My Favorite Words

Read this whole thread. People are posting their favorite words.

You have to love a thread where the word “bumbershoot” comes up.

My favorite words?

Elixir
Evensong
Nonsense
Symmetrical
Mash
Bailiwick

I also like crepuscular.

(via Book Slut)

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28 Responses to My Favorite Words

  1. Emily says:

    level

    because it’s the only word I can think of that looks exactly like what it means.

  2. CW says:

    I’ll go with “scotch”

  3. red says:

    Scotch. It sure is a level elixir.

  4. Jimmie says:

    The two words I think are among the most fun to say are: flibbertigibbet and bungalow.

    I guess that pretty much makes them my favorite.

  5. Mr. Bingley says:

    nookie

  6. michael says:

    dead

    In the sense of denoting an absolute. As in dead certain, dead lame, dead fit, dead tight on the wire. It’s a horse racing thing (duuuuuhhh!!!). I’ve been told it’s of Irish origin, but no one seems to know how dead got to mean absolute(ly).

  7. Val Prieto says:

    I find it hard to choose a favorite word in English. Now in Spanish, with the rolled “r’s” and the accents I have tons of them.

  8. Mr. Z says:

    “Oklahoma,” as in OklahomaOklahomaOklahomaOklahomaOklahomaOklahoma!

    Okay, it helps if you’ve seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels one too many times…

  9. Emily says:

    He-hee, Mr. Z. “Not mother?” I loved Michael Caine in that movie.

  10. Bryan says:

    I like “barbarism.” Also, I want to see the slang term “solid” used as an adverb revived. The word doesn’t have so much of a meaning as it is a mere intensifier. Example: someone asks you if you can do something, and you respond, “I solid can!”

  11. This is like Sophie’s Choice but here goes:

    Hedonism
    Abyssmal
    Gesticulate

  12. Barry says:

    Conflagration

  13. Ash says:

    “telephony”
    “octothorpe”
    “schwa”
    “Vladivostok” (although we should probably leave proper nouns out of this)

    I know I have others, but I can’t remember them at the moment. I keep thinking of a favorite phrase:

    “flux creep”: in superconductivity, the phenomena of gradual motion (“creep”) of pinned magnetic flux lines past their pinning sites, resulting in a decay of the supercurrent

    I also have favorite rhymes, and least-favorite rhymes (rhymes I find cliched, such as “walk”:”talk”)…

    But I digress..

  14. Anne says:

    Ooh. This is just the best site ever.

    Mine are:

    lollygagging
    sluttish
    sullied

    and, keeping up the theme here:

    louche

  15. red says:

    I think it’s time that someone attempts to work all of these words into a paragraph.

    I mean: Vladivostok and bungalow … these words!! Love it!

    anyone want to give it a go?

  16. Red – Serendipity Happy word hunting. Terry

  17. Dan says:

    figgy-dowdy. dragoon. slattern. homunculus.

  18. Alex says:

    Nincompoop, Wombat, and Philanthropist.

  19. Lynn S says:

    epiphany
    luminescence
    electroencephalograph
    fantasy
    delphinium

    And if proper nouns are permitted: Mendelssohn.

  20. Steve says:

    party people
    shiznit
    cluster

  21. mlah says:

    plethora of course.

  22. Jimmy says:

    clusterfuck (pardon my french)
    flipperdinger
    janx

    all quality words.

  23. ricki says:

    Diaphanous – I like the way it sounds and it also “sounds” to me like what it means

    Thwarted – I like the sound of it, the “Thw” combination at the beginning is like a little hammer blow.

    Aurora – Just a pretty word for a pretty thing.

    Sonnet – Again, it seems an apt description of that which it names. It feels compact and symmetrical.

    Nautilus – this may be a situation of liking the concept behind the word; the chambered nautilus is one of the critters that fascinates me, mostly because it follows the “Golden Proportions” in its shell construction

    Mincing – again, I like it because it fits what it’s describing. And it’s fun to say. And it’s a good precise word.

    Fluff – It has a comforting sound to me.

  24. Jules says:

    equivical
    exorbitant
    transmogrify
    stigmatize

  25. Ryan says:

    Squeegee, Bouillabaisse, Bougainvillea, Isthmus, Syzygy, Ethereal, Twerp, Brouhaha, Callipygian, Chrysanthemum, Euthanasia, Flibbertigibbet, Gobbledygook, Juggernaut, Kaleidoscope, Kwashiorkor, Boisterous, Onomatopoeia, & Uxorious; there are just too many good words.

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