Please submit words you would like to revive, whether they are endangered, rare or just fun, and perhaps a sentence that will help us to find a relevant context for your words with any linguistic history. These words may be incorporated into the story threads on this site.
Tales from the Hole
The Conference
Lit Links
The Faculty
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January 10, 2009 at 2:23 am
Paradisaic
Milton’s words would be meaningless without the word paradise. This adjective is seldom used, and in danger of extintion. Keeping it alive would do Milton proud.
January 15, 2009 at 2:33 pm
bumpf
skookum
January 15, 2009 at 2:52 pm
quotidian
It always surprises me that this word, meaning common, everyday, daily, is not a shoo-in for quotidian conversation. Although not endangered, its use may help us be a bit less pedestrian.
January 15, 2009 at 2:54 pm
beverage
Not endangered status, but threatened. I use it all the time, and notice that a lot of kids don’t know what it means when I offer them one.
January 16, 2009 at 4:33 pm
impact seems to be endangered in its life as a noun. Evolution in action perhaps, it is mostly being replaced by the verb ‘to impact upon.’
March 8, 2009 at 4:22 pm
cipher - in the sense of working with numbers (or is it just I avoid all things math?)
March 13, 2009 at 4:43 am
Fortuitous – Sometimes “lucky” just doesn’t cut it.
March 17, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Yonder
The word has grown out of usage for some, implying a hillbilly type word, yet it is a perfectly acceptable word for direction.
March 29, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Cosset – to pamper, indulge, pet.
“Go on, cosset the baby, you can see I have my hands full.”
My parents used to go on hunting vacations in the backwoods of the Ozark mountains, where this word was in common usage. Mom contended it was a fine example of the absence of linguistic drift found in isolated communities.
July 12, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I can hear your mom using “cosset.”
March 29, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Another nod to Milton:
Astonied
Way better than “dazed”
This word is in so much danger that most dictionaries list it as “archaic”
April 20, 2009 at 8:10 pm
glom, as to glom on to, to acquire or seize,slang.
May 16, 2009 at 12:36 am
Ameliorate:to make better
We use it at our house all the time; “improve” is not quite as jazzy.
August 22, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Innumeracy. Used it in Alpinist 26. Because it really was the word I needed.
innumerate – adj: marked by an unfamiliarity of mathematics and the scientific approach
March 31, 2010 at 6:45 pm
converse
and the noun, converser
its all about “chat”, “let’s talk”
As for me, I am a glib converser.
May 10, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Guffaw
To explode in laughter.
I do not hear it nearly enough.
*sigh*