Description

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Wouldn't you like to use proctomorph in your everyday conversation--or at least feel as if you could? How about singerie? Or rememble?
Following the smash hit Weird and Wonderful Words, editor Erin McKean has dug deeper into forgotten corners of the dictionary gathering both the most spectacular old and the most impressive new words. The result is more than four hundred prime specimens (with pronunciations ), defined in a conversational style and perfect for adding to your own collection of favorites.
Guaranteed to amuse and astonish, accompanied by full-page illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Danny Shanahan, these words will appeal to logophiles everywhere. In addition to its wonderful offerings, the book also features a guide to finding new words, a guide to the best word websites, and an annotated bibliography of essential Oxford dictionaries.
More Weird and Wonderful Words:
anopisthograph: something that has writing on only one side (usually paper, although you could pedantically use this for things like t-shirts or billboards). Anopisthography is the practice of writing on only one side of something, a policy disdained by those who know how to make that 1-to-2 button on the copy machine work. (Opisthography is the practice of writing on both sides.) (from Greek words that mean "written on the back or cover.")

mesonoxian: of or related to midnight. "What are your mesonoxian plans?" sounds so much better on Dec. 31 than "Hey, whatcha doin' tonight?"

ichoglan: a page waiting in the palace of the Sultan. (from Turkish words that mean "interior" and "young man."). In this definition, 'waiting' obviously means 'serving, ' but it's so much more poetic to understand it as 'to stay in expectation of.' What is he waiting FOR? Alas, the Sultan has fled, and we will never know.

About the Author

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Erin McKean is the Senior Editor for the Oxford University Press North American Dictionary Program and the Editor of Verbatim magazine. She speaks frequently on public radio.