Unusual Words Rendered in Bold Graphics

by Maria Popova A visual A-Z of the hidden treasures of language. As a lover of language and words, especially obscure and endangered words, I was instantly besotted with Project Twins’ visual interpretations of unusual words, originally exhibited at the MadArt Gallery Dublin during DesignWeek 2011. Acersecomic A person whose hair has never been cut. Biblioclasm The practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. Cacodemonomania The pathological belief that one is inhabited by an evil spirit. Dactylion An anatomical landmark located at the tip of the middle finger. Enantiodromia The changing of something into its opposite. Fanfaronade Swaggering; empty boasting; blustering manner or behavior; ostentatious display. Gorgonize To have a paralyzing or mesmerizing effect on: Stupefy or petrify Hamartia The character flaw or error of a tragic hero that leads to his downfall. Infandous Unspeakable or too odious to be expressed or mentioned. Jettatura Ktenology Leptosome Welter

100 Exquisite Adjectives By Mark Nichol Adjectives — descriptive words that modify nouns — often come under fire for their cluttering quality, but often it’s quality, not quantity, that is the issue. Plenty of tired adjectives are available to spoil a good sentence, but when you find just the right word for the job, enrichment ensues. Practice precision when you select words. Subscribe to Receive our Articles and Exercises via Email You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! 21 Responses to “100 Exquisite Adjectives” Rebecca Fantastic list! 19 Outstanding Words You Should Be Working Into Conversation There are some of our favorite words that appeared in mental_floss stories in 2011. Some are foreign words. Others come from medical dictionaries. And there's a surprising amount of hobo slang. Have fun working these into conversation this holiday season! Gene Lee / Shutterstock.com 1. 2. 3. 4. milliHelen: The quantity of beauty required to launch just one ship. 5. 6. 7. 8. © Joe Giron/Corbis 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Thanks to Stacy Conradt, Adrienne Crezo, Bill DeMain, Haley Sweetland Edwards, Jamie Spatola, Ethan Trex and a reader named John .

Word of the Day! The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English ere are the 100 most beautiful words in English. How do we know we have the most beautiful? They were chosen by Robert Beard, who has been making dictionaries, creating word lists, and writing poetry for 40 years. Dr. The words in this book will decorate your articles, essays, blogs, term papers, memos, love letters-even conversations with those we love. Grandiloquent Dictionary This is the result of an ongoing project to collect and distribute the most obscure and rare words in the English language. It also contains a few words which do not have equivalent words in English. At present, the dictionary contains approximately 2700 words, though it is constantly growing. Following a large number of requests, pronounciations are now being (slowly) added to the listing, although it will be a long time before they are all added. After almost three years of work, the new Third Edition of the Grandiloquent Dictionary is now available as a PDF File. Including ~500 Words Not in the Online Version! In honour of ten years of the Grandiloquent Dictionary being available online, a special edition print version has been published! The Author's Webpage You are visitor since this counter was added. Donate0 Donate0 Experimental Search The authors intend to eventually add a search box for searching this dictionary, but for the present we rely on a more general google search.

Dig the favorite much!

I will definitely tell you about Greg at some point! His amazingness is humbling, actually.

I'm holding you to this fantasy Scrabble game, I hope you realize that :) by megela Aug 28

Delicious is right. I love these. I didn't know a single word which is a little humbling. I'm not sure of my favorite, perhaps "tarantism". I love the definition and totally know the feeling.

I don't have a trick to remember new words other than just trying to use the frequently. I like your idea of breaking them apart and making up stories. Was Greg truly gregarious? :)

I'm still pretty sure you'd trounce me in Scrabble. by featherking Aug 28

Wowsers! These are so clever and pack such a punch to the eyes and brain at the same time. Sweet find. Do you have a favorite? It's so hard to pick! As I scrolled I kept thinking, "And THAT one is good too!!" I knew very few of those words, which was delicious in it's own right. I love learning new words, but have a terribly short-term memory for keeping them and using them. What's your trick for that? In junior high to keep up with vocab quizes- I had to break the word down and come up with some crazy story or reference that would trigger the meaning to pop up for me. Most of the time- the more obscure the reference, the better it worked, although some quite simple ones worked just fine too. My friend Greg, who has a fantastic personality, is the only reason I remembered what gregarious meant. As a bonus, I still think of him each time I hear it :)

This would be a super fun project to work on.

You could do a sea-based series! Nautical terms would match your drawing style perfectly :)
And then I could buy your posters in your Etsy shop! #brokenrecord by megela Aug 28