. Nice name for a pig, chiefly in Scotland, where else?

hector: (v) to express oneself in bombastic, pompous or otherwise loud and annoying manner.

The things you learn from reading books published before 1925. LOL!

douchebaggery ...self explanatory. Learned it here yesterday on another thread, and couldn't wait to use it!

'K. The real word is...solecistic.

a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage, as unflammable and they was.

[Origin: 1570–80; < L soloecismus < Gk soloikismós, equiv. to sóloik(os) (Sólo(i) a city in Cilicia where a corrupt form of Attic Greek was spoken + -ikos -ic) + -ismos -ism]

Slang but:

Pisstation: State of anger that lasts longer than is warranted for the grievance that caused the state - according to teenage definition of the term. (At least that is what my 15 year old tells me it means regarding my still being upset with him 2 hours after he commit such upset).

"I said I was sorry, like, over an hour ago. Get over the pisstation of the situation already." He said while rolling his eyeballs at me.

Yeah, THAT is gonna ease my pisstation state.

I read this late yesterday afternoon. It's not new word but as soon as my eyes read this phrase I silently wished I had written it.

"...the way her fingers curl into a soft fist."

"Soft fist." I love it when a writer uses a word or words that suggests the opposite of what it/they normally imply.

As you might have guessed this scene is not normal. I won't give it away. I'm hoping the novel in its fullness will be soon available to us all.
C

donnybrook: a free for all; brawl

*Dictionary.com's word of the day (I check it every day)*

Ojibwa (Chippewa)
Male-bodied: Egwakwe or Agokwa ("man-woman")
Female-bodied: Ogichidaakwe or Okitcitakwe ("warrior woman")

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Two-Spirit

While looking up the concept of the Two-Spirit yesterday, I finally found the Ojibwa names for it. So interesting!

This is more a spelling correction than word, but handy nonetheless:

I thought if something had a certain noxious smell, it was odiforous. But evidently, it's actually this:

"Odoriferous: adj. Having or giving off a smell, esp. an unpleasant or distinctive one."

Usage: My dog Ollie is odoriferous today.
Slang version of said word: Ollie's got the funk.

DeleyanLee said:

hector: (v) to express oneself in bombastic, pompous or otherwise loud and annoying manner.

The things you learn from reading books published before 1925. LOL!

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Hmmm... I use it regularly and have done for nearly fifty years. I'm sure it's in my novel somewhere!
Now then, kvetch - that's a new one to me. Maybe some of this is remaining differences between American and British English... even Irish English is not the same as British English...

Yay, 900th post!!

protagonist- good guy

antagonist- bad guy

Seriously, I kept messing up the two, and messing up the A's and O's in both too.

It isn't new to me, or any of you most likely, but for a long time one of my favourite words has been:

boon

Because nobody ever knows what it means. One time someone corrected it in my writing to say "meant boom?" which of course made no sense.

A more recent word discovery:

otiose: (useless, futile)

Surrusus

Skein

Spiny Norman said:

Surrusus

Click to expand...

Either you've managed to stump me, or you mean susurrus.

intumescent