Unusual English words

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The following are words that are not very common in English, especially in normal usage. Some are rather specialized, a few are not used anymore, but most of all, these are words with unusual and interesting meanings, and make for good trivia knowledge.


Word Meaning
Acnestis The unreachable spot between the shoulders
Aglet The plastic or metallic coating at the end of shoelaces
Agraffe The wire that holds the cork in a champagne bottle
Aphthongs Silent letters in words (like the ‘’k’’ in “knight”)
Apricity The warmth of the sun on a cold day (an obsolete word)
Arachibutyrophobia An excessive, irrational fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth
Armscye The armhole in clothes, to which sleeves are sewn
Barm The foam on the top of beer
Berm A level strip of ground or dirt, e.g., along the base of a wall, hill or slope, or between a hole and the mound of dirt from the hole
Biblioklept A person who steals books
Box tent, tent, or pizza saver The small plastic table-like piece that placed in the center of a pizza box
Brannock Device The metallic device used for measure foot sizes in shoe stores
Caruncule The triangular bump inside the corner of the eye
Chanking Food that has been spat out
Collywobbles The feeling of butterflies in the stomach (an old British term)
Columella (or columella nasi) The area of the nose between the nostrils
Contronym The word that has two opposite meanings (e.g., “sanction” can mean to approve, or to impose punishments; “to seed” can mean to plant seeds, or to remove them from fruit or vegetables)
Cornicione The outer part of the pizza crust
Crapulence The sick feeling that one gets after eating or drinking too much
Defenestration Jumping out of a window, or throwing someone or something out of a window
Desire path A shortcut path created by pedestrians walking through an area, e.g., through grassy areas, because it is shorter than the regular footpath
Dysania The state or condition when you find it too difficult to get out of the bed in the morning
Ereyesterday The day before yesterday (an obsolete term)
Ferrule The metal band that connects the eraser to a wooden pencil
Filled pause A filler syllable used when speakers need time to think of what to say next (e.g., ‘’uh, um, er’’)
Glabella The space between the eyebrows
Googleganger A person with the same name as you who shows up when you Google your own name
Grawlix A string of non-letter characters (like !@#$%^*&, or “holy %$&!”) that are used in place of profanity (e.g., in comics)
Griffonage Unreadable, illegible hand-writing
Gynecomastia Man-boobs
Interrobang A combination of an exclamation mark and a question mark (‽, or ?!) for an emphatic question
Karoshi Death due to being overworked (from Japanese)
Keeper The loop of a belt that holds the end in place after passing through the buckle
Kummerspeck Excess weight due to emotional overeating (from German, meaning “grief bacon”)
Lawn mullet A neatly mowed front lawn, with an unmowed messay back lawn (say, at a North American house)
Lemniscate The infinity symbol (∞) or similar figure-eight shapes
Lunule The white, crescent-shaped part of a fingernail or toenail
Minimus Your small pinky finger or toe
Mondegreen Misheard song lyrics
Mononymous A person known by only one name (rather than a first and last name), such as Adele, Madonna, Voltaire, or Nero (though they have full names that are not commonly known); in some cultures, mononomy is actually the norm (e.g., Sudharto, former president of Indonesia)
Morton’s toe When the second toe is bigger than the big toe.
Muntin The strip separating window panes.
Murder A group of crows
Natiform Resembling the buttocks, buttocks-shaped (adjective)
Nibling The non-gender-specific term for a niece or nephew — like sibling
Niddick The nape or back of the neck
Nurdle A small dab, e.g., of toothpaste
Obelus The division sign (÷)
Octothorpe The pound (#) button on a telephone
Oldfangled Old-fashioned
Overmorrow The day after tomorrow (a somewhat old term that has fallen out of use, but needs to be brought back into regular English usage)
Palindromes A word or phrase that reads the same way forwards and backwards (e.g., mom, racecar, taco cat)
Paper-belly A person who is unable to drink liquor straight (or pure, in British), or who grimaces after drinking
Paresthesia The feeling of one’s hand or foot being aslep
Paresthesia The feeling of pins and needles, or crawling skin
Peen A semi-spherical side, e.g., of a ball-peen hammer
Peladophobia An excessive, irrational fear of bald people, or of becoming bald
Pentheraphobia An excessive, irrational fear of one’s mother-in-law
Petrichor The smell of the air after it rains
Philtrum The groove between the nose and the middle of the upper lip
Phloem bundles The long strings of a banana peel that are seen when peeling a banana
Phosphenes The sheen or light that you see when you close your eyes and rub them or press them with the hands
Pips The small dots on dominoes, dice, or ping pong paddles
Punt The indentation at the bottom of a glass bottle (partly to reduce the liquid content, but more so to make the bottom stronger)
Purlicue The empty space between an outstretched thumb and the forefinger
Quincunx The five dot pattern on dice
Rasceta The lines on the inside of the wrist
Rectal Tenesmus The feeling of incomplete defecation
Rhinotillexomania Compulsive nose-picking
Scandiknavery Deceit by Scandinavians (which is odd, as they have a reputation for being very honest)
Schadenfreude The joy felt when a person you dislike experiences hardship or tragedy (from German, meaning “harm joy”)
Scroop The swooshy sound made by long gowns, or the movement of silk
Scurryfunge When one goes around frantically cleaning before a visitor arrives
Semantic satiation The feeling you get when you keep repeating a word so that it seems to lose its meaning
Semordnilap A word or phrase that means one thing forward but something else backwards (e.g., stressed – desserts; diaper – repaid; parts – strap; semordnilap – palindrome)
Snellen chart An eye exam chart
Snood The fleshy appendage around a turkey’s neck
Souffle cup A small cup for ketchup or other condiments
Steatopygic Having a large bottom (adjective)
Tines The prongs of a fork
Tittle The dot over the letter “i” or the letter “j”
Trypophobia An irrational fear, aversion, anxiety, or feeling of disgust, from objects with patterns of holes or bumps (e.g., honeycombs, wasp nests, certain foods like strawberries or pomegranates, certain flowers like lotus seed heads, coral, bubbles, sponges, clusters of eyes)
Ulage The empty space between the top of a bottle and the liquid inside it
Vagitus The cry of a new born baby
Vibrassae A formal term for a cat’s whiskers (vibrissa = a singular whisker)
Vocables Filler syllables like ‘na na na’ and ‘la la la’ in song lyrics, which really have no meaning
Vorfreude The joy felt when thinking about good things that will happen (from German, meaning “fore joy”)
Wamble The rumbling of one’s stomach
Zarf A cup holder (for use inside a car), or a cardboard sleeve for a coffee cup
Zugzwang The painful feeling you get when playing a game, and any move you make with your game piece would hurt (e.g., in chess) (from Germn, meaning “forced move”)