Interesting words

Flâneur

Ok so think along the lines of

Schadenfreude,
Frisson
Soigné

Words which sound (or are interesting) and mean a lot more than they may suggest.

Any suggestions?

team47b

A word that means less than we expect

Decimate.

We think it means to completely annihilate...but It means to kill one in ten.

gethinceri

I hope I'm not included in your "we".

ballysmate

team47b wrote:

A word that means less than we expect

Decimate.

We think it means to completely annihilate...but It means to kill one in ten.

"We" is another interesting word. Often used when the user means "You".

team47b

nos, tibi :roll:

team47b

Gethinceri wrote:

I hope I'm not included in your "we".

Latin scholars are excluded

RDW

Crepuscular http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/crepuscular

team47b

I was giving a lecture and used the word perspicacious, someone stuck their hand up and said they didn't understand

desweller

Cromulent.

qube

Contrafibularities

BelgianBeerGeek

crapulent

mr_goo

SO

When really the appropriate word is VERY. ie "Thank you SO much"
And now it is becoming common for many people to start the response to a question with SO.

qube

Compunctuous

orraloon

So what's the problem with starting a response with 'so'

FishFish

Actually I like using the word adumbrate. Most people don't know what it means - so actually using the word is in effect adumbration.

FishFish

orraloon wrote:

So what's the problem with starting a response with 'so'

orraloon wrote:

So what's the problem with starting a response with 'so'

It only sounds like 'So'. The word being used is 'Soh'. You have to use a capital S.

team47b

orraloon wrote:

So what's the problem with starting a response with 'so'

Nothing, if it is used as a coordinating conjunction and performs a transitional function.

On a forum it is usually presumed that one comment is related to the previous post, except on bottom bracket, so it joins two sentences together.

So.

gingaman

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "an artificial long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust.")

and of course floccinaucinihilipilification (the action or habit of estimating something as worthless)

capt_slog

Wainscoting.

Where did that come from (no, don't tell me, I can look it up). But if it didn't exist as a word, I could look at wooden panelling for the rest of my life and NEVER come up with that.

Along the same lines is "Cupboard". It's long since been a board that you put cups on.


I was on a training course the other week about radiation and the like. The chap was talking about scintillation counters, and asked what 'scintillation' meant. I said it meant 'sparkles' and was told "no, it means light". I refrained from saying "No it doesn't! it means SPARKLES", but only just :roll:

ai_1

team47b wrote:

Gethinceri wrote:

I hope I'm not included in your "we".

Latin scholars are excluded

Not a latin scholar but I have read some roman history.
The particularly nasty bit of decimation was that the 1 in 10 was chosen at random and beaten to death by his fellows to teach everyone a lesson. It was used as a punishment for legions that disgraced themselves by fleeing a battle if I remember correctly.

Ouija

Ai_1 wrote:

team47b wrote:

Gethinceri wrote:

I hope I'm not included in your "we".

Latin scholars are excluded

Not a latin scholar but I have read some roman history.
The particularly nasty bit of decimation was that the 1 in 10 was chosen at random and beaten to death by his fellows to teach everyone a lesson. It was used as a punishment for legions that disgraced themselves by fleeing a battle if I remember correctly.

Been watching "Spartacus" again.. mmm? (the tv show, not the movie).

ai_1

Ouija wrote:

Ai_1 wrote:

team47b wrote:

Gethinceri wrote:

I hope I'm not included in your "we".

Latin scholars are excluded

Not a latin scholar but I have read some roman history.
The particularly nasty bit of decimation was that the 1 in 10 was chosen at random and beaten to death by his fellows to teach everyone a lesson. It was used as a punishment for legions that disgraced themselves by fleeing a battle if I remember correctly.

Been watching "Spartacus" again.. mmm? (the tv show, not the movie).

Nope, watched a few episodes when that started but got sick of it very quickly.
Not sure where I read about this. May have been Rubicon by Tom Holand

socrates

Cleave. Interestingly, can mean splitting something apart or sticking something together. The only word in the English language I believe to have opposite meanings. Unless of course someone knows better.

team47b

fast.

As In stuck fast not moving and fast as in moving quickly.

Anonymous

Sanction can mean ‘give official permission or approval for (an action)’ or conversely, ‘impose a penalty on.’

Oversight is the noun form of two verbs with contrary meanings, “oversee” and “overlook.” “Oversee,” means ‘supervise’. “Overlook” usually means the opposite: ‘to fail to see or observe; to pass over without noticing; to disregard, ignore.’

Left can mean either remaining or departed. If the gentlemen have withdrawn to the drawing room for after-dinner cigars, who’s left? (The gentlemen have left and the ladies are left.)

Dust, along with the next two words, is a noun turned into a verb meaning either to add or to remove the thing in question. Only the context will tell you which it is. When you dust are you applying dust or removing it? It depends whether you’re dusting the crops or the furniture.

Seed can also go either way. If you seed the lawn you add seeds, but if you seed a tomato you remove them.

Resign works in writing. “Resign,” meaning ‘to quit,’ is spelled the same as “resign,” meaning ‘to sign up again,’ but it’s pronounced differently.

Off means ‘deactivated,’ as in "to turn off," but also ‘activated,’ as in "The alarm went off."

Weather can mean ‘to withstand or come safely through,’ as in “The company weathered the recession,” or it can mean ‘to be worn away’: “The rock was weathered.”

Screen can mean ‘to show’ (a movie) or ‘to hide’ (an unsightly view).

city_boy

Inflammable

Sounds like it should be the antonym of Flammable but they actually have the same meaning!

tyred&weary

socrates wrote:

Cleave. Interestingly, can mean splitting something apart or sticking something together. The only word in the English language I believe to have opposite meanings. Unless of course someone knows better.

Let. It used to mean opposition. Look in your passport for the phrase "without let or hindrance".

Mccaria

Bucolic and prosaic. Always seem to be the wrong way round to me.

COVEC

Accoutrements

Flâneur

This is getting technical rather than interesting ...

gingaman

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité