English (and probably a lot of languages) have a lot of words; like, a lot. In fact, it’s actually estimated to have hundreds of thousands to a million words, some words have been around forever, while other words have faded into obscurity. However, some words are so wacky, zany, and obscure that it’s honestly surprising they exist. So, I took the time to construct a list of the wackiest and most obscure words in English in no particular order (and you can add to it too, I guess).
The List
Effervescence (fizz)
Pulchritudinous (beautiful)
Floccinaucinihilipilification (the action and/or habit of estimating people and things to be worthless)
Taradiddle (a petty lie)
Xiphoid (being sword-shaped)
Pleonexia (extreme greed)
Schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortune of others)
Kakistocracy (government by dumbasses)
Vex (to anger)
Defenestration (the action of throwing someone out of a window)
Grawlix (a string of symbols used to censor a word, for example, %@$&!)
Quincunx (an arrangement of five figures or things, with four being placed at the corners of a rectangle or square, and the fifth being placed in the center)
Grandiloquent (using bombastic and apparently grand language so as to impress)
Friendlily (if ¨friendly¨ were an adverb)
Absquatulate (to abruptly leave)
Oxter (armpit)
Megadeath (the deaths of a million people in nuclear warfare)
Flummox (to confuse)
Octotorphe (the hastag sign)
Brobdingnagian (gigantic)
Tartarean (relating to or of Tartarus)
Hadean (conerning or of Hades)
Herculean (concerning or requiring great strength)
Atlantean (relating to Atlantis, OR Atlas of Greek mythology)
Demisemiquaver (a thirty-second note)
Hemidemisemiquaver (a sixty-fourth note, half as long as a demisemiquaver)
Loquacious (talkative)
Chockablock (crammed full of things)
Boondoggle (a worthless activity)
Dragoon (force into doing something)
Antidaephobia (the fear of being watched by a duck)
Banal (unoriginal and so mundane and boring)
Peccadillo (a small, insignificant, and/or unimportant sin)
Supine (laying upwards)
Pluviophile (A person who loves rain)
Superfluous (overly useless)
Onus (duty or responsibility)
Agelast (a person who doesn’t laugh, like, at all)
Puissant (having power and/or influence)
Abibliophobia (the fear of running out of books)
Quire (a pack of 25 sheets of paper)
Overmorrow (the day after tomorrow)
Laconic (using few words)
Comeuppance (retribution or deserved fate)
Scathefire (destructive fire)
Ultracrepidarian (speaking of matters outside of a person’s scope of knowledge)
Zax (small-ass axe used to cut roof slates)
Adscititious (additional or extra)
