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DANCE WITH BEAUTIFULLY RARE & OBSCURE WORDS

Selcouth is a middle English word from the 12th century meaning strange, unusual, or rare. From the old English seldcūth, meaning “seldom” and “known.”

Circus Sideshow of the Unusual and Bizarre
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Raging Rendition of the Roaring Rarities
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Professor Strange and Captain Unusual
Slap an Off Brand Soup Label on Ya
Obscurity in a Whole Lot of Psychobabble
​Describing Grandiloquence to the Normie
Hell of a Humbug of Darkness and Deceit

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OBSCURITY OF THE NORM

​The obscure words for normal and everyday things

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WEIRD AND WACKY WORDS
strange and bizarre old and rare words
THE GREAT RESURRECTION
bringing the best obsolete words back

ARTICLES FROM THE REFERENCE CENTER:
Defining obscurity for this list can be easily conveyed by the words unusual, mysterious or unknown. This is my favorite category because learning rare and unusual words in our language is how we boost our vocabulary. Using these words - especially the weird and obsolete ones - brings them into awareness and use. Old and obsolete words may have been long forgotten, but they have surprisingly relevant meanings that we can apply to the world today. Words can be understood like fashion. They can be in fashion or they can be old fashioned. They come and go with the times. But sometimes old fashioned styles come back around and these words need a comeback!

DEFINING OBSCURE
Dictionary Definition
  • Dark or dim; shrouded or hidden by darkness; not clearly seen or easily distinguished
  • Not readily understood or clearly expressed; something mysterious
  • Relatively unknown or unused

OBSCURITY is not a true classification used by lexicographers when classifying a word like it would be for calling it archaic or obsolete. I suggest the concept be seen as subjective - the one who classifies a word as obscure is the reader or the writer. We get to decide if a word is obscure based on our knowledge (we know the word), our usage (we speak or write the word) and if we think it’s weird then we get to call it obscure. Obscurity, in a sense, means not mainstream. The general public is not usually aware of it or use it in conversation.

DEFINING OBSCURITY

Ostrobogulous is another word for bizarre and unusual, but also interesting

Obscure words give us powers of description that can inform our surroundings, and they can bring clarity and insight to our understanding or the world. When we have a word to describe an obscure feeling or thought we can put credibility behind it. We can trust that the feelings are legitimate and that others feel the same way so we don’t feel alone. Feelings are such a subjective idea and we can have feelings that we just don’t know how to name. Obscure words give us power to define our feelings and know that our feelings are not crazy or weird. And, to the logophile, discovering rare and obscure words are like a prize in a game we love. It is a shot of adrenaline to find something new to us. Obscurity in itself is a gift or a find. A deviation from the norm gives us new meaning and opens the world up.

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The Old, Rare & Unusual
OBSCURE | WEIRD | OBSOLETE
Obscurity WordMap