Thursday, October 17, 2013

Favorite words

I like words. Some words are just fun to say. Others bring to mind a picture that perfectly fits the meaning. Here are some of my favorite words, along with Merriam-Webster’s* definitions.

  • flabbergasted: overwhelmed with shock, surprise, or wonder
  • serendipity: luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for
  • brouhaha: great excitement or concern about something
  • hullabaloo: a situation in which many people are upset and angry about something
  • cantankerous: difficult or irritating to deal with
  • jocularity: noun form of jocular: given to jesting :  habitually jolly (Habitually jolly? Love it!)
  • onomatopoeia: the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss)
  • kerfuffle: disturbance, fuss 
  • lackadaisical: feeling or showing a lack of interest or enthusiasm
  • oxymoron: a combination of words that have opposite or very different meanings
  • asterisk: a symbol * that is used in printed text especially to tell someone to read a note that can be found at the bottom of a page (Many just call it a star. What a missed opportunity!)
  • Albuquerque: city central New Mexico pop 448,607 (And if you hail from there, you are an Albuquerquean.)
  • curmudgeon: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man (You’re thinking of someone right now, aren’t you?)
  • debauchery: bad or immoral behavior that involves sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.
  • frazzled: put in a state of extreme physical or nervous fatigue
  • melancholy: an abnormal state attributed to an excess of black bile and characterized by irascibility or depression (Black bile? Who knew? Black bile: a humor of medieval physiology believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen. How does one reduce one’s excess?)
  • obnoxious: unpleasant in a way that makes people feel offended, annoyed, or disgusted (Again, someone popped into your mind … right?)
  • periwinkle: a trailing plant with large blue flowers that is used as a ground cover and in window boxes or a light purplish blue (Such a happy word!)
  • scrumptious: very pleasant to taste (I think the definition needs a bit more punch.)
  • bloviate: to speak or write verbosely and windily (I picture it being delivered by a corpulent—having a large bulky body—politician.)
  • discombobulate: upset, confuse
  • shenanigan: a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose
  • regurgitate: to bring food that has been swallowed back to and out of the mouth (Sorry for the image. I didn’t say they all were pleasant.)
  • pandemonium: a wild uproar
  • lollygag: to spend time doing things that are not useful or serious : to fool around and waste time (Such as creating this blog.)

Those are some of my favorites. What are yours? Comment below.

*www.merriam-webster.com

No comments:

Post a Comment