Totally Weird and Wonderful Words

Author: Erin McKean
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199886032
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
Do you know what a snollygoster is? Would you eat something called a muktuk? Do you know anyone who engages in onolatry? Impress your friends and pepper your dinner party conversations with such nuggets as gobemouche, mumpsimus, and cachinnate. You can learn about all of these bizarre and beautiful words and many more in Totally Weird and Wonderful Words. Offering a potpourri of colorful and fascinating words compiled by noted lexicographer Erin McKean, it contains hundreds of definitions, and has been updated to include two new essays, with over 150 words new to this edition. Written in a clear and conversational style, the book contains full-page cartoon illustrations by Roz Chast and Danny Shanahan. Featuring hundreds of words guaranteed to amuse and astonish, this is a book that will appeal to logophiles everywhere. It also features a bibliography of Oxford's dictionaries and a guide to creating your own unusual words correctly from Greek and Latin roots.

Weird and Wonderful Words

Author: Erin McKean
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195159055
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Book Description
Lists the meaning of hundreds of bizarre and unusual words and includes a guide to coining new words.

More Weird and Wonderful Words

Author: Erin McKean
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195170573
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
This title digs deep into forgotten corners of the dictionary, gathering both the most spectacular old and the most impressive new words. The result is more than 400 prime specimens with pronunciations, defined in a conversational style.

The Silly Book of Weird and Wacky Words

Author: Andy Seed
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408866854
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Book Description
Do you know what 'park your jam on the frog' means? Fancy some ognib? What rhymes with 'circus'? ...plus many more amazing things you never knew about words. Have hours of fun wixing up your murds with this hilarious book, packed full of rhymes, puns, games, jokes, gibberish and more.

Word Lover's Dictionary

Author: Josefa Heifetz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781567315547
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description

The Indispensable Dictionary of Unusual Words

Author: Josefa Heifetz Byrne
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 9781616086503
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
From aasvogel (the South African vulture) to knurry (full of knots), from melangeur (a machine for making chocolate syrup) to zumbooruk (a small cannon fired from the back of a camel), the words in this book are guaranteed to expand your vocabulary and confound your friends. They may be obscure and even preposterous, but every entry in this eye-opening book has been accepted as a formal or legitimate English word by at least one major dictionary. This dictionary does not claim or attempt to be complete. It is based completely on the editor’s sense of wonder and absurdity. It is educational, yes, but also more fun than any dictionary has a right to be!

Odd Odes, Weird Words and Loopy Letters

Author: Joan Crawford
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1479748889
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 117

Book Description
Amiscellany of verse, mostly tumorous, and odds and ends of prose, wind-up letters etc.

The Weird World of Words

Author: Mitchell Symons
Publisher: Zest Books ™
ISBN: 1541582128
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Did you know that ‘Almost’ is the longest word in the English language with all of its letters in alphabetical order ? Or that ‘Stewardesses’ is the longest word you can type solely with your left hand? Or that fireflies aren’t actually flies, they’re beetles? From information about words and their uses, to useful lists of things you never knew had names, palindromes, famous lines from literature and film, bizarre test answers and more, The Weird World of Words is bursting with truly oddball facts about words and language—and will have you hooked from the very first page.

Susie Dent's Weird Words

Author: Susie Dent
Publisher: Scholastic UK
ISBN: 1407138693
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
A funny and entertaining way to discover more about the history and meaning of language. SUSIE DENT'S WEIRD WORDS takes children on a rip-roaring tour through some of the most astonishing and sometimes quite revolting origins of English words. As Susie Dent knows, even the most ordinary-sounding word can have the most extraordinary story behind it.

Endangered Words

Author: Simon Hertnon
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 9781632204530
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Afterwit, agathism, ambsace, anacampserote, antepenultimate, antimony, and more! “When a word perfectly captures a human truth, humans respond to it in the same way that they respond to a beautiful melody. They smile. They nod their heads. They tell others of their discovery.” So says Simon Hertnon in his introduction to Endangered Words, and after wrapping your tongue around the lexical rarities he offers up to his readers, you’ll have to agree! Hertnon provides one hundred hand-selected rarities, and, in a virtuoso display of concinnity, breathes life into them with his lucid descriptions of their meaning and engaging examples of their usage. Perhaps you are an arriviste enjoying a newfound sense of nikhedonia as you demonstrate your sprezzatura in a given subject. Or maybe you are a desipientplutomaniac destined to a life of poshlost. If this doesn’t describe you, then take your pick of the many wonderful words in this book: Omnistrain Trilemma Aporia Or maybe these are all schlimmbesserungs! Thanks to Endangered Words, you no longer have to be at a loss for words or reach for the clichéd and commonplace. The English language is brimming with ambrosial alternatives, and this compendium offers the cream of the crop. Filled with words to be treasured for their elegant precision, from apophenia to zemblanity, Endangered Words is the perfect handbook for writers, an excellent resource for communicators, and an entertaining read for anyone with an appetite for the very brightest gems of the English language.