Cool words you know or found - Expand your vocabulary & share yours with others

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Mondegreen - a misheard lyric or instruction conveyed to another
 
pulchritude (English)
beauty.
For some reason, this word always sounded like it was describing state of decay (esp. the verb form - pulchrify).

Some other oddly specific non-English words that make me giggle:
poronkusema (Finnish)
the distance a reindeer can travel without having to pee.

matzav kapit (Hebrew)
lit. spoon state - hysterical mood when everything is funny.

nakhur (Persian)
a camel that refuses to give milk before her nostrils are tickled.
 
defenstration - the act of throwing someone out a window
excoriate - to completely remove something's skin
exsanguinate - to completely drain something's blood
infinitecimal - extremely small
spume - a grosser word for seafoam

Just a few fun ones.
 
annular - of, relating to, or forming a ring
eschatology - a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind
 
ablution

ə-bloo͞′shən, ă-bloo͞′-

noun​

  1. A washing or cleansing of the body, especially as part of a religious rite.
  2. The liquid so used.
  3. In a general sense, the act of washing; a cleansing or purification by water.
 
John Titor said:
Hierophant. You seen this word if you ever took a look at Tarot cards, it's someone with religious authority. The Pope is a kind of Hierophant, in fact the card used to be called The Pope.

Cenobite. You probably know this word because of Hellraiser. I had to look it up to see if it's a real word or not. Cenobites are a religious order that lived in communes. Basically monks who think the hermit life was too lonely.
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In contrast to an anchorite, who is a hermit monk.
 
Psychopomps
(from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the 'guide of souls') are creatures, spirits, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to guide them. Appearing frequently on funerary art, psychopomps have been depicted at different times and in different cultures as anthropomorphic entities, horses, deer, dogs, whip-poor-wills, ravens, crows, vultures, owls, sparrows, and cuckoos. In the case of birds, these are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying.
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anomie
(/ˈænəmi/) is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). An example is alienation in a person that can progress into a dysfunctional inability to integrate within normative situations of their social world such as finding a job, achieving success in relationships, etc.
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Epiousion-we don't know what it means but it occurs as an adjective in both Mathew's and Luke's Lords Prayer and is the most vexing haxa legamon in the bible both old and new testament.
 
Belicose
Warlike or hostile in manner or temperament.

I quite like this word. So many terms for aggressive or belligerent, but this word is more obscure.
 
avid followers of my posting (of which I am sure there are many) may have noticed by now that I'm a bit of a vocabulary brain. here are a few of my favorites:

copacetic - supremely satisfactory or excellent.
lenticular - having the shape of a lens (i.e. a convex plane)
pernicious - having a gradual, subtle corrupting effect, especially the kind you don't notice until it's too late
priapism - a boner. comes (heh) from the name of the Greek god of boners, Priapus.
slapdash - random, incoherent, or half-assed
 
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