Lederer - Amazing words: an alphabetical anthology of alluring, astonishing, astounding, bedazzling, beguiling, bewitching, enchanting, enthralling, entrancing, magical, mesmerizing, miraculous, tantalizing,

Praise for Amazing Words

Is there anyone alive who has more fun with words than Richard Lederer? In dozens of books, from Crazy English to The Word Circus, he has continually entertained and amazed us with his boundless knowledge of and enthusiasm for all things linguistic. Now, in Amazing Words, Lederer puts on yet another dazzling display, elucidating the wondrous stories and secrets that lie hidden in the language. Theres an ooh! and an ah! and a hearty ha-ha-ha! on every page.

Charles Harrington Elster, author of The Accidents of Style

Richard Lederer has outdone Richard Lederer. Amazing Words is clever, compelling, and totally captivating. This book is for anyone and everyone who loves the English language. It is one of a dozen books I would select to take along if I were exiled to a desert island.

Paul Dickson, author of Words

This is not simply a book about Amazing Words, it is also an amazing book about wordsand one that could have only been written by the inimitable Richard Lederer. Enjoy, word lovers, enjoy!

Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of I Never Metaphor I Didnt Like

Amazing Words is chock full of constant surprise. Each entry is a font of delight and knowledge. I had to keep reading because I unfailingly wanted to see how the next word would bedazzle, beguile, and bewitch me.

Caroline McCullagh, author of American Trivia

Every page instructs, delights, and entrances readersoften all at once.

Rod L. Evans, author of Tyrannosaurus Lex

Words are wonderfully interesting, yes, but only Richard Lederer makes them amazing.

Robert Hartwell Fiske, editor of The Vocabula Review and author of The Best Words

Richard Lederers Amazing Words is amazing indeed. He introduces you to new and unfamiliar words, and teaches you things you didnt know about familiar ones. Youll learn the surprising origins of words we use every day and the meanings of common expressions you probably took for granted. Theres much more in these pages that will make you a better writer or reader: grammar and style advice, literary and rhetorical devices, vocabulary, slang. Best of all are the puns, games, wordplay, and other forms of recreational linguistics that reveal just how much fun our wonderful English language can be. Its a clich (one of the topics discussed, of course) to say that something is as entertaining as it is educational. But that description applies perfectly to Amazing Words.

Don Hauptman, author of Cruel and Unusual Puns

Praise for Richard Lederer

Columnist and punster Richard Lederer may be William Safires only living peer at writing about grammar, word usage, and derivations.

Washington Post Book World

Lederer beguiles and bedazzles.

Los Angeles Times

Richard Lederer ought to be declared a national treasure.

Richmond Times Dispatch

Richard Lederer is the true King of Language Comedy.

Sidney Sheldon, author of After the Darkness

Columnist Extraordinaire.

The New Yorker

Richard Lederer opens the treasure chest of English and delights in each shiny coin he finds.

Rob Kyff, a.k.a. The Word Guy, nationally syndicated language columnist and author of Once Upon a Word

Also by Richard Lederer

Adventures of a Verbivore

American Trivia (with Caroline McCullagh)

Anguished English

Animal Crackers Junior (with Jim Ertner)

The Ants Are My Friends (with Stan Kegel)

Basic Verbal Skills (with Philip Burnham)

The Big Book of Word Play Crosswords (with Gayle Dean)

The Bride of Anguished English

Building Bridge (with Bo Schambelan and Arnold Fisher)

The Circus of Words

Classic Literary Trivia

Cleverly Comical Animal Jokes (with Jim Ertner)

Comma Sense (with John Shore)

Crazy English

The Cunning Linguist

Fractured English

Get Thee to a Punnery

The Giant Book of Animal Jokes (with Jim Ertner)

The Gift of Age

Have Yourself a Punny Little Christmas

Hilarious Holiday Jokes (with Stan Kegel)

Literary Trivia

A Man of My Words

The Miracle of Language

More Anguished English

The Play of Words

Presidential Trivia

Pun & Games

Puns Spooken Here

The Revenge of Anguished English

Rip Roaring Animal Jokes (with Jim Ertner)

Sleeping Dogs Dont Lay (with Richard Dowis)

Super Funny Animal Jokes (with Jim Ertner)

A Treasury for Cat Lovers

A Treasury for Dog Lovers

Wild & Wacky Animal Jokes (with Jim Ertner)

The Word Circus

Word Wizard

The Write Way (with Richard Dowis)

to Jim Schuette and Kel Winter,
for the loving labors of Marion Street Press
in publishing my books

Acknowledgment

I thank Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com), for permission to adapt entries from my book The Word Circus for Amazing Words.

Published by Marion Street Press

4207 SE Woodstock Blvd # 168

Portland, OR 97206-6267

USA

http://www.marionstreetpress.com/

Orders and review copies: (800) 888-4741

Copyright 2012 by Richard Lederer

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-936863-30-3

Back cover photo by Kim Treffinger

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data pending

A t seventy-four years of youth, I consider myself to be one of the luckiest men on the face of the earth. Looking back at my life, I can honestly say that I have pretty much closed the distance between who I am and what I do. When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, and writing forty books has never felt like work.

Especially this one.

Thats because the good people at Marion Street Press asked me to present to the world the approximately three hundred most amazing words I know. O Frabjous day! Kaloo! Kalay! I chortled in my joy. Ive hung around with words my whole life, and many of them have become fast friends. Now Ive been gifted with the opportunity to share with my readers the most logologically, etymologically, and linguistically amazing words among them.

Those three adverbsetymologically, logologically, and linguisticallymake for a mouthful, so Ill illustrate their uses with the word usher.

Like humanity, usher has a long history, going all the way back to the Latin ostium, door, related to os, mouth, because a door was likened to the mouth of a building. Usher, then, turns out to be a body metaphor for a person who stands at a door.

Thats etymology. The Greek tymon