Vocab

Like most aging writers, I keep collecting words, in hopes one might come along that infuses my work with new light and life. This has not happened yet, but I thought I would share my list of obscure (to me) but worthy (to me) words I've lately come upon and regard as worth reviving. I'll add more as I go along, no doubt, but for now, here goes:

ablactation.  Weaning a child from breast.

abscission.  A rhetorical device by which someone cuts off a sentence because it's conclusion is too obvious or sufficiently understood.  "A person of such good manners that -- but you know that already."

adhibit.  To stick, apply, as with a label.

adumbration.  A faint outline, sketch; indication, foreshadowing.

adynamia.  Meekness resulting from disease.

amenomania.  Insanity with pleasing delusions.

apyrous.  Unaffected by great heat.

atavism.  A resemblance to a remote ancestor that nearer ancestors do not have. 

atavist.  Person with an atavistic resemblance.  

bedswerver.  Adulteress or adulterer.

bleb.  An air bubble in water or on glass.  A small skin blister.

brashy.  Fragmented, broken, as of ice or stone.

butterine.  Margarine.

carnosity.  Fleshiness.

chirotony.  Vote by show of hands.

chopine.  A high clog shoe.

cobbing.  A beating on the hindquarters with a flat object.

con.  To memorize, peruse, study.

conjuration.  Magical ritual.

credenda.  Things to be believed, as opposed to legenda, things to be read.

crisp.  Verb: to snap lightly, to snap one's fingers.

culmen.  Top, summit.

cunctation.  A delay.

dentate.  Serrated, edged with teeth, as in a dentate leaf.

dewlap.  Loose fold under chin.

diaskeuasis.  Editing

diaskeuast.  Editor

disembosom.  To reveal a secret.

drawk.  Coarse weeds growing in grain.

enfeeble.  To make feeble.

eruct, eructate.  Belch or vomit forth.

estival.  Pertaining to summer.

excorticate.  To strip off bark or rind.

exiguous.  Minute, tiny, slender.

eximious.  Excellent.

famble.  To stammer.

flaff.  Flutter or flap.

flatlong.  Landing on flat side of something.

gibbous.  Bulging.

gloze.  To gloss over, put a good face on something, whitewash.

gripple.  Grasping, covetous.

grum.  Low, gutteral; grum voice.

hanse.  An association, league, society or confederation.

Hibernize.  To make Irish.

higgle.  To carry a provision to sell, to peddle.

hurkle.  To stoop, crouch.

insalubrity.  Unhealthiness, unwholesomeness.

jhil.  Pool left by rain.

kecklish.  Nauseous, needing to vomit.

kine.  Cows, cattle.

legenda.  Things to be read, as opposed to credenda, things to be believed.

lickerish.  Keen appetite, greedy, lustful.

lustrate.  To make pure by sacrifice.

luz.  (Hebrew).  Indestructible bone.

matutinal.  Of or pertaining to the morning.

mimp.  An affected puckering of the lips. 

nostomania.  Excessive or abnormal nostalgia.

nubilate.  To darken, cloud over, make cloudy. From Nubia?

nundinal.  Referring to a fair or market.

nur.  A knot in wood.

obovoid.  Egg-shaped.

oleaginous.  Oily, unctuous, sanctimonious, fawning.

ondoyant.  Wavy, marked by little furrows.

pickthank.  An officious person who courts favor

pilgarlic.  Bald old man.

piscatore.   Fisherman

plash.  To form a hedge by cutting, bending and interweaving branches.

pleach.  To interweave branches.

precipitation.  Use re. gunfire in battle.

pterygostium.  Vein or rib in an insect's wing.

querist.  Questioner.

quiddle.  Verb: to waste time in trifling employment.  Noun: a dawdler.

raddle.  To interweave.

refluent.  Flowing back, ebbing.

rodomontade.  Noun: vain boasting.  Verb: to boast, brag, bluster, rant.

ryth.  Shallow part of a river used as a ford.

sapidity.  Taste.

sapiel.  Tasteful, tasty, affecting organs of taste.

scoon.  To skip stones on water.

setoff.  A decoration or ornament.

shabble.  Crooked sword.

sidereal.  Pertaining to stars.

skaddle.  To hurt or damage.

skylark.  To engage in running, frolicing, hilarious play.

slubberdegullion.  A mean, dirty, sorry wretch.

smee.  The widgeon or baldplate duck.

spank.  Verb: to flare up, to kindle.

spile.  Noun: wooden plug in a barrel; verb: to draw off from a barrel.

spilth.  Something spilt.  (Does this mean filth is something filt?)

sponsion.  A solemn promise made on someone's behalf.

spoony.  A weakminded lover.

spurtle.  A stirring stick for porridge.

squatter.  To plunge and splash along through water.

stipe.  A stem

stipilate.  To grow along a stem.

stithie.  An anvil. 

struthionoform.  Of the form of an ostrich.

studdie.  An anvil.

surd.  To soften the sound of something.

sweepstake.  Adverb. In a sweeping manner.

swimbel.  Dizzy motion.

taw.  A marble or game of marbles.

theologaster.  A theological hack.

thoral.  Of or pertaining to a bed.

traipse.  An idle, sluttish woman.