Seldom-Used Words

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voussoirs • n., (architecture) any of the pieces, in the shape of a truncated wedge, that form an arch or vault.






It's a word one would expect to find in Ken Follett's The Pillars of The Earth.

 
What a lively crowd! Before I leave this section of the Ps, I wanted to add one I have never heard;

punition - noun PUNISHMENT

Punish means CHASTISE, CASTIGATE, CHASTEN, DISCIPLINE, and CORRECT
 
I'll have to remember not to kick sand in your face…:)

But did I follow Charles Atlas' advice?

You'll only find out after trying to kick sand in my face.

Back then I looked like the 'after' pictures even before I started the course because I was doing extensive training four evenings a week and playing Rugby at weekends.
 
Back then I looked like the 'after' pictures even before I started the course because I was doing extensive training four evenings a week and playing Rugby at weekends.

Not only will I not kick sand in your face—you won't even have to hit me. Just point to the spot where you want me to lie down.
 
Those Charles Atlas ads sold like hotcakes back in the day. Where is Charles now, I wonder, six feet under?

Here's a goodie;

Punic(1) - adj 1. of or relating to Carthage or the Carthaginians 2. FAITHLESS, TREACHEROUS

Punic(2) - noun the Phoenician dialect of ancient Carthage
 
I in Historical Slang Part the First

iddy umpty - A signaller; military. From a phrase used when teaching Morse to Indian troops.

idiot-fringe - Factory girls' hair combed down over their forehead (late 19C)

immensikoff - A fur-lined overcoat (late 19C) from a song The Shoreditch Toff sung by Arthur Lloyd who described himself as Immensikoff and wore a coat heavily lined with fur.

importance - a wife from circa 1640 used late 19 to early 20C more usually seen as comfortable importance or comfortable impudence. The first is a wife; the second a mistress who is virtually a wife.

in for patter - waiting for trial (and the lawyers speeches)

in for the plate - venereally infected (1810-70)

incognita - a disguised harlot

indorse or endorse - 1. to cudgel; 2. to practise sodomy (on)

indorser - a sodomite

ineffable - the female private parts

infantry - children

ingler - a dishonest horse-dealer

sling ink - write, act of being an author

ink bottle - a clerk

ink-slinger - 1. an author or journalist (from 1887 in US 1890 in UK); 2. in Royal Navy a purser's (pusser's) clerk.

ink-spiller - a clerk

inky or inky smudge - a judge (Cockney Rhyming slang)

inside and outside! - A toast of circa 1805-1850. A abbreviation of (May we be) "Inside a cunt and outside a gaol".
 
Thanks, Harold, for the info on Charles Atlas. And thank you, once again, Og, for taking the time to post slang words. So, I guess I sling ink or am an ink slinger, although ink is only used when printing the document out these days. I had to look this word up, of course;

gaol - noun chiefly British, variation of JAIL

"Inside and Outside" will be used in future books of mine, I predict.
 
I have come across this next word enough times now to want to know a bit more;

gruel - noun 1. a thin porridge 2. chiefly British: PUNISHMENT

grueling or gruelling - adj trying to the point of exhaustion: PUNISHING

Unless the eating of it is the case, what does porridge have to do with punishment?
 
I have come across this next word enough times now to want to know a bit more;

gruel - noun 1. a thin porridge 2. chiefly British: PUNISHMENT

grueling or gruelling - adj trying to the point of exhaustion: PUNISHING

Unless the eating of it is the case, what does porridge have to do with punishment?

Gruel was served to Victorian prisoners (and Oliver Twist who had the temerity to ask for more). By transfer of meaning, gruel became a punishment and it wasn't nourishing enough for prisoners sentenced to 'Hard Labour' so their prison experience was gruelling...
 
Thanks, Harold, for the info on Charles Atlas. And thank you, once again, Og, for taking the time to post slang words. So, I guess I sling ink or am an ink slinger, although ink is only used when printing the document out these days. I had to look this word up, of course;

gaol - noun chiefly British, variation of JAIL

"Inside and Outside" will be used in future books of mine, I predict.

I used gaol during a Scrabble game against my wife and son, earned too many points, according to them. I was told I could no longer use words I learn on this thread.

LOL
 
I used gaol during a Scrabble game against my wife and son, earned too many points, according to them. I was told I could no longer use words I learn on this thread.

So let them catch you reading the dictionary every once in a while, and then you can claim that you learned the words that way.

(My dad used to read the dictionary frequently. When caught doing so, he would grin and tell us that the author had an admirable vocabulary but that his plot was pretty thin.)
 
I used gaol during a Scrabble game against my wife and son, earned too many points, according to them. I was told I could no longer use words I learn on this thread.

LOL

Near Biggin Hill in Kent (famous as a Battle of Britain fighter station) there is a lane that used to be called Jail Lane at one end and Gaol Lane at the other.

Now the signs say "Jail or Gaol Lane" at both ends.

Which leads to another word:

Toponymy - the study of place names.

The British Ordnance Survey started mapping England in the late 18th Century. They soon found that once they wrote a place name on a map they ran into disputes. There could be several names for the same village, hill, river. They started topnymy. They would ask the locals and record the different (or same) answers. They would draw up a table showing the various names and the sources for each before coming to a conclusion that wouldn't necessarily suit everyone. Once it was written on an official map, even if it was wrong, it would tend to displace other versions.

For example there is a river in Southern England called the River Puddle or Piddle. Some of the settlements along it included 'puddle' e.g Tolpuddle, and some 'piddle' e.g Piddletrenthide. The current map still shows the river as "River Puddle or Piddle".

Once they started mapping Wales they were in real difficulty. Did they transcibe the Welsh name into English, or use the Welsh name which no one but a Welsh-speaker could pronounce, or use the English name of the town? They made a real mess of some place names, especially Cardiff. Whether Welsh or English, it wasn't Cardiff. It is Cardiff (in English) now because that's what the Ordnance Survey said it was called.

Before they had finished England and Wales they were directed to survey the whole of Ireland and specifically instructed NOT to use any Irish staff because their superiors wanted a map that suited the Government in Westminster and not the locals. The surveyors soon found that was impossible. They needed translators who understood Gaelic. One was an Irish poet and patriot - a drunken Irish poet, of course. Some of his translations were influenced by poteen; some by a misplaced sense of humour; some out of sheer devilment.

They really needed toponymy. They went overboard for it. They recorded not only what a place was called now, at the time of the survey, with all the variations in Gaelic, English and local dialects, but what it had been ever called at any time in the past including literary quotations, ancestral folklore, religious texts, whatever they could find to justify ANY name. For one small town near Londonderry (or Derry) they printed over 200 pages about its name and history. Their masters in London soon put a stop to such nonsense which was fuelling Irish nationalism by recording Irish history in more detail than any nation's history had ever been recorded.

But toponymy is still important. Some years ago I led a project to improve an alleyway in our town. It didn't have a name plate. It still doesn't have a nameplate because it is either "Beach Alley" or "Culvert Passage" or "Divers' Alley". The locals have never decided which is best, so we left the nameplate off and they can still call it what they like - but it looks a lot better, whatever its name is.
 
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What a wonderful treat to find, when I returned from my day's outing. I thoroughly enjoyed the toponymy lesson, Og. I had to look this one up, of course;

poteen also potheen - noun illicitly distilled whiskey of Ireland
 
Congratulations AllardChardon, for starting and maintaining a fun thread that has reached 99 pages.

Only a few more posts and it will reach its century.

Therefore, from Historical Slang:

century - £100, from horse racing circa 1860; 100 runs or more scored at cricket circa 1880 hence centurion - one who has scored 100 runs or more.

I couldn't resist the definition immediately above century:

centre of bliss - the female private parts.

And shortly after centurion:

certainty (usually plural) - a male infant (printers' slang from about 1860) and therefore uncertainty - a girl baby, also one nick (nitch) or two nick (nitch) apparently from anatomical characteristics!
 
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Thank you, Og, for acknowledging my accomplishment, but I did not do it alone. Thanks to all my contributors, recent or otherwise. This is a fun thread for those who love wordplay, like I do. Centre of bliss is a true treasure that I will use in my current book, Bon Voyage, where my main characters sail for Europe in the fall of 1857.

pungent -adj 1. having a stiff and sharp point [~ leaves] 2. sharply painful: POIGNANT 3.a. CAUSTC, STINGING b. POINTED, TELLING 4. causing a sharp or irritating sensation; esp. ACRID
syn: PUNGENT, PIQUANT, POIGNANT, RACY mean sharp and stimulating to the senses. PUNGENT implies a stinging or biting quality esp. of odors; PIQUANT suggests a power to whet the appetite or interest through tartness or mild pungency; POIGNANT suggests a power to enter deeply as if by piercing or stabbing; RACY implies having a strongly characteristic natural quality fresh and unimpaired
 


frotteurism • n., the paraphiliac practice of achieving sexual stimulation or orgasm by touching and rubbing against a person without the person's consent and usually in a public place called also frottage.






The word popped up in Paul Theroux' Ghost Train To The Eastern Star as he describes a crowded train ride in India from Mumbai ( formerly Bombay ) to Chennai ( formerly Madras ).

 
Great word, Trysail, but I didn't know the definition of this next word, which was not listed in my dictionary, so I searched online;

paraphillia - noun (in Greek para παρά = beside and -philia φιλία = friendship, meaning love) is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her. A paraphilia involves sexual arousal and gratification towards sexual behavior that is atypical or extreme. The term was coined by Wilhelm Stekel in the 1920s. Controversial sexologist John Money later popularized the term as a nonpejorative designation for unusual sexual interests. He described paraphilia as "a sexuoerotic embellishment of, or alternative to the official, ideological norm."
 
Congratulations AllardChardon, for starting and maintaining a fun thread that has reached 99 pages.

Only a few more posts and it will reach its century.

Therefore, from Historical Slang:

century - £100, from horse racing circa 1860; 100 runs or more scored at cricket circa 1880 hence centurion - one who has scored 100 runs or more.

I found it strange to discover that a Roman Legion's "Century" did not have 100 men. It had 80.
 
It is amazing how far back some things go and even more so the things the Romans influenced during their global dominance. Birthday cakes originate with the Roman birthday celebration customs, for instance.

pung - noun [short for earlier tow-pong, of Algonquin origin; akin to a Micmac toba'gun drag made with skin] New Eng: a sleigh with a box-shaped body
 
Good day, everyone.

pundit - noun (Hindi pandit) 1. PANDIT 2. a learned man:TEACHER 3. an authority or one who gives opinions in an authoritative manner: CRITIC

pandit - noun a wise or learned man in India - often used as an honorary title
 
wonderful thread - etymology has always been a fav - http://www.etymonline.com/

i love the word
quixotic
1. foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action
2. capricious, unpredictable

it is my Buddha nature ;)
 
A few months ago when I was overseas there was a bunch of Q words. Did anyone look at quaint and especially its occurrence in Chaucer?

It's 1 1 2012 here now, so look at that sig line AC!
 
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