Seldom-Used Words

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Hello everyone, here is an odd one;

plastron - noun 1.a. a metal breastplate b. a quilted pad worn in fencing practice to protect the chest 2. the ventral part of the shell of a tortoise or turtle consisting typically of nine plates 3.a. a trimming like a bib for a woman's dress b. DICKEY
 
The wonderful thing about being the original poster on this particular thread is that whenever I feel disconnected, I just open the dictionary to where I left off and start again.

This one seemed to ask to be included here on LIT;

plasticity - noun 1. the quality or state of being plastic ; esp: capacity for being molded or altered 2. the ability to retain a shape attained by pressure deformation
 
Good day, everyone, I hope you have a pleasant weekend.

plaster of paris - noun (second P often in caps) a white powdery slightly hydrated calcium sulfate made by calcining gypsum and used chiefly for casts and molds in the form of a quick-setting paste with water
 
A senior member of the UK government has been criticised for calling policemen 'Plebs' (short for plebians - the common people of Ancient Rome). Perhaps he should have called them 'hoi polloi' - They might not have been able to write that in their incident book. :D

News Report

See post #3443 - Perhaps he follows this thread on the Authors' Hangout?
 
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Thanks for sharing that article, Og, it was very amusing.

plantigrade - adj walking on the sole with the heel touching the ground (man is a ~ animal)
 
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...ong-hornswoggle-and-kerfuffle-best-words-ever




Gherkin, Diphthong, Hornswoggle And Kerfuffle: Best Words Ever?
September 23, 2012
by Robert Krulwich


"Gherkin" — I like saying it. It's vaguely Indian sounding. "Kerfuffle." That's just fun, with so many F's packed into three syllables. "Diphthong" is sly because it's hiding a silent H, the H right after the P; it's there, but you wouldn't know it. And "hornswoggle?" Just hearing it, I'm on the deck of a frigate, there are seagulls soaring above, and someone is playing a jig.


final-four-blank-champ-59bb5776ff70d992aeaf4ea538a9654ea987d2ea-s3.jpg

One of these four words, the "Final Four" in Ted McCagg's "Best Word Ever" contest, became a champion this week.

You may or may not agree with McCagg, creative director of an ad agency in Portland, Ore., but it's fun to watch him sort through his candidates, words he loves. He began (you can find the whole contest on his blog { http://tedmccagg.typepad.com/drawings/ }, and there's an excellent description of his process by Megan Garber at TheAtlantic.com { http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/here-it-is-the-best-word-ever/262348/ }) with an alphabetical round. He and his wife plucked their favorite words out of the air and put them into brackets, a la March Madness. For example, here are their favorite P's.


best-word-p-85587e20600dd0a3919317c8671b1d920ec94f57-s3.jpg



Here are their Y's.


best-word-y-e6c355d503477e3e8b1a4ee42d9e1c419849a04a-s3.jpg



Then the regional winners were pitted against each other, so "kowtow" went up against "kerfuffle," and "akimbo" fought with "xenophobe."

final-32-west_custom-f0fa3aa4c79a19935458b96fed7b60fa3018eb5b-s3.jpg



"Diphthong" had to anticipate "sphincter" in the later rounds. No doubt at some sports bar in Las Vegas, there were folks betting for "onomatopoeia," and against "eke" ...

final-32-southwest-fcb7aa02c6865264d734da2d6f973f373d941a09-s3.jpg




... until finally, "hornswoggle," my personal favorite, for some reason was edged out by a word that describes two adjacent vowel sounds occurring in the same syllable.

The winner, the Best Word Ever, is "diphthong."

Why "diphthong?" Could it be a subliminal suggestion of sexy underwear? No, Ted told TheAtlantic.com. It was the H. That silent H, he said, "made all the difference."



http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...ong-hornswoggle-and-kerfuffle-best-words-ever


6a01053651288d970c0177444cd64a970d-800wi
 
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Good day, everyone, I hope you have a pleasant weekend.

plaster of paris - noun (second P often in caps) a white powdery slightly hydrated calcium sulfate made by calcining gypsum and used chiefly for casts and molds in the form of a quick-setting paste with water

see also: spackle or quick set joint compound.

:D
 
Thank you, Trysail, that was very entertaining, but left me with some questions about definitions. Two that I did not know;

hornswoggle - vt slang BAMBOOZLE, HOAX

kerfuffle - noun (chiefly British) 1. commotion; disorder; agitation 2. ( Scot ) to put into disorder or disarray; ruffle or disarrange

[from Scottish curfuffle, carfuffle, from Scottish Gaelic car means twist or turn plus fuffle, which means to disarrange]

Kerfluffle was not in my dictionary, so I got the definition online.
 
Good day, posters. This next word might have been better posted on Friday, rather than Monday morning, but oh well...

planter's punch - noun a punch of rum, lime or lemon juice, sugar, water and sometimes bitters
 
planter's punch - noun a punch of rum, lime or lemon juice, sugar, water and sometimes bitters

And planters punch is even better if you replace the water with vodka. If we pour in enough vodka, we may even become gullible enough to believe in ouija boards.

planchette n. French for little plank, a small flat piece of wood that moves around a board due to "spirit powers"
 
And planters punch is even better if you replace the water with vodka. If we pour in enough vodka, we may even become gullible enough to believe in ouija boards.

planchette n. French for little plank, a small flat piece of wood that moves around a board due to "spirit powers"

Also the name given to the servant of the Three Musketeers
 
Edward, that is very interesting. I have a Ouija board and just bought a Tarot deck for my Halloween costume this year, a gypsy fortune teller. My dictionary says a bit more about planchette;

planchette - noun a small board supported on casters at two points and a vertical pencil at a third, and believed to produce automatic writing when lightly touched by the fingers
 
I doubt I have ever encountered this one before:

plangent - adj 1. having a loud, reverberating sound 2. having an expressive, especially plaintive quality
 
"If Paradise was half as nice"

Paradise. Most interesting because of its origin as an Avestan word, a language which hasn't been spoken except in Zoroastrian religious ceremonies since about 500 BC.

English dictionaries usually suggest it is a park or garden (of Eden) from the old French paradis, latin paradesus, and Greek and Persian paradeisos. The Greeks (following Alexander's conquests) picked it up from the Persians to whom it meant a place of delight.

But even earlier than that it was a Semitic borrowing from Old Persian Pairidaida meaning enclosure. The Elamite version of the word, Paretash meant an enclosed orchard.

Inscriptions referring to this word are found on the palace at Susa, (to Artaxerxes) and there are references in Xenophon's Anabapsis.

Avestan is along with Old Sanskrit (well known from the Rig Vedas) one of the earliest departures from Proto Indo- European. As people migrated from central Asia some 5000+ years, ago one group went south and their language became Old Sanskrit another west onto the Iranian Plateau where it became Avestan. They are closely related and even though Avestan is long dead as a spoken language, its proximity to Sanskrit allowed translation.

Thus, after some 5000 years this word has journeyed around the world and found its way into numerous languages, where it is used every day.
 
Thank you, Istat, that was a very interesting read. The etymology of words is exciting for me and I appreciate anyone who delves a little deeper into the language we speak.

planet-striken or planet-struck - adj 1. affected by the influence of a planet 2. PANIC-STRICKEN
 
how about

how about "Sphincterthong!"

It was the final two above that I just mde up so its gotta be good...someone define that for me!
 
Paradise. Most interesting because of its origin as an Avestan word, a language which hasn't been spoken except in Zoroastrian religious ceremonies since about 500 BC.

English dictionaries usually suggest it is a park or garden (of Eden) from the old French paradis, latin paradesus, and Greek and Persian paradeisos. The Greeks (following Alexander's conquests) picked it up from the Persians to whom it meant a place of delight.

But even earlier than that it was a Semitic borrowing from Old Persian Pairidaida meaning enclosure. The Elamite version of the word, Paretash meant an enclosed orchard.

Inscriptions referring to this word are found on the palace at Susa, (to Artaxerxes) and there are references in Xenophon's Anabapsis.

Avestan is along with Old Sanskrit (well known from the Rig Vedas) one of the earliest departures from Proto Indo- European. As people migrated from central Asia some 5000+ years, ago one group went south and their language became Old Sanskrit another west onto the Iranian Plateau where it became Avestan. They are closely related and even though Avestan is long dead as a spoken language, its proximity to Sanskrit allowed translation.

Thus, after some 5000 years this word has journeyed around the world and found its way into numerous languages, where it is used every day.

And let's not forget that the ancient Egyptian word for beer, also more than 5 milllenia ago, was "booza."
 
Before posting this reply, I did an "advanced search" and found that the word had been used 25 times on the forums, but not in this thread.

Impecunious adj. Broke.
 
Thanks, everyone, for keeping this thread going while I was away, staying up too late, and howling at the moon. A little worse for wear, but I survived. lol

Welcome, Brandie69.

planetoid - noun 1. a body resembling a planet 2. ASTEROID
 
From a General Board thread Here quoting an Amicus typo:

Wormost.

What does "wormost" mean?

okay, I did an internet search on this word, just in case Ami was using some obscure and erudite nuance to make a point instead of misspelling a simple grade school word as if he was a dumb-assed motherfucker...and it seems that it's a quirky portmanteau of sorts, coined by a Ms. Jocelyn H. Chilvers who runs a gardening blog called The Art Garden.

Quote:
Eventually, even the Lazy Gardener* has to put a bit of muscle into the project in order to harvest and distribute the wonderful "wormost"**.

**a made-up term: the result of cold composting supplemented with worms.
 
I agree that booze is a great word and I had no idea it had such a long history. To use it as a verb, I certainly "boozed" it up Friday night and suffered a bit on Saturday, as a result. Much better now, though.

planetesimal - noun one of numerous small solid heavenly bodies that may have existed at an early stage of the develipment of the solar system
 
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