What's an obsolete or incredibly obscure word you think people should know?

Corroded@leminal.space to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 267 points –

Overmorrow refers to the day after tomorrow and I feel like it comes in quite handy for example.

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perambulation is a good one. My morning walk isn't quite grand enough to be called a 'constitutional'; nor scenic and leisurely enough to be called a 'stroll'; nor yet social enough to be called a 'promenade'; 'perambulation' is just the ticket.

I thought the morning constitutional was taking a shit.

Interrobang.

It's this thing: ‽

More people should use the symbol because it looks cool and has a badass name, so for that you need to know what it's called.

Who's with me‽

Interrobang sounds like something from a porno about police work.

“Did you question the suspect?”

“Yeah, Chief, we interrobanged him and got the info.”

Hey, it's me, your suspect. I've got more info, step it up with the interrobanging, will ya?

Questioning a bang.

My quick and dirty interrobang with her revealed to me how empty inside I was, unlike the outhouse we were in.

Or a fully themed, punctuation inspire flick. Named "character" to let you fill in the blanks.

Char 1: Well what do you think Mark?

Char 2: Are you sure she can handle it, Point?

Char 1: Its time we've shown

Char 2: our true power...

Together: As Interrobang!

Char 3: No wait, I've got my per....

.... OK it needs to be reworked, but you get the idea.

Is it still pornographic? "Detective, dash over here and interpunct my colon", "don't full stop, I'm about to comma", etc, etc.

While I like the concept, I can't help but prefer '!?' or '?!'. There's more granularity of meaning, and I think it just looks nicer having two or more separate characters.

Yeah, but you aren't proper if you're using more than one piece of punctuation at the end of your sentence. Them's the rules.

Unless...

Only if you agree to stop calling them Hashtags and use their more-correct name of Octothorpes

"Press 1 to continue followed by the Octothorpes"

Lol I love it

I made AltGr + / type an interrobang so I'd always have access to it

Overmorrow refers to the day after tomorrow

Figured the other way around might be as obscure...
nudiustertian: relating to the day before yesterday

Yikes

To add to that, "ereyesterday" is the noun version for the day before yesterday.

Never saw this one before and not sure how to pronounce it while the German Vorgestern is as commen as Übermorgen.

English on the other hand has fortnight which I think is very cool as we don't have a special word for 14 days

A little off topic but I find these words extremely interesting that have no direct translation as they often give a new perspective on things or concepts.

the german version "Übermorgen" is widely used in germany.

Yes, I learned English here in Austria and I remember classmates asking the teacher how to say "vorgestern" and "übermorgen" in English.

We didn't learn the words "ereyesterday" and "overmorrow" that day, only "the day before yesterday" and "the day after tomorrow". :(

I actually dislike that term a lot.

It's like spunkgargleweewee. It seems immature and makes me feel more dismissive towards the argument. Maybe that also has to do with it being a catch all term and people seem less willing to give specific examples of how things are declining in quality.

spunkgargleweewee

You're claiming that is a term people use?

Skibidi Ohio rizz bro.

I believe the term originated with Yahtzee during the military and tactical shooter crazy in the 2010s. It referred to games that paraded players through various spectacles and rooms full of chest high walls, until enough time had passed to call it a campaign.

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Not commonly but every so often YouTubers I watch will start using it and it sticks for a prolonged period of time.

It was just the first thing that came to mind. I imagine there are other equally silly internet words out there.

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Wait did you just coin that? That's fucking brilliant /s

Edit: apparently I needed a /s because Lemmy doesn't use this term constantly or anything?

Because there was no /s - no they didn't, it's been around for a little while now. It basically means products or services slowly getting worse rather than better - such as adding ads, adding useless or broken ai to everything, switching to a subscription without adding any actual value. This is almost always done in the interest of maximizing profit as much as possible, at the expense of the users (monetarily and experience wise). Basically, see any major company decisions in the last several years, especially at companies with very large audiences (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Airbnb, Facebook, etc)

Since we're talking about it, and I really like the guy's work, I figured I should say who coined it! Author, Cory Doctorow! He has a blog where he (among all the other stuff he writes about) defined the word, and wrote several articles about it.

pluralistic.net

lol I didn't think I needed the /s because it was dripping with sarcasm.

The issue with pretending to be stupid on the internet to make a point is that there are so many people doing the same thing with no point in mind.

Sarcasm isn't "pretending to be stupid" imo

It was coined by Cory Doctorow.

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Sonder (noun): the feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles: In a state of sonder, each of us is at once a hero, a supporting cast member, and an extra in overlapping stories.

dictionary.com

This one always makes me smile, because it's from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It's just some guy's blog in which he comes up with new words to express experiences and emotions that are difficult to describe, and that specific one has thoroughly broken containment

Bought the book. It's the only dictionary I've enjoyed reading.

Sonder

Literally means "special" in German

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins

Just because it sounds cool.

Sounds useful in Minecraft. Like you put a sign in a cave "exit widdershins" to tell people to follow the left wall.

Widdershins start my hair, your Spooktober decorations are so spooky!!!!

And don't forget turnwise! (which is the opposite rotational direction defined by the direction the disc turns)

Sounds like a creature that would have a lot of creepypasta written about it.

"Thrice" is a somewhat obscure word that otherwise fits.

"Adventitious" is a good one. It means "non-inherent" or "acquired" (as opposed to inherent.)

Avuncular - of or having the qualities of an uncle.

“His avuncular joke was both lazy and sexist”

Yeah, that word means uncle-like, but it's very much a word for a fun or chill uncle vibe.

Don't you slander uncledom like that, you unavuncluar tranch!

  • Paramour

It sounds fancy, but means a casual lover. A fuck buddy. A friend with benefits. Though it can also carry the implication of being an out-of-wedlock lover, as it dates back to a time where having a fuck buddy was almost certainly a sign of married infidelity.

  • Kith

Means one's friends and other people they are close to that aren't family. Often paired with "kin". Kith and kin. Friends and family.

A paramour is an “other lover”. Para = beside, amour = love. It’s not a casual fuck buddy, it’s your cheating partner. I’m surprised to hear you say it’s unknown as a word these days? Seems like just a normal word to me, albeit one I’m happy to go without using as cheaters suck.

I use paramour, usually to describe an infidelity situation. No one under 35 knows what it is.

Interesting. The only two references I've ever heard to Paramour are the band and the achievement in Mass Effect. I'm now wondering if the devs of that series knew exactly what it meant (infidelity) because you get the achievement for having any relationship. Maybe it's because you can't remain loyal to your original partner to get it in all three games with one playthrough.

Right, I think that achievement only happens in the sequals.

Widdershins. It means counter to the sun's direction , and was seen as inauspicious. Counter-clockwise, before clocks.

Shemomedjamo - Georgian word meaning to eat past the point of fullness because it tastes so good or as I heard it, "I accidentally ate the whole thing."

Borborygmus I use often enough, but it's not widely known. It's the gurgling sound produced by the movement of gas through your intestines.

Limaceous I almost never use, but I enjoy it anyway. It means characteristic of or pertaining to slugs.

And lastly, tawdry is one of my favorites meaning showy but cheap and poor quality.

The are all great, but tawdry is fantastic!

Rolls of the tongue, and we all come across several tawdry things/people in a given day.

I don't think tawdry is archaic. A little uncommon, but still in use.

At least 20 years of having slugs as a special interest and I never heard the word limaceous?? Thank you for correcting this!

Now to find out if it actually has specific academic usage and the biologists will execute me if I use it regarding slugs outside the superfamily Limacoidea.

Grok

It means to know or understand, like "yeah man I can grok that."

Being pedantic, but it's beyond that.

To grok is to know or understand so completely, it becomes a part of yourself. To know something fully. You can understand the concepts of astrophysics, but you might not grok the concept.

The literal meaning was defined "to drink". If you drink something, it becomes a part of you.

Specifically, it refers to a deep understanding.

[A critic] notes that [the coiner's] first intensional definition is simply "to drink", but that this is only a metaphor "much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'". (from Wikipedia)

When you claim to "grok" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you "know" Lisp is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary – but to say you "grok" Lisp is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is a similar supernatural understanding experienced as a single brief flash. (The Jargon File; also quoted on Wikipedia)

Indubitably!

It means most certainly, beyond questioning.

And it's fun to say!

Ah, I grew up listening to Adventures In Odyssey and one character said that all the time. Beautiful word.

I like that it's root is fairly plain to see.

That's un-doubt-able - indubitable.

I love that word. I don't know where I even learned it first, but I sometimes throw it back out there. It's so fun!

Brobdingnagian.

It's a very big word that means very big.

It comes from Gulliver's travels. The Brobdingnagians are giants, 12 times the height of humans. The word isn't limited to that scale, but it's definitely for things that are unusually large compared to us.

It's the literal opposite of Lilliputian, which is from the better known race from "Travels" that are 1/12 our size.

It's my absolute favorite word. Not just because it's a literary reference but it's fun to say. Brob ding nag ian. It just burbles off the tongue like a drunken stream stumbling among the rocks of its bed. And, it's a big word that means big, which is just fun wordplay. Like the phobia of big words, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, which was inevitable as soon as the idea of a phobia of big words was conceived.

I'd settle for not seeing "should/could/would of" typed out anymore.

I once knew a guy from the deep south who'd say stuff like yoostacud. I yoostacud run a marathon. I thought that was marvellous! Another one was fixina. I'm fixina get tickets to the game tonight. You in?

I've heard the former before, and the latter would become the modern "finna".

Propreantepenultimate. Fifth to last.

  1. Ultimate
  2. Penultimate
  3. Antepenultimate
  4. Preantepenultimate
  5. Propreantepenultimate

I use penultimate all the time and most people have no idea what I mean! We need to bring back the Latin based words

That means the item right before the last item, right?

Yep. That's actually how we say last and whatnot in Spanish: último is last and penúltimo is 2nd to last

Not a word, but there's a specific phrase uttered when you casually pass by someone working, stop for a chat, and then genuinely wish them well with their work as you leave.

This phrase does not exist in English:

  • "Break a leg" is close, but more reserved for some grand performance

Nor does it exist in German:

  • "Viel Spass/Glück" (Have fun, Good Luck) is also close, but has an element of sarcasm and/or success through chance.

In Turkish, you just say "Kolay Gelsin", meaning "May the work come easy so that you finish sooner".

Its such a useful unjudgemental phrase, easily uttered, that I've seen nowhere else. Maybe other languages have it too.

Would "Have a good one" maybe serve that purpose? It's not exactly the same, but similar sentiment.

Very true! At the same time, I feel like you would only say that to something that will happen and not something that is currently happening. Is that right?

Yeah, I'd say so. Maybe something like "Take it easy" would fit better.

Duodenum.

Doo-odd-in-umm.

The duodenum is the first section of the small intestine in most higher vertebrates, including mammals

I have a double whammy: Nonplussed.

Bewildered; unsure how to respond or act. Double whammy because it does not mean not-plussed like many people seem to think.

Nonplussed...that takes me back.

I was educated in a private school for British ex-pats run by a very old and very posh couple. This was the early eighties and they were already in their seventies, so definitely from a different era. Because of this and because of the size of our school (my entire year consisted of nine kids) we ended up quite odd. Up until highschool we had a mild but "poshy" London accent and words like vexing, nonplussed, providential, etc., peppered our vocabulary. Then my family moved to Louisiana followed by Texas and that shit went right out.

Also, the word is aluminium. It is NOT aluminum!

Obstreperous - noisy or difficult to control (as in "the boy is cocky and obstreperous")

I've got six of them:

  • Tittynope: "A small amount left over; a modicum."
  • Cacography: "bad handwriting or spelling."
  • Epeolatry: "the worship of words."
  • Kakistocracy: "a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens."
  • Oikophilia: "love of home"
  • Tenebrous: "dark; shadowy or obscure"

That list is going to send me down a rabbit hole looking for the etymology of words

Oh, I also really like Mammonism: "the greedy pursuit of riches", from the Biblical "Mammon".

Ultracrepidarian

An ultracrepidarian—from ultra- ("beyond") and crepidarian ("things related to shoes")—is a person considered to have ignored this advice and to be offering opinions they know nothing about.

The word is derived from a longer Latin phrase and refers to a story from Pliny the Elder

The phrase is recorded in Book 35 of Pliny the Elder's Natural History as ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret[1] ("Let the cobbler not judge beyond the crepida") and ascribed to the Greek painter Apelles of Kos. Supposedly, Apelles would put new paintings on public display and hide behind them to hear and act on their reception.[2] On one occasion, a shoemaker (Latin sutor) noted that one of the crepides[a] in a painting had the wrong number of straps and was so delighted when he found the error corrected the next day that he started in on criticizing the legs.[2] Indignant, Apelles came from his hiding place and admonished him to confine his opinions to the shoes.[2] Pliny then states that since that time it had become proverbial.[2]

Perchance!

To sleep, perchance to dream. And in that sleep of death, what dreams may come!

Hamlet (hopefully I didn't get it too wrong)

"scruple" as a verb, meaning "hesitate due to conscience".

People probably know a word based on it, unscrupulous, meaning having or showing no moral principles

Yeah, and folks know "scruples" as a noun which some people have and some don't, but "scruple" as a verb is a nice archaic version that I really like, which you don't encounter much outside of, say, a Jane Austen novel.

Autodefenestration is one of my faves. The act of throwing yourself out of a window.

If you’re throwing someone or something out, then it’s just plain defenestration

Übermorgen, the german word for overmorrow, is in abundant use in Germany. It's far from obsolete or obscure over here.

Same for overmogen in the Netherlands. And eergisteren for the day before yesterday.

In Poland it's "pojutrze" - after tomorrow, and "przedwczoraj" - before yesterday (those are also literal translations just as i wrote). Also in common and constant usage.

Same for the Romanian "poimâine" (after tomorrow). We also have "alaltăieri" (the other yesterday). They are in use, quite common.

Grandiloquent/sesquipedalian. It's what you get when you use everything in this thread ₍^ >ヮ<^₎ .ᐟ.ᐟ

~/s~

Defenestration. Throwing someone out of a window. Example the defenestration of prague

I like to make the joke whenever someone mentions a Russian doctor falling out of a window or something:

There's defense and there's defenestration.

It's composed of de- an fenestra, the latter meaning window.

So literally de-windowing

Internecine, meaning "destructive to both sides in a conflict".

Petty bickering like that divorce where they had a judge adjudicate the distribution of their beanie baby collection was internecine.

As soon as I read "destructive to both sides in a conflict" I immediately thought of that case. And then you referenced it 😂

I agree that we should use overmorrow more. Japanese has a similar word and it gets frequent use.

In my country we also have a word for that and it's always used when referring to overmorrow.

Hungarian as well. Tomorrow = holnap, overmorrow = holnapután. You can also stack the ”után" if you so wish, like holnapután-után. But more than that and you will get some curious looks from others :)

In polish we do prefix po-. Jutro being tomorrow. Overmorrow would be pojutrze, after tomorrow, where you can stack one or two more, but ye more for comedic effect :)

Many languages have it. English for some reason does not use it

Defenestrate means to throw out of a window.

For example, "Someone should defenestrate Putin."

Vulgar Argot - a word or phrase that is obsolete or incredibly obscure.

I am now adding overmorrow to my vocabulary. I can't wait to confuse the shit out of people I hate.

You know that episode of Seinfeld where someone eats a candy bar with a knife and fork and it just spreads into the wild because people don't really question it?

That's what I'm hoping happens with overmorrow

It's German but 'Rucksackriemenquerverbindungsträger', the thing between the straps of a backpack that you can connect to lighten the load on your shoulders.

Well .... I knew exactly what you meant, as you know what I mean when I say: "Rucksackriemenquerverbindsungsträgerersatzschnalle" and I think it's beautiful.

Also: "Getriebeschmiernippel"

Salitter is my answer to this one every time.

The silence. The salitter drying from the earth. The mudstained shapes of flooded cities burned to the waterline. At a crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering. No sound but the wind.

Here, also.

"Philomot" was always pretty charming. "The color of a dead leaf."

My contribution is katzenjammer, which is a word describing a really bad hangover (in the English language). I believe it is used a bit differently in the German language, but don't take my word for it.

It’s funny that a hangover in Dutch is a kater, or, (male) Katze

I think it's used more often in computer science, but the difference between contiguous and continuous. Continuous means "without end" and contiguous means "without break."

Jocund: cheerful and lighthearted.

From Romeo and Juliet:

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Something I learnt recently and which is rampant on gay social apps: sphallolalia - flirting that doesn't lead to meeting irl.

What a great word in today's dating scene. Is it an older word that has been modified to be more modern?

Verantwortungsbewusstsein. Let's get back to our roots.

Is that obsolete or obscure (in German speaking areas)?

The concept might be, but the word itself is a compound of the words "verantwortung" and "bewusstsein". They mean responsibility and consciousness respectively, and are both perfectly common and simple words. The whole thing means what you think it does, nothing special.

German doesn't really have those hyper specific super obscure words, they're almost always compound words made up of common words.

philalethist, A lover of truth.

I'm currently reading through all of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, and one fun feature is that he almost always includes one or more very obscure words. It's a nice little thing to look out for.

In the one I'm currently reading it's, "peculate," meaning to embezzle or steal money. Others include:

  • Plerophory - Fullness, especially of conviction or persuasion
  • Apodictically - From apodictic: clearly established or beyond dispute
  • Usufruct - The right to enjoy the use and advantages of another's property short of the destruction or waste of its substance
  • Acarpous - Not producing fruit; sterile; barren
  • Yclept - By the name of
  • Eruction - A belch or burp

I had a look to see if I could find a full list but sadly not. However most Wikipedia entries for the individual novels include a section called, "The unfamiliar word," if you want to find more.

I had a look to see if I could find a full list but sadly not. However most Wikipedia entries for the individual novels include a section called, "The unfamiliar word," if you want to find more.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Lugubrious - because it means the opposite of how it sounds!

It's fun to say, but is defined as sadness, which the word can't evoke

Seems like every time you use it you'll end up having to explain what it means unless you're playing D&D

Scrofulous - a) having a diseased run-down appearance. b) morally contaminated

I learned this word when I heard someone being described as a 'scrofulous drinkist' lol

Twaddle: something insignificant or worthless or another word Nonsense.

Discovered this word while reading the dictionary during silent reading in English and they wouldn’t let me play games.

There used to be a Scottish football ⚽ player called Kevin Twaddle. Always amused me.

Serendipity, idk it sounds cool, "serendipitous" moments happen a lot irl (e.g. forgetting to bring ur wallet with u to the supermarket but minutes later, you end up finding a coin in a random pocket from your jacket to unlock a shopping cart), but it almost only sees its use in fiction, like.....

As long as it's not "used car salesmen" words:

  • the ask
  • the spend
  • action this

It's as discordant as "the above paragraph" or "see the below steps" except with wrong words instead of broken ordering.

No one mentioned "niggardly" yet? What's going on?

I don't understand, why is that your word?

For those that can't believe it's not a racial slur.

Niggard (14th C) is derived from the Middle English word meaning 'stingy,' nigon, which is probably derived from two other words also meaning 'stingy,' Old Norse hnǫggr and Old English hnēaw.[2] The word niggle, which in modern usage means to give excessive attention to minor details, probably shares an etymology with niggardly.[3]