i get a daily calendar for work, and this past year i picked up a “forgotten english” one, which had words every day that have gone out of use. i was in search of the perfect word i thought needed to be used regularly again. i saw it, loved it, forgot to write it down. (good grief.) i might have found it?
here’s a list of the best words i found:
- smyster: to idle sitting over a fire. to talk or laugh to oneself as in a daydream
- balitorium: riotous. merrymaking which often accompanies a bonfire
- flire: to have a countenance expressive of laughter without laughing out (laughing so hard you don’t make a sound??)
- zouch: an ungenteel man or bookseller (??)
- amaritude: bitterness
- graith: all things necessary for preparation or readiness. the trappings/gear needed in any pursuit. the verb, graithe, mean to prepare or make ready
- gardyloo!: a common cry in ediburgh when peeps threw urine, slops, etc out of the windown
- cunctator: one who acts tardily – a delayer
- ramage: the boughs or branches of trees
- eargh: superstitiously afraid. eerie is derived from it.
- bookwright: a maker or author of books
- scelerat: a villain or criminal
- cluttery: when it is raining with thick clouds all around
- mopple: to confuse
- carnaptious: irritable, ill-tempered, cranky or cantankerous
- bell-wether: leader of a flock or sheep with a bell (also found out on this day that a black sheep in a flock was good luck)
- minnock: to affect delicacy or to ape the manners of one’s superiors (like when snoopy was imitating lucy in charlie brown crhistmas??)
- unkard: a person in a strange place
- CRAPULENCE: drunkennes or sickness by intemperance (i think this is the word)
- tripudiation: dancing (why can’t you just say dancing?)