Five Delicious Words You Need to Add to Your Vocabulary
These are useable words, mind you. No pointless gasconade.
As a bona fide dork, I spent much of my childhood poring over the Oxford English Dictionary (all 20 volumes at my local library have my sweaty little pawprints on them; I’m sure I mouth-breathed). I’d compile lists of words without regard for whether I could ever use them in a modern sentence—words like "coxcomb” (a vain and conceited man) and “deliquescent” (becoming liquid). Even if I were to use those words in context—that is, woven into a narrative which provides the reader with the information he or she needs in order to fully grasp the meaning of a specific word—there is no way not to sound like a massive and pretentious wankpuffin.
No, that is not one of your new vocabulary words.
I didn’t help my case for not being a wankpuffin by reading a lot of bombastic18th and 19th century literature. Some of that stuff is the literary equivalent of nipple clamps. Unfortunately, as a word-nerd, I tend to adopt the syntax of whatever book I happen to be reading. Speaking in sentences with elaborately cantilevered dependent clauses and “witty” asides made me sound like even more of a nob. Even describing my nobbishness makes me sound like a nob.
That’s why I’m a believer in straightforward, useful words, words that you can actually mobilize in a sentence without having your milk money stolen or people slowly backing away with their hands up.
So, let’s do this thing!
Factotum (fak-ˈtō-təm): a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities; a general servant.
Here’s how to use it in a sentence, in this case dialogue lifted from 2004-2005 American drama series Veronica Mars:
Clemmons: Look, I'm just the vice-principal. Anything I say on the subject has to be cleared by the principal, so—
Veronica: So you're just a powerless factotum and I should talk to Principal Moorehead?
Clemmons: Yes... Exactly.
Nostrum (no-strum): a medicine prepared by an unqualified person, especially one that is not considered effective; a questionable remedy or scheme; in politics, a scheme or proposal likely to prove popular with voters.
Here’s how to use it in a sentence:
Among Trump’s other nostrums, such as his bogus Covid cure of injecting bleach, he also suggested taking horse de-wormer hydroxychloroquine, which led to a hundred unnecessary deaths.
Plinth (plinth): a heavy base supporting a statue or vase; in architecture, the lower square slab at the base of a column.
How to use it in a sentence:
Angry Black Lives Matter protesters pulled the statue of a hated Confederate general down from its plinth on top of a twelve-foot pillar.
Manqué (MAHN-kay): having failed to become what one might have been; unfulfilled or frustrated in realizing an ambition.
How to use it in a sentence:
He was a man of towering ambition and little talent, a true writer manqué.
Cupidity (kyu̇-ˈpi-də-tē): extreme greed for material wealth; avarice; greed; lust.
Here’s how to use it in a sentence:
The sight of the doughnuts he carried roused the cupidity of the students, who resolved to kill him and devour all his baked goods.
Are you ready to trot out those tasty new vocabulary words and push your luck dazzle your friends and possible enemies?
Have at it!
I’ll be here dorking out with the dictionary.
If you have words to share, I want to hear them! Some people like the smell of napalm in the morning; I love new words. Gimme!
Copyright © 2022 Stacey Eskelin
"[T]he literary equivalent of nipple clamps?" (Shiver runs up spine....)
My favorite word isn't even in the English language: Schadenfreude, which loosely translates to taking enjoyment from the suffering of others. I adore the word and use it whenever possible, which, sadly, isn't nearly as often as I'd like. Still, being able to work it into my writing feels like sneaking an extra cookie when Mom told me I could only have two.
Nothing comes close to schadenfreude, even as I rack my brain now trying to come up with a #2. There's nothing even close. Some of the names associated with male and female sexual anatomy give me a chuckle, not out of titillation, but because the words are just so...odd. I mean...vulva? Clitoris? Testicles? Hymen? Who comes up with this stuff, anyway??
I love words! My husband of going on 30 years often accuses me of making up words. To be fair, I'm an avid reader and he is an almost never reader and that makes a lot of difference in the words one is exposed to on a daily basis. I tend to gravitate toward fun sounding words that you can use regularly. I get the word of the day from my dictionary app and I enjoy learning the origins of words, too. The last few days whoever runs that aspect of the app has been doing their own sort of protesting. Today's word...choice. But here's the fun one, yesterday's word was opprobrious which means outrageously disgraceful or shameful.