Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Muliebrity and other pertinent words

Some oppugnant people at Collins Dictionaries have decided to remove some little-known words from the dictionary - presumably to make more room for text speak, celebrity names and other passing fads. Now, I know that some of these words aren't exactly in common parlance - but why not? I can think of many uses for muliebrity - the condition of being a woman (in fact, that's going into my PhD thesis), and fubsy, griseous and olid are words that nicely describe how I feel about some people. I'm all for the development of the language - English has amazing flexibility and its ability to encompass other languages and change with the times is one of many things that makes English literature such a joy, but if we lose words, they'll be consigned to footnotes, as obscure as some of Chaucer's words, and that's a pity. Perhaps I should start a campaign to revive Chaucerian English. Failing that - have a look at these words and see if you can use them! You can read more about this here.
Abstergent Cleansing or scouring
Agrestic Rural; rustic; unpolished; uncouth
Apodeictic Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration
Caducity Perishableness; senility
Caliginosity Dimness; darkness
Compossible Possible in coexistence with something else
Embrangle To confuse or entangle
Exuviate To shed (a skin or similar outer covering)
Fatidical Prophetic
Fubsy Short and stout; squat
Griseous Streaked or mixed with grey; somewhat grey
Malison A curse
Mansuetude Gentleness or mildness
Muliebrity The condition of being a woman
Niddering Cowardly
Nitid Bright; glistening
Olid Foul-smelling
Oppugnant Combative, antagonistic or contrary
Periapt A charm or amulet
Recrement Waste matter; refuse; dross
Roborant Tending to fortify or increase strength
Skirr A whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight
Vaticinate To foretell; prophesy
Vilipend To treat or regard with contempt

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They could well be making room for the expanded defintions of words required by management buzzspeak and its need to reduce existing words to the most vague definition possible. See:
http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0815/buzzword-0815.cfm

Serena Trowbridge said...

I thnik you could be right. That's an interesting article, thanks you. Flexibility of language is one thing, buzzwords that don't mean anything are quite another and I dislike seeing good, useful words pushed out for the sake of including passing fads!