words

A few years ago I found a website that hosted lists of various things. One of them was a list of strange and obscure words. I copypasted the list into a txt file and have been adding words I come across ever since. There were 23 words in the original list. Here are my next 17 words.

24. woolgather
to engage in fanciful daydreaming.

25. brobdingnagian
something of huge size, tremendous.

26. ambergris
an opaque, ash-colored secretion of the sperm whale intestine, used in perfumery.

27. tchotchke
an inexpensive souvenir, trinket, or ornament.

28. daedalian
difficult to understand because of intricacy.

29. abacinate (ll. abacinatus)
to blind by a red-hot metal plate held before the eyes.

30. crepuscule
twilight; dusk.

31. lamister
a fugitive from the law.

32. frondescence
the process or period of putting forth leaves, as a tree, plant, or the like.

33. umbrage
leaves that afford shade, as the foliage of trees.

34. verdure (ll. viridis)
greenness, esp. of fresh, flourishing vegetation.

35. Shrovetide
the three days before Ash Wednesday, once a time of confession and absolution.

36. chutzpah
unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall. audacity; nerve.

37. braggadocio
empty boasting; bragging. a boasting person; braggart.

38. demur
to make objection, esp. on the grounds of scruples; take exception; object.

39. demiurge
a supernatural being imagined as creating or fashioning the world in subordination to the Supreme Being, and sometimes regarded as the originator of evil.

40. firedamp
a combustible gas consisting chiefly of methane, formed esp. in coal mines, and dangerously explosive when mixed with certain proportions of atmospheric air.

I’ll post the following 17 in some time.