| Lucubrate |
--
To study laboriously by candlelight. |
| Discombobulated |
--
Upset and confused. |
| Coxcomb |
--
A conceited foolish person (like me): a fop (also like me). |
| Unharmless |
--
That which is terribly bad for you... as created by Leah Archambault... |
| Interrobang |
--
A punctuation mark specially intended for rhetorical questions, and was
phased out when typewriter manufacturers decided to save themselves the
cost of a key. Comic books and diatribes are sorely deprived without interrobangs,
forced instead to use dreadful punctuation like "What??!!" |
 |
| Onomatopoeia |
--
A word used to describe words that 'occur' in nature (like "moo" or whispering
or "cockadoodledoo"). |
| Erstwhile |
--
this refers to things that formerly existed, but no longer apply. My first
exposure to it came several years ago in reference to my "erstwhile" girlfriend,
who was also the erstwhile best friend of my remarkably verbose
friend Jennifer. |
| Philtrum |
--
The small indentation, or groove, under the nose and above the lips. |
| Mollycoddle |
--
a boy or man accustomed to being fussed over and pampered; a milksop. |
| Mummery |
--
Any useless or silly show or ceremony. |
| Cacoethes |
--
A bad habit; an itch for doing something. A Bad habit or custom. |
| Cacoethes
Scribendi |
--
A diseased propensity for writing. |
| Drapetomania |
--
a mental disease "discovered" by slaveowners seeking to justify their
prejudice pseudoscientifically in 1851. It occurred only among black slaves.
Its primary symptom was "an obsession to seek freedom." It was of course
essential to recapture runaway slaves so that the condition could be properly
treated. |
| Krunk |
--
coined on the ingenius Late Night With Conan O'Brien show, "krunk" was
intended to be a safe, slippery curse that could offend neither network
censors nor polite society. Best used when driving a car that has roared
off a cliff and is now soaring down the mountainside before exploding
in a glorious wreck: "KRUUUUUUUuuuuuuuunk!" |
| Diablotin |
--
French for "Devil's Food Cake." Perhaps the coolest word I've ever come
across. I'm going to name one of my children Diablotin, guaranteed. Unless
I can invent a mind-control zombie drug first. |
| Defenestrate |
--
To throw someone (or something) out of a window. |
| Brobdingnagian |
--
Amazingly, gigantically, terribly large. Applies well to things like Death
Stars, or comic book muscles, or penises. |
| Persnickety |
--
Being exceedingly fastidious or overparticular about trivial details.
It can also mean being snobbish or pretentious. e.g. "the persnickety
poet." |
| Megalomaniacal |
--
A psychopathic disorder dominated by delusions of possessing extreme wealth,
power, or omnipotence and an obsession with grandiosity or extravagance. |
| Callipygian |
--
Having beautifully proportioned buttocks. |