Rare words and their meanings

[Qfwfq]

coarse - not very fine at all

 

[maddog]

triscadecaphobia - fear of the number 13

Though what about those who are so enamored with the number 13 to the point of a fetish ? Hmm - we would have

 

triscadecaphelia - the obsessive "love" of the number 13. :rolleyes:

pataphysics - The science of imaginary solutions

I just love this one. Thus would a person who engages is such a profession (say inventor of "perpetual motion machines" etc) as

 

pataphysicist - a person who studies the science of imaginary solutions. :rolleyes:

 

blarney - flattery designed to gain favor

On this one, I beg to differ. My wife defines as "what I say". What she means is a collection of statements that together though maybe well spoken mean next to nothing. :blink:

 

maddog

[Turtle]

asphyxiophiliac - a person who intentionally restricts oxygen to their brain for sexual arousal.

aka gasper :omg:

[Turtle]

from the world of geology.

 

 

seiche - a periodic oscillation of the surface of an enclosed or semienclosed body of water (lake, inland sea, bay, etc.) caused by such phenomena as atmospheric pressure changes, winds, tidal currents, and earthquakes

 

cirque - a semicircular or crescent-shaped basin with steep sides and a gently sloping floor occurring at the upper end of a mountain valley, especially one forming the head of a glacier or stream. aka corrie

 

arête - a sharp, narrow mountain ridge or spur, especially one separating two cirques or glacial valleys.

 

ventifact - a rock that exhibits the effects of sand-blasting or "snowblasting" on its surfaces, which become flat with sharp edges in between.

 

arroyo - a steep-sided and flat-bottomed gulley in an arid region that is occupied by a stream only intermittently, after rains.

 

xenolith - a piece of country rock found engulfed in an intrusion.

 

monadnock - an isolated hill or mountain rising above a peneplain.

 

peneplain - a hypothetical extensive area of low elevation and relief reduced to near sea level by a long period of erosion and representing the end product of the ideal geomorphic cycle.

 

tuff - a consolidated rock composed of pyroclastic fragments and fine ash.

 

regolith - any solid material lying on top of bedrock, including soil, alluvium, and rock fragments weathered from the bedrock.

 

orogeny - the process of mountain building, especially of folding and faulting and the intrusion of magmas in the lower parts of the lithosphere.

[Turtle]

from the world of mind & body.

 

abarognosis - a loss of the ability to detect the weight of an object held in the hand or to tell the difference in weight between two objects.

 

agnosia - an inability to recognize objects or sometimes even parts of the body

 

chunking - the process of taking single items of information and recoding them on the basis of similarity or some other organizing principle.

 

cryptomnesia - hidden memory; the origin of experiences that people believe to be original but which are actually based on memories of events they've forgotten

 

echolalia - a speech disorder in which the person improperly and automatically repeats the last words he or she has heard.

 

galvanotropism - an orienting movement of the body toward an electric current.

 

hozho - a Navajo concept referring to harmony, peace of mind, goodness, ideal family relationships, beauty in arts and crafts, and health of body and spirit.

 

labile - the free and swiftly changing expression of emotion.

 

operant - behavior emitted by an organism that can be characterized in terms of the observable effects it has on the environment.

 

psychoneuroimmunology - the research area that investigates interactions between psychological processes, such as responses to stress, and the functions of the immune system.

 

quale - a sensation considered as a simple bit of experience, without regard to its meaning or significance.

 

xenology - research or information about foreign, alien, secret or generally unknown things.

 

sources

english test

APA

psychology dictionary

[Turtle]

from the world of literature.

 

 

apologue - a moral fable, especially one having animals or inanimate objects as characters.

 

caesura - a pause as in poetry, music, or conversation.

 

dénouement - the final clarification or resolution of a plot in a play or other work or the point at which this occurs.

 

epigram -a short, pungent, and often satirical poem, especially one having a witty and ingenious ending

 

hamartia - a tragic flaw [as in a character].

 

kerning - to adjust space between (characters) in typeset text.

 

hyperbaton - a figure of speech, such as anastrophe or hysteron proteron, using deviation from normal or logical word order to produce an effect. e.g. Always in motion is the future. ~ Yoda

 

metonymy - a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated. e.g. pen in place of writing

 

palimpest - a manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.

 

variorum - an edition of the works of an author with notes by various scholars or editors, or containing various versions of a text.

 

wyrd - fate as dictated by the past.

 

zeugma - a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each. e.g. I counted my money and blessings.

 

the free dictionary

[LaurieAG]

Here are two modern verbs that appear to be remixes of the components of paranoia and propaganda.

 

propanoia = mind f**k

paraganda = astroturf

 

Incidentally, I came across the following digital tautology logic error below ;)

[Guest MacPhee]

It's very interesting to see the above examples of rare words.

 

Observe this - they are written in an alphabetic script. This allows scope for variety - by altering the order of letters.

Like in an anagram, where "Mate" can be altered to "Meat", "Tame" or "Team", which are actual words. But you could also use the letters to make "Atem". Which isn't a recognised word. It has no meaning at the present time. But could be given one, if we needed a new word.

 

The point is, the alphabet allows us to mix letters up. And create an almost infinite variety of written words.

 

In this respect, we alphabet users are blessed! How do non-alphabet users get on, like the Chinese? They have to grapple with stereotyped unvarying logograms.

 

Is it possible to have a rare written word in the Chinese language?