Lexicographer

lexicographer \ˌlek-sə-ˈkä-grə-fər\ noun: an author or editor of a dictionary

Etymology: Late Greek lexikographos, from lexikon (from neuter of lexikos of words, from Greek lexis word, speech, from legein to say) + Greek -graphos writer (from graphein to write)

“Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.” – Samuel Johnson (quoted in The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings)

Simper

simper \ˈsim-pər\ noun: a silly smile; smirk
intransitive verb: to smile in a silly manner
transitive verb: to say with a simper {simpered an apology}

Etymology: akin to Middle Dutch zimperlijc elegant, Dan dialect simper affected, coy

“The Count succumbs to her perfidious simpers.” Who is this perfidious simperer, you wonder? She is the title character in Anton Giuglio Bragaglia’s 1917 film Thaïs, which screened at Anthology Film Archives last night as part of its series celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Italian Futurism. The quotation comes from Virginie Bobin’s live translation of the French intertitles.

Chopstick

chopstick \ˈchäp-ˌstik\ noun: one of a pair of slender sticks held between thumb and fingers and used chiefly in Asian countries to lift food to the mouth

Etymology: Chinese Pidgin English chop fast + English stick

In The Secret Life of Words Henry Hitchings explains, “The utensils we call chopsticks are known to the Chinese as kwai-tsze, which literally means ‘nimble boys’. Chopsticks is a crude equivalent, partly inspired by the pidgen word chop, ‘quick’. (The pidgen English exclamation chop chop replicates the Chinese kwai kwai.)”

Persiflage

persiflage \ˈpər-si-ˌfläzh, ˈper-\ noun: frivolous bantering talk; light raillery

Etymology: French, from persifler to banter, from per- thoroughly + siffler to whistle, hiss, boo, ultimately from Latin sibilare to hiss, whistle (of imitative origin)

Compare persiflage to badinage.

Perspicacious

perspicacious \ˌpur-spi-ˈkā-shəs\ noun: having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning

Etymology: Late Latine perspicācitās discernment, from Latin perspicax sharp-sighted, from perspicere to see through

Don’t confuse perspicacious with yesterday’s entry perspicuous.

Perspicuous

perspicuous \pər-ˈspi-kyə-wəs\ adjective: 1. not subject to misinterpretation or more than one interpretation; clear, lucid, easy to understand, 2. (rare) transparent, transluscent

Etymology: Latin perspicuus, from perspicere to see through

Compare perspicuous to diaphanous, pellucid and transpicuous.

Sprezzatura

sprezzatura \sprāt-tsä-ˈtü-rä\ noun: 1. studied nonchalance, 2. perfect conduct or performance of something (as an artistic endeavor) without apparent effort

Etymology: Italian

Apparantly the early 19th-century British dandy would spend excessive time before his mirror tying his cravat in such a manner as to appear hastily thrown on, albeit perfectly so. A contemporary version of sprezzatura as it pertains to fashioin or vanity is the willful cultivation of “bedhead” by means other than having slept in a bed.

Plexure

plexure \ˈplek-shər\ noun: 1. the act or process of weaving together; interweaving, 2. that which is woven together

Etymology: New Latin, from Latin plectere to braid

The bend of the weave is the flexure of the plexure.

Cigar

cigar \si-ˈgär\ noun: a small roll of tobacco leaf for smoking

Etymology: Spanish cigarra cicada, from the resemblance of a cured tobacco leaf to a cicada’s wing

It’s true: compare this picture of cured tobacco leaves with this one of cicadas brandishing their wings.

Porcelain

porcelain \ˈpohr-s(ə-)lən\ noun: 1. a hard, fine-grained, sonorous, nonporous and usually translucent and white ceramic ware that consists essentially of kaolin, quartz and a feldspathic rock and is fired at a high temperature

Etymology: Middle French porcelaine cowrie shell, porcelain, from Italian porcellana, from porcello little pig, from Latin porcellus, diminutive of porcus pig

That etymology may give you more questions than answers, so here’s a further explanation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “[Porcelain] was apparently so named on account of the resemblance of its translucent surface to the nacreous shell of the [cowrie].” Where does the pig come in? Henry Hitchings clears that up in The Secret Life of Words: “The word [porcelain] comes from the Italian for a cowrie shell; literally, porcellana was a ‘little pig’, and the connection seems grounded in the glossy shell’s resemblance either to a pig’s back or to a sow’s glistening crinkled vagina.” So now you know.

Nacre

nacre \ˈnā-kər\ noun: the hard pearly iridescent substance forming the inner layer of a mollusk shell; mother-of-pearl

nacreous \ˈnā-krē-əs\ adjective: 1. possessing the qualities of, consisting of, or abounding in nacre, 2. iridescent

Etymology: French, from Middle French, from Old Italian naccara drum, nacre, from Arabic naqqāra drum

How did a word for a drum come to mean mother-of-pearl?

Lutefisk

lutefisk \ˈlüt-ˌfisk, ˈlü-tə-\ noun: dried codfish that has been soaked in a water and lye solution before cooking

Etymology: Norwegian, from lute to wash in lye solution + fisk fish

I’ve never tried lutefisk, but I’m curious.

Pannus

pannus \ˈpan- əs\ noun: 1. a hanging flap of tissue, 2. a growth of blood vessels in the normally avascular cornea of the eye

Etymology: Latin pannus cloth, garment

When involving the abdomen, a pannus is called a panniculus and consists of skin and fat. It can be the result of obesity, weight loss or pregnancy.

Earworm

earworm \ˈir-wərm\ noun: a piece of music that repeats compulsively within one’s mind (colloquially “music stuck in one’s head”)

Etymology: German Ohrwurm

Wikipedia remarks, “Earworms should not be confused with endomusia, which is a serious affliction in which someone actually hears music that is not playing externally.”

Calque

calque \ˈkalk\ noun: a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation
transitive verb: to create a calque through the aforementioned process

Etymology: French calque calque, loan translation, from calquer to trace, from Italian calcare to trample, trace, from Latin, to trample

• English earworm calques German Ohrwurm
• English Adam’s apple calques French pomme d’Adam
• English blue-blood calques Spanish sangre azul
• German Wolkenkratzer calques English skyscaper
• French gratte-ciel calques English skyscaper
• Spanish rascacielos calques English skyscaper
• Dutch aardappel calques French pomme de terre (literally “earth apple,” although the object in English is known by the word potato)

Equiponderant

equiponderant \ˌe-kwə-ˈpän-d(ə-)rənt\ adjective: evenly balanced

Etymology: Medieval Latin aequiponderare, from Latin aequi- equal + ponderare to weigh

It is efficient to possess a word that can otherwise only be expressed as a ponderous phrase, but equiponderant is just as syllabically concise as its definition.

Cumbrous

cumbrous \ˈkəm-b(ə-)rəs\ adjective: cumbersome

Etymology: Middle English, from cumbren to annoy

Cumbrous is lithe where cumbersome stumbles; you could even say cumbrous is less cumbrous.

Cadge

cadge \ˈkaj\ verb: beg {cadge a free cup of coffee}

Etymology: back-formation from Scots cadger carrier, huckster, from Middle English cadgear

Would you rather beg or cadge?

Habitué

habitué \hə-ˈbi-chə-ˌwā\ noun: 1. a person who may be regularly found in or at a particular place or kind of place {café habitués},
2. devotee {a backgammon habitué}

Etymology: French, from past participle of habituer to frequent, from Late Latin habituare to habituate, from Latin habitus

Are you a habitué of some place or thing?

Pareidolia

pareidolia /pær-ī-ˈdōl-yə/ noun: the psychological phenomenon of perceiving significant images or sounds in random stimuli or meaningless data

Etymology: Greek para- beside + eidolon, diminutive of eidos image, form

Examples of pareidolia include seeing animal shapes or faces in clouds and hearing messages embedded in pop song recordings played in reverse.

Tapetum lucidum

tapetum lucidum /tə-pē'təm 'lü-si-dəm/ noun: a membrane behind the retina of many animals responsible for improving vision in low-light conditions by reflecting received light back through the retina, making it available to photorecptors

Etymology: Latin tapetum lucidum bright tapestry

Three notes on the tapetum lucidum:
• Humans do not have tapeta lucida, but cats and dogs do. That’s why your pet gives you that creepy eyeshine when you catch its stare at the proper angle.
• Whereas the night vision of animals possessing tapeta lucida is better than that of those who do not, that vision comes at the price of clarity; all that light bouncing back inside the eyeball blurs the edges of perceived images.
• I dissected a cow eye several years ago. Its tapetum lucidum possessed a beautiful, metallic, bluish iridescence. (Don’t ask me what a cow — a diurnal creature — was doing with a tapetum lucidum. But sure enough, there it was when I sliced away.)

Quintessence

quintessence \kwin-ˈte-sən(t)s\ noun: 1. the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies,
2. the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form,
3. the most typical example or representative {the quintessence of calm}

Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence

I can comprehend that a word denoting an element permeating everything can acquire the sense of “pure nature” or “representative example,” but viewed solely in relation to its literal etymology — “fifth essence” — it sounds funny. Wouldn’t you want your “first essence” to be your archetype?

Quantum

quantum \ˈkwän-təm\ (plural quanta \ˈkwän-tə\) noun: 1 a. quantity, amount, b. portion, part, c. gross quantity; bulk, 2. any of the very small increments or parcels into which many forms of energy are subdivided
adjective: 1. large, significant {a quantum improvement}, 2. of, relating to, or employing the principles of quantum mechanics

Etymology: Latin, neuter of quantus how much

Quantum pulls such heavy weight in the language of physics that it bears stressing its quotidian denotations.

Autumnal

autumnal \aw-ˈtəm-nəl\ adjective: 1. of or relating to autumn; occuring in autumn, 2. having to do with a period of maturity or incipient decline

Etymology: Middle English autumpne, from Latin autumnus

I had always pronounced this word correctly: auTUMnal. Then I read somewhere that the stress should be placed on the first syllable: AUtumnal. It felt wrong, but I complied. Now Merriam-Webster corroborates my initial instinct. Either I misread that other authority (whose identity is now forgotten) or I dreamed up the whole thing.

Yean

yean \ˈyēn, ˈēn\ intransitive verb: to bring forth young (used of a sheep or goat)

Etymology: Middle English yenen, from Old English *geēanian, from Old English ge- perfective prefix + ēanian to yean

Yean’s definition and etymology are taken from Merriam-Webster (as are most of the entries on Sklonklish). M-W placed an asterisk before geēanian—I don’t know why. If you do, please explain in the comments section.

Ocularist

ocularist \ˈä-kyə-lə-rist\ noun: a person who makes and fits artificial eyes

Etymology: Latin oculus eye

Are you personally acquainted with someone who happens to be an ocularist?

Zaftig

zaftig \ˈzäf-tig\ adjective: (of a woman) having a full rounded figure; pleasingly plump

Etymology: Yiddish zaftik juicy, succulent, from zaft juice, sap, from Middle High German saf, saft, from Old High German saf sap

Can zaftig be used for inanimate objects like blimps or pies?

Roan

roan \ˈrōn, ˈrō-ən\ adjective: having the base color (as red, black or brown) muted and lightened by admixture of white hairs {a roan horse}
noun: 1. an animal (as a horse) with a roan coat (usually used of a red roan when unqualified), 2. the color of a roan horse (used especially when the base color is red)

Etymology: Middle French, from Old Spanish roano

Why do I get the feeling people use the word roan at renaissance fairs?

Ruction

ruction \ˈrək-shən\ noun: 1. a noisy fight, 2. disturbance, uproar

Etymology: perhaps by shortening & alteration from insurrection

Where has this word been all my life?

Unctuous

unctuous \ˈəŋ(k)-chə-wəs, -chəs, -shwəs\ adjective: 1 a. fatty, oily, b. smooth and greasy in texture or appearance, 2. plastic {fine unctuous clay}, 3 a. full of unction, b. revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating and false earnestness or spirituality

Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French unctueus, from Medieval Latin unctuosus, from Latin unctus act of anointing, from unguere to anoint

Sklonklish has been around for over ten months, and unctuous is only now making an appearance. Unbelievable.

Superincumbent

superincumbent \ˌsü-pər-in-ˈkəm-bənt\ adjective: lying or resting and usually exerting pressure on something else

Etymology: Latin superincumbere to lie on top of, from super- over, above + incumbere to lie down on

If you were in middle school and just learned this word, you’d use it in a risqué double entendre, wouldn't you?