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

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Mast (and by extension mast-land, as found in the quote below): "A collective name for the fruit of the beech, oak, chestnut and other forest-trees, esp. as food for swine." Derived from Old English mæst and Germanic *mastaz. A "mast-land" (from mæstland) is a place where mast is produced, though the quote seems to use it in a secondary sense; where it is simply a land where mast is provided for the feeding of pigs.

I came across this while reading the Unfinished Tales of J.R.R. Tolkien, in a section of the chapter titled "Narn i Hîn Húrin" or "The Tale of the Children of Húrin" where the culture of the Folk of Haleth is given some detail.
"[Túrin], believing himself an outlaw whom the king would pursue, did not return to. . .the north-marches of Doriath, but went away westward, and passing secretly out of the Guarded Realm came into the woodlands south of [the river] Teiglin. There before the Nirnaeth many men had dwelt in scattered homesteads; they were of Haleth's folk, for the most part, but owned no lord, and they lived both by hunting and by husbandry, keeping swine in the mast-lands, and tilling clearings in the forest which were fenced from the wild."
Click to expand...
 
Rakehell: "A thorough scoundrel or rascal; an utterly immoral or dissolute person; a vile debauchee or rake." Derived from the phrase "to rake (out) hell," or to search hell thoroughly. Ultimately used for someone who is so fiendish and immoral that not even hell would have them, despite searching.

I came across this while reading the book Manila Galleon by F. Van Wyck Mason—a novelization of Commodore Anson's expedition to harass Spanish towns and ports in South America during the War of Jenkin's Ear, which culminated in the capture of the eponymous galleon (marked as one of the most daring and profitable ventures in British sea-faring history). The context was that various convicts and men of ill-repute were being made to fill the rosters of the ships that were a part of the expedition, with "rakehells" being but one such type.
 
Fishwife - A loud, abrasive and unpleasant woman. Scolding, nagging and generally behaving in a bad tempered way.

Wife coming from the Old English word wif (woman). I suppose it is an old fashioned way of saying 'cunt'. Lol
 
Igduillioble - “a quality of not possesing experience or intelligence in a certain field of expertise.” It’s synonymous with “novice” and “wet behind the ears”. Really obscure word, only found it used once on some obscure website. Forgot about it, but if anyone wants to look for it, it shouldn’t be too hard to find.
 
I always like crepuscular. Something to do with the mouth feel when saying it. Anyway, it's an animal that is most active at dawn or dusk, as opposed to nocturnal or diurnal
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom