DIRECTORY OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
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About Site | What’s New? | Feedback | Help
My Writing Portfolio at www.bykairos.com MAIN DIRECTORY
- Word Lists Home | Featured Word Lists
- Word and Literary Reference Corner language and writing referencePage resources
- The Beauty of Language and Words - the words we discover and find through reading
- Weaving Meaning in a Web of Words - the words we use for communicating & storytelling
- The Rare and Unusual of Obscurity - bring back the archaic, old fashioned & obsolete
- The Universe and World We Live In - the words in exotic languages new to us
- People, Places and Things - the words we use to understand ourselves & the world around us
- The Colors of Our Creativity - the words we use to create and innovate
- The Dark Side of the Moon - the words of a darker nature
- My Books: Series of Beautiful Words.
- @kairosoflife on Twitter - hashtag #BeautifulWords and Pinterest Boards
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DIRECTORY OF OBSCURITY
The Old, Rare & Unusual
OBSCURE | WEIRD | OBSOLETE
Obscurity WordMap
WORD LISTS SPECIAL FEATURES WORDS FROM OTHER CATEGORIES
- Obscure Words from Language Category
- Nonsense ~ Gibberish ~ Grandiloquent ~ Oddities ~ Whimsical ~ Quirky ~ Bizarre ~ Sensory ~ Boring ~ Hyphenated
WEIRD AND WACKY
OBSCURITY OF THE NORM
obscure words for the ordinary & normal
THE GREAT RESURRECTION
bringing the best obsolete words back
DIRECTORY OF WORDS
SOME WEIRD PHYSIOLOGY
PEOPLE | WORDS | THINGS | NATURE
- Grey’s Anatomy - Human Body Words
- A Cult of Personality - Character Words
- Stifling the Sneeze - Ailment Words
PEOPLE | WORDS | THINGS | NATURE
STIFLING THE SNEEZE
Weird Ailment Words
AWVISH - probably derived from a corruption of half or half-ish, awvish is when you’re not exactly unwell, but you’re not feeling your best.
MELDROP - Scandinavian word originally defined as a drop of foam from a horse’s mouth as it chomps on the bit or the metal crossbar held in a horse’s mouth. The Old Norse word for it was mel. The figurative and more useful definition it in the 16th century was a drip of water from the tip of an icicle. It has come to be known as a pendulous droplet on the tip of a person’s nose - from the the sniffles.
HUMDUDGEON - an imaginary illness
TO COUGH
TO SNEEZE:
Sneeze was originally spelled fnese before its initial F was misread as a long S in the 15th century.
A HEADACHE
HEADWARCH - Waerc was an Old English word for pain which derives from the same ancient root as work. A headwarch is an ancient word for a headache, which only survived in a handful of dialects in northern England.
GRIPPE - can be any kind of contagious viral disease, but traditionally it was used for what we now call influenza.
OTHER WORDS FOR UNWELL
- ALYSM - the restless boredom or ennui that comes from being unwell or confined to your bed is called alysm.
- FROBLY-MOBLY - A similar term from the 18th century is frobly-mobly, or fobly-mobly, which lexicographers defined as meaning “indifferently well.”
- PRESENTEEISM - a term coined in the early 1930s for the act of turning up to work, despite being unwell.
- PEELY-WALLY - Scottish looking pale and unwell
MELDROP - Scandinavian word originally defined as a drop of foam from a horse’s mouth as it chomps on the bit or the metal crossbar held in a horse’s mouth. The Old Norse word for it was mel. The figurative and more useful definition it in the 16th century was a drip of water from the tip of an icicle. It has come to be known as a pendulous droplet on the tip of a person’s nose - from the the sniffles.
- SNIRL - a long-forgotten dialect word for the nose or more precisely, for the metal hoop pierced through a bull’s nostrils. A snirl or snurl is an old 18th century word for a stuffy head cold.
HUMDUDGEON - an imaginary illness
TO COUGH
- BOKE - is to cough violently
- CHURCHYARD COUGH - 17th century term for a bad cough indicative of impending death.
- FOX’S COUGH - a hoarse, scratching cough that refuses to clear up, so called because a fox’s call is raucous and guttural.
- KIFFLE - to cough from a tickle in the throat.
- KINK-HAUST - kink can be used to mean "to cough convulsively," while haust or hoast is a single cough or tickle in the throat. Put together, those words combine to form the 19th century word for “violent cold and cough.”
- HOSK - to cough harshly or painfully;
- TISSUCK - a dry, tickling cough.
- WIRKEN - to cough or choke from eating too quickly.
TO SNEEZE:
Sneeze was originally spelled fnese before its initial F was misread as a long S in the 15th century.
- STERNUTAMENT - a 16th century word for the act of sneezing. Synonyms: chissup, atissha, and neazle
- PTARMIC - describes anything that makes you sneeze;
A HEADACHE
HEADWARCH - Waerc was an Old English word for pain which derives from the same ancient root as work. A headwarch is an ancient word for a headache, which only survived in a handful of dialects in northern England.
- CEPHALALGY - word for a headache coined in the early 1600s
- GALEA - a Latin word for helmet—which in 1706 referred to a headache because it “takes in the whole head."
GRIPPE - can be any kind of contagious viral disease, but traditionally it was used for what we now call influenza.
OTHER WORDS FOR UNWELL
- AGUE - flu-like symptoms likely caused by malaria
- APOPLEXY - stroke
- BARREL FEVER - alcoholism
- BILIOUSNESS - jaundice
- BLACK DOG - depression
- BRONZE JOHN - yellow fever
- CAMP FEVER - typhus
- CHALKSTONES - swelling with pain from rheumatoid arthritis or gout
- DOMESTIC MALADY - depression or another sort of emotional breakdown
- DROPSY - swelling caused by fluid retention
- FALLING SICKNESS - epilepsy
- FRENCH POX - syphilis
- FRIGID - Low sex drive
- GREEN SICKNESS or GREEN FEVER - anemia
- JAIL FEVER - typhus
- LUMBAGO - back pain
- MELANCHOLIA - severe depression
- MORTIFICATION - gangrene
- OTALGIA - otalgia earache
- QUINCY or QUINSY - tonsillitis
- SCRUMPOX - impetigo
- SHIP FEVER - typhus
- ST VITUS DANCE - involuntary jerking movements now referred to as chorea. Huntington's disease is an example
- WINTER FEVER - pneumonia
The Old, Rare & Unusual
OBSCURE | WEIRD | OBSOLETE
Obscurity WordMap
A BEAUTIFUL WORD ... a vocabulary site for logophiles, writers and word lovers that is part of
A SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
Collection of Vocabulary Books, Sites and Resources
Series Homepage | View Sites | Download Books
Words are also posted on twitter under the hashtags #beautifulwords and #wordoftheday and shared visually on pinterest bulletin boards
ABOUT SITE | SITEMAPS | SEARCH | FEEDBACK
Content by Kairos ~ @kairosoflife
Homepage | Portfolio | Contact
Original content © 2021 Copyright, Kairos
A SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
Collection of Vocabulary Books, Sites and Resources
Series Homepage | View Sites | Download Books
Words are also posted on twitter under the hashtags #beautifulwords and #wordoftheday and shared visually on pinterest bulletin boards
ABOUT SITE | SITEMAPS | SEARCH | FEEDBACK
Content by Kairos ~ @kairosoflife
Homepage | Portfolio | Contact
Original content © 2021 Copyright, Kairos
