Uncommon Words: Definitions and Meanings
- Ague: (n) A fever or chill.
- Amphisbaena/e: (n) A serpent with a head at each end.
- Arid/ity: (adj/n) Lacking moisture; lacking imagination or creativity.
- Ascetic: (n) A person who deprives themselves of pleasure in order to obtain a higher goal.
- Avatars: (n) Embodiment of a deity, principal, idea, or way of life.
- Brook: (v) To bear, to suffer, to tolerate, or to endure.
- Dacoits: (n) A member of a class of criminals who engage in robbery and murder.
- Deferential: (adj) Respectful, courteous, or obedient.
- Dolorously: (adj/adv) Full of pain/expressing pain.
- Eschatology: (n) Branch of philosophy or theology concerned with such final things as death, last judgment, heaven, hell, ultimate destiny of the universe.
- Extrusion: (n) The act of pushing or thrusting out.
- Fatuous: (adj) Asinine; devoid of intelligence.
- Flummery: (n) Oatmeal or flour boiled with water until thick; complete nonsense.
- Gestation: (n) The conception or development of a baby, a plan, or an idea.
- Imp: (n) A little devil or a demon; a mischievous child.
- Ineluctable: (adj) Impossible to avoid.
- Lampoon/ist: (n) An attack against a person, institution, or group.
- Licentious/ness: (adj/n) Lacking moral or legal restraint; marked by disregard of strict rules or correctness.
- Macabre: (adj) Gruesome or horrifying; having to do with death or the dance with death.
- Manticore: (n) A legendary monster with a man’s head, horns, a lion’s body, and the tail of a dragon or, sometimes, a scorpion.
- Miasma/ic: (n/adj) A dangerous, deathlike, or foreboding atmosphere; a poisonous atmosphere formerly thought to arise from swamps.
- Omnipotent/ence: (adj/n) Having unlimited power or authority /the state of having unlimited…
- Peccadillo: (n) A slight sin; a minor fault.
- Pernicious: (adj) Deadly, fatal.
- Phantasmagoria: (n) A changing scene made up of many different elements; an optical illusion.
- Philistine: (n) A person lacking cultural refinement or intelligence.
- Pique: (v) To wound; to excite.
- Polemic/ist: (n/n) A work of controversy/one who writes a work of controversy.
- Posterity: (n) Future generations or the descendants.
- Progenitor: (n) An ancestor; something that serves as a model for something else.
- Quarry: (n) An excavation, a pit, or an abundant supply.
- Query: (n) A question or an inquiry.
- Quotidian: (adj) Daily; usual; mundane.
- Rapprochement: (n) An establishment or reestablishment of friendly relations.
- Regale: (v) To entertain lavishly.
- Reprove: (v) To criticize or correct.
- Revenant: (n) A person who returns, often from death.
- Saturnine: (adj) Melancholy or bitter; having to do with lead absorption.
- Scatology: (n) Preoccupation with obscenity or excrement; the study of fossil excrement.
- Sempiternal: (adj) Dateless, eternal.
- Simulacrum: (n) A slight, unreal, or superficial resemblance; an image or an effigy.
- Sojourn: (v/n) A visit or rest.
- Stele: (n) A burial stone or a marker in the earth.
- Sunder/ing: (v/n) To separate/separation.
- Torpor: (n) Lethargic indifference; apathy.
- Ubiquitous: (adj) Omnipresent; being everywhere at the same time.
- Velour: (n) A velvet-like fabric; a soft fur used to keep warm.
- Vitriolic: (adj) Caustic, scathing, or burning.
- Voivode: (n) A local ruler or governor.