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15 Great English Words You Probably

Won’t Have Learned
Rishi Sehrawat December 25, 2017 at 4:30 pm

14-18 minutes

5 Sep 2014

15 Great English Words You Probably Won’t Have

Learned

2 comments

About the Author

Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s
College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in
Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of
Fribourg.

I recently had the misfortune of babysitting for some

French children whose capacity for wickedness and
violence I would not have thought possible from a pair of
eight-year-olds.

While they were taking a rare break from pushing each

other down the stairs, trying to drown their cat and
emptying the contents of their mum’s jewellery box into
the bottom of a shoe cupboard, they decided to do
‘hilarious imitations’ of me speaking (or rather, sobbing)
English down the phone to my mum, which sounded
something like this: ‘bwoaar bwoar bleeeeeerp twurp
flooooooar’.

And though I’d never really thought about it before, I

realised that the English language is actually inherently
quite comical: not melodious, like French or Welsh,
rhythmic like Spanish or husky and rasping like Russian,
but jerky, inconsistent, made up of thousands of
different elements that jarr and jangle. (N.B. I didn’t quite
finish thinking this, because I’d only just got to the word
‘actually’ when I received a blinding blow around the ear
from a Barbie doll and a screamed demand to
concentrate on the game at hand). Luckily, I didn’t
actually have to finish formulating this thought because
a few days later, when the concussion had eventually
started to recede, I read a far more poetic and elegant
expression of it than I could ever manage:
 London has none of Paris’s carefully-planned elegance.

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric

yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet
processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we
produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel
mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic,
Johnsonian, Dickensian and American. Military, naval,
legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto
discourses are mingled at every turn. The French
language, like Paris, has attempted, through its
Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides
of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by
comparison, is a shameless whore.(Stephen Fry, The
Ode Less Travelled p.65)

In this article, I’ve collected some of my favourite English

words that express this capacity for contrasts and
extremes that Fry describes: some graceful, almost
musical, Latinate or French-sounding; others made up of
harsh Germanic guttural sounds, awkward and odd. A
few you may have heard of, while some are strange and
dusty with neglect. And undoubtedly you’ll have a few
great words of your own to add to the list: please do so
in the ‘Comments’ section below!

Mawkish
Definition: Sentimental in an exaggerated or false way

Synonyms: Sentimental, cloying, sickly, saccharine,

mushy, maudlin.

History: This wonderfully expressive, almost visual word

derives from the Middle English word mawk, meaning
‘maggot’. First recorded in 1668, the word initially meant
simply ‘queasy’, but that sense has since faded to be
replaced with the word’s modern definition of over-
sentimentality.

A famous occurrence: It was in this latter sense that

John Keats famously used the word in a letter of 1818:
“I hate a mawkish popularity”.

Narcissistic

Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection.

Definition: Vain, excessively self-admiring

Synonyms: Conceited, vain, self-regarding, egotistical,

arrogant, cocky

History: This word derives from the Latin noun

‘narcissus’, which refers to the family of flower to which
the daffodil belongs, but is connected with the
characteristic of vanity by ancient legend. Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (3.370) tells the story of a beautiful
youth named Narcissus, who was out hunting in the
woods when he fell in love with his own image reflected
in a pool of water. The young man was unable to draw
himself away from his reflection and wasted away at the
side of the pool. Ovid says that where Narcissus died,
the flower sprang up that bears his name.

A famous occurrence: “I wonder if the course of

narcissism through the ages had been any different if
Narcissus had peered into a cesspool. He probably
did.” (Frank O’Hara)

Scurrilous
Definition: Something coarse or indecent in the
language it uses; or, as the early lexicographer Samuel
Johnson put it: ‘using such language as only the licence
of a buffoon can warrant’.

Synonyms: Defamatory, indecent, lewd, offending,

obscene, insulting, slanderous

History: A fairly straightforward descendent of the Latin

scurrilis, ‘buffoon-like’.

A famous occurrence: “Every two years the American

politics industry fills the airwaves with the most
virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character
assassination of nearly every political practitioner in
the country – and then declares itself puzzled that
America has lost trust in its politicians.” (Charles
Krauthammer)

Quintessential
The words ‘avouch’, ‘blastments’, ‘fanged’, ‘gibber’,
‘strewments’, ‘defeated’, ‘reword’, ‘survivor’ and ‘unpolluted’ are
all first recorded in Hamlet.

Definition: The purest, most typical or refined example

of its kind.

Synonyms: Typical, stereotypical, archetypal, classic,

consummate

History: Though it refers to something remarkable in its

refinement, perfection or typicality, the meaning of this
word is now quite everyday. Its origin, however, is
mystical. ‘Quintessential’ is composed of two Latin
words, quintus and essentia, meaning ‘fifth’ and ‘essence’
respectively, plus an adjectival ending. In classical and
medieval philosophy, the ‘fifth essence’ was held to be a
substance that existed in addition to the four elements
of earth, air, fire and water – an almost magical
substance from which the heavenly and divine bodies
were composed, and which existed in tiny quantities in
all earthly things.

A famous occurrence: The unhappy prince Hamlet

explains his weariness with the world: “What a piece of
work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in
faculty! In form and moving how express and
admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension
how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon
of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence
 of dust?” (Hamlet 3.2)

Askew
Definition: Not straight, crooked, or awry

Synonyms: Awry, off-centre, crooked, aslant, askance

History: From the old North French word eskiuer,

meaning to shy away from or avoid. The word also exists
in verb form, in the word ‘skew’, meaning to warp
something or make it crooked, or to knock it off-centre.

A famous occurrence: “Harry fell asleep, his glasses

askew and his mouth wide open.” (JK Rowling, Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

Halcyon

‘Halcyon’ is also the genus of the tree kingfishers.

Definition: Calm, quiet, peaceful or undisturbed (usually

accompanied by ‘days’)

Synonyms: Serene, calm, pleasant, balmy, tranquil,

peaceful

History: In modern English, this word is only really used

in the phrase ‘halcyon days’, referring to a peaceful or
joyful time which has now passed. The phrase has a
fascinating and romantic history: in ancient mythology,
the halcyon bird was a magical one that bred in the
depths of winter in a nest floating on the sea. To protect
its young, the bird cast a spell over the wind and waves
so that the sea was calm for fourteen days and the bird
could brood.

A famous occurrence:

“Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!

The brooding and the blissful halcyon days!”

(Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Book XXXIV)

Serendipity
Definition: When a happy and unexpected discovery
occurs by accident

Synonyms: Coincidence, luck, providence, kismet,

chance

History: The word was formerly rare, but its usage has
increased dramatically in the twentieth century. It was
coined by Horace Walpole, an English antiquarian, art
historian and Whig politician, in 1794. The word comes
from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka, and Walpole
said in a letter that he had based it on the title of a story,
The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes, according
to Walpole “were always making discoveries, by
accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest
of”.
Penumbra

The penumbra in a partial eclipse of the moon.

Definition: A half-shadow, or the edge of a shadow

Synonyms: Errr… there aren’t really any.

History: You probably won’t find yourself using this word

when you pop into the shops to buy a carton of milk, but
both its sound and the mysteriousness of the
phenomenon it describes meant I just had to include it
on this list. A combination of two Latin words, paene
meaning ‘nearly’ and umbra meaning ‘shade’, the word
carries both the physical meaning outlined above, as
well as a more figurative sense: it can be used to refer to
a faint intimation of something unpleasant, or the
peripheral regions around an object, place or idea.

A famous occurrence: Thomas Hardy seems to draw

on both of these meanings in Far from the Madding
Crowd: “He fancied that he had felt himself in the
penumbra of a very deep sadness when touching that
slight and fragile creature”.

Addict
Definition: A person dependent upon a drug or another
substance

Synonyms: Junkie, devotee, dependent, aficionado, fan,

History: OK, so you probably knew the word already, but

its fascinating history meant I had to include it on this
list. ‘Addict’ is from the past participle of the Latin verb
addicere, which means to deliver, award, yield, make over
or sell. The Latin word was most commonly used to refer
to slaves given to soldiers as payment after battles, who
had literally been ‘awarded’ and were therefore addictis.
The word’s signification soon widened to mean anyone
who was dependent on anything at all.

Lukewarm

The worst fear of the British: a lukewarm cup of tea.

Definition: Not quite either warm or cool, usually

referring to a liquid.

Synonyms: Tepid

History: From two Middle English words meaning the

same thing! Lheuk or leuk and warm both carried
meanings similar to the modern day ‘warm’, but
strangely, when combined in a single word, were
weakened to mean something closer to ‘tepid’, ‘warmish’
or ‘cool’. Huh!

Aplomb
Definition: Assurance, confidence, self-possession or
coolness

Synonyms: Composure, cool, ease, self-possession

History: The modern English word ‘aplomb’ has roots

that snake through a number of French words and
phrases, including the phrase à plomb, which means the
physical state of being poised upright, or balanced.

Apollonian

The sun-god Apollo with Diana.

Definition: Harmonious, measured, ordered or balanced

in character

Synonyms: Beautiful, well-balanced, well-proportioned,

harmonious, ordered
History: As the mythology buffs among you might have
guessed, the word ‘Apollonian’ literally denotes
something that shares the characteristics of the Greek
sun-god, Apollo. Apollo, a son of Zeus, was the god of
reason and the rational- under this umbrella came things
like music, philosophy, maths and rhetoric which were
ordered and regulated by logical rules. In almost polar
opposition to Apollo was his brother Dionysus, a god
who was thought to come from the mountains of the
East and who represented all things wild and chaotic:
wine and wine-making, lust, ritual madness and religious
ecstasy. In depictions of the gods, Apollo is almost
always tall, hairless and masculine, while Dionysus often
has long hair, and is accompanied by animals or grapes
that indicate his wild nature. In modern English, the
opposite of the ordered, reasoned beauty known as
Apollonian is thus ‘Dionysiac’: wild, impossible to tame
and associated with different types of madness or
release.

Cantankerous
Definition: Showing an ill-natured disposition; ill-
conditioned and quarrelsome; perverse

Synonyms: Bad tempered, irritable, crabby,

argumentative, aggressive

History: The OED locates the origins of the word in

Wiltshire, and theorises that it is formed on Middle
English words like contak or conteke meaning quarrelling
or contention.

A famous occurrence: “The more ugly, older, more

cantankerous, more ill and poorer I become, the more I
 try to make amends by making my colours more
vibrant, more balanced and beaming.” (Vincent Van
Gogh).

Caliginous

The caliginous moors of Scotland.

Definition: Misty, dim, murky, obscure or dark

Synonyms: See above

History: Another word that doesn’t come up much in

day-to-day conversations about homework or what
you’re having for dinner, but which is wonderful-
sounding and could be used to great effect in an essay
or a piece of creative writing. The word’s etymology is
fairly simple: it’s from the Latin caligo, meaning ‘mist’;
but its possibilities stretch far beyond this purely
physical meaning. The word can also carry a moral
connotation, as in Nicholas Caussin’s claim that
‘(some) men… precipitate themselves into… caliginous
observations’ or can be used to create a sense of
unease or foreboding, as in William Cowper’s
translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, in Vol. 2, Book XIII
of which he narrates, “The goddess enter’d deep the
cave caliginous”.
Slattern
Definition: A woman or girl untidy or slovenly in person,
habits and surroundings.

Synonyms: Floozy, harlot, hussy, tramp

History: From the dialect verb slatter, whose origins are

unclear but which means to spill, splash or splatter
awkwardly, to slop or to waste. N.B. I’ve included this on
the basis of its comic value and pleasing sound, but it’s
probably not one to be tossed around too freely!

A famous occurrence: “Here Nelly lies, who, though

she liv’d a Slattern, Yet dy’d a Princess, acting in St.
Cathar’n.” (John Dryden, Royal Martyr)

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Image credits: banner; London; Narcissus; Hamlet;

kingfisher; moon; lukewarm tea; Apollo; misty moor.

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