Luckily in today’s day and age, there is plenty out there to read-and unfortunately too little time.Īccubation: The act of reclining during a meal This is also the first entry of the Oxford English Dictionary.Ībibliophobia: Fear of running out of things to readīy far my favorite entry on this list. That certainly speaks to the obscurity of these words!Īa: A volcanic lava that forms jagged masses with a light frothy texture The next time you’re talking to one of your friends, it might be fun to slip in some of these words.įun fact: As I’m writing this post, a large proportion of these entries have the squiggly red spelling error indicator underneath. In this post, we’ll look at 67 examples of such words you may not have previously heard of.
With over a quarter of a million words, English has many similarly obscure terms to the foreign ones we explored earlier-ones that are just not used in everyday conversation. These words can be useful for easily explaining thoughts and ideas that would otherwise come across as clunky and long-winded-and the clunkiness might not even fully convey the meaning you are going for.Īs it turns out, English has a pretty rich vocabulary as well. In a recent blog post, we looked at 94 obscure foreign words that don’t have a direct English translation. Unless you don’t mind living troglodytically.67 Obscure English Words to Use in Your Next Conversation The world of obscure adverbs and adjectives was fun while it lasted, but I don’t recommend it. I prize immediacy in writing, and that value change has allowed me to write with (slightly) fewer distractions and to focus on my writing’s overall impact, rather than the impact of each word. Sometimes these words may feel simple, but sometimes simple does it. Now when I’m stuck on a word, it’s because I want to convey my ideas in a straightforward manner. This time-munching habit didn’t push me to write more often or even well, though when I came out the other side, I was left with a more nuanced understanding of the importance of word choice.
But it was like a grand marriage proposal in an empty relationship. The posturing felt romantic-all suede elbow patches and Upper West Side dinner parties. I recognize now that the thrill of all this wasn’t just the words. The few who humored me and soldiered through reacted with a perfunctory “Hm, interesting.” After playing this game enough times, I realized an overly pedantic vocabulary pushed readers away rather than pulled them in. Whenever I shared my early work, the reader would either stop every few lines to ask for a word’s definition, or more commonly, skim the page. At the pinnacle of my word-chasing career, I sometimes even looked beyond the dictionary-a particularly destructive habit-Googled “adjectival form of XXXX” or “What is the adjective for XXXX?” and then combed through a dozen results that led me into some Wiki-like hole from which I’d emerge a half-hour later wondering what I was looking for in the first place. (And my computer and phone already bombard me with enough distractions.) At its worst, what I’ve come to call word-chasing is self-indulgent web browsing. It’s horrible for concentration, flow, and any semblance of efficiency.
Searching for a single word in the dictionary every 15 minutes is no way to write. “Aha! ‘Vitreous.’ Now I can say he has ‘vitreous eyes,’ or even better, that he ‘stares vitreously.’ Yes, yes. “Hmm, how do I say that this thing looks like glass, without saying ‘looks like glass?’ ” Go to dictionary website, search “glass,” scroll scroll scroll. My writing process used to look something like this: Type, type, type. Instead of improving my writing, however, my search for obscure words became a huge time suck, and one that I later realized was also inhibiting my growth as a writer. Salmon Migration Videos Are a Cold Splash of Water for Your Pandemic Ennui Lose Yourself in the Wistful World of Lost-and-Found Camera Forums Would the Perfect Chanel Handbag Change My Life?
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