The Cellar - Expand Your Vocabulary

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Expand Your Vocabulary

21 Interesting Words From David Foster Wallace's Vocabulary List

1. aerobe—organism requiring oxygen to live

2. afterclap—unexpected, often unpleasant sequel to a matter that had been considered closed

3. anaclisis—psychological dependence on others; “anaclitic”

4.apophasis—allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned

5. bistre—yellowish-brown color

6. catadromous—living in freshwater but migrating to sea to breed

7. ecotone—transitional zone between communities containing the characteristic species of each

8. euphuism—ornate, allusive, overpoetic prose style

9. gloze—minimize or underplay… “gloze” the embarrassing part

10. muntin—strip of wood or metal that separates & holds various panes in a window, like a window w/ four individual panes
arranged in a big rectangle, etc.

11. nidifugous—leaving the nest shortly after hatching

12. ocherous—moderate orange yellow

13. ordurous—dungish or shitty

14. patelliphobia—fear of bowls, cups, basins, and tubs

15. peritrichous—having a band of cilia around the mouth as certain protozoans

16. privity—secret, special knowledge between two or more people; (adj.) privitive

17. serrate—having or forming a row of sharp little teethy things

18. tarantism—disorder where you have uncontrollable need to dance

19. tardive (adj.)—having symptoms that develop slowly or appear long after inception

20. tenesmus—urgent but ineffectual attempt to pee or shit

21. valetudinarian—sickly, weak, morbidly health-conscious person

Mephitic --- foul smelling

who here does not already have that in their vocab?

smeghead ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 935869)

2. afterclap—unexpected, often unpleasant sequel to a matter that had been considered closed

Till now I thought afterclap was a euphemism for condom. :D

I knew three of the words on the list (do I win a prize?)

I'd also forgotten how much I fancy Arnold Judas Rimmer (you can take the prize back now).

I think most every one of those words has an alternate definition....

For example:

14. patelliphobia—fear of bowls, cups, basins, and tubs
No, it's the fear of knee caps, and certain Italian bicycles

,

No, Lamp, It's the fear of Indian Customers. My salesmen all have it, so I know.

Quote:

A few times each decade, the number of acceptable Scrabble words grows. Some sixty-five hundred new words—“lolz,” “shizzle,” and “blech” among them—will officially enter one of the two major competitive Scrabble lexicons on September 1st of this year. The grumbling that results when a word list lengthens is not so much about the inclusion of obscene or offensive words—though a cleaned-up list was controversially published in 1996, after someone protested the inclusion of “jew” as a verb. Instead, it is more about the growing divide between two Scrabble communities: North America and everywhere else…

What difference does it make in scrabble, when you lay down J+E+W, whether you think it's a noun or a verb? :confused:

If you think it's a verb, you may be able to use more letters by laying down present participle jewing or simple past and past participle jewed.

Ah, good point. :thumb:

These aren't legit... yet.

expand your vocabulary, quiz style; highlight to reveal answer

dunnage

1 -- the language used when a group of friends are insulting one another in a friendly way.

2 -- the weight of the packing material in a freight shipment.

3 -- the boards used to raise a load off the ground to permit forklift blades to fit underneath.

answer: #3