Wordnik - Pocket Posh Word Power: 120 Words that Are Fun to Say

Pocket Posh Word Power:
120 Words That Are Fun To Say
Copyright 2011 by Wordnik. All rights reserved.
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E-ISBN: 978-1-4494-0888-6

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Project Editor: Angela Tung

Illustration by Heather Bailey

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When we think about words we tend to concentrate on their utility: Does this word accurately convey what I mean to say? Does it mean what I think it means? Will my audience understand me?

Even word-lovers concentrate on the more staid aspects of a word: the words etymology, who used it first, its relationship to other words, and the range of contexts in which it appears.

Most of the time the pronunciation of a word is an afterthought, brought to mind only when the word in question is mispronounced. But here is a collection of words selected primarily for how wonderfully they roll off the tongue and how beautifully they complete the rhythm of a sentence.

Pick a quiet place and spend some time reading these aloudsoon youll be leavening your sentences and adorning your utterances with such mouth-fillers as askance, cerulean, lollygag, and obstreperous.

absquatulate

verb

To depart in a hurry; abscond.

To die.

To argue (in the Midwestern and western United States).

Examples:

George St. George broke the silence. Were not going to be able to absquatulate from these pirate yaps very easily, thats for sure. Guess well have to make the most of our stay here. Michael D. Cooper, The Runaway Asteroid, 2004

Why, I expect in a year or two to see coffins introduced into the parlors of the Fifth Avenue, and to find them, when their owners fail or absquatulate, advertised for sale at auction, with the rest of the household furniture, at a great sacrifice on the original cost. A Day with the Dead, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1860

Coined around 1837 in the United States, absquatulate originated as a mock Latin word now mostly used in the Midwest and western United States. In the nineteenth century, a popular trend in American English was to add Latin elements to already existing words to create funny, pseudo-intelligent words. William Shakespeare did this in many of his works, including The Taming of the Shrew, in which Lucentio poses as a fake Latin teacher to woo Bianca.

amalgamation

noun

The act of compounding mercury with another metal. Specifically, a process by which the precious metals are separated from the rock through which they are distributed in fine particles, by taking advantage of their affinity for quicksilver.

The mixing or blending of different things, especially of races; the result of such mixing or blending; interfusion, as of diverse elements.

Consolidation; specifically, the union of two or more incorporated societies or joint-stock companies into one concern or under one general direction.

Examples:

The answer for the American auto industry comes in amalgamationpooling what intellectual property they collectively have to develop the next generation of vehicles. Gavin D. J. Harper, Why the World Needs Green Motors, Not General Motors, The Huffington Post, December 7, 2008

In the Kedougou region of Senegal, the involvement of women and children ranges from ore extraction to burning amalgam, and in the Tenkoto region, the process of amalgamation is carried out by women, within the vicinity of their young children. Onyemaechi C. Nweke and William H. Sanders III, Modern Environmental Health Hazards: A Public Health Issue of Increasing Significance in Africa, The Encyclopedia of Earth, September 2009

Amalgamation cake, a dessert found in the southern United States, is named for its mixture of raisins, walnuts, pecans, and coconut.

anathema

noun

A person or thing held to be accursed or devoted to damnation or destruction.

A curse or denunciation pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, involving excommunication. This species of excommunication was practiced in the ancient churches against incorrigible offenders. Churches were warned not to receive them, magistrates and private persons were admonished not to harbor or maintain them, and priests were enjoined not to converse with them or attend their funerals. Also called judiciary anathema.

Any imprecation of divine punishment; a curse; an execration.

Anything devoted to religious uses.

Examples:

Do they not abound in anathema, and literally teem with the venom of intolerance? Charles Southwell, An Apology for Atheism: Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination by One of Its Apostles, 1846

They are rich in anathema and maranatha of Branns heartless and cruel detractors. William Cowper Brann, The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, 1919

Milk products are anathema to someone who is lactose intolerant. Wordnik

Anathema was originally used by the ancient Greeks as meaning an offering to the gods, often for evil purposes.

aposiopesis

noun

In rhetoric, sudden reticence; the suppression by a speaker or writer of something which he seemed to be about to say; the sudden termination of a discourse before it is really finished.

Examples:

Tamars answer, if thou wilt give a pledge until thou send it, is an unfinished statement, an