Aculeate

[uh-kyoo-lee-eyt]

-adjective

1. Biology. having or being any sharp-pointed structure.
2. having a slender ovipositor or sting, as the hymenopterous insects.
3. pointed; stinging.

[Origin: 1595-1605]

Absquatulate

[ab-skwoch-uh-leyt]

-verb (used without object), -lat·ed, -lat·ing. Slang.

to flee; abscond: The old prospector absquatulated with our picks and shovel.
To depart in a hurry; abscond: "Your horse has absquatulated!" (Robert M. Bird).
To die.
To argue.

run away; usually includes taking something or somebody along; "The thief made ( Read more... )

Argy-Bargy

Noun
A dispute, wrangle, fight or argument (1888 Scottish origin). The term perhaps comes from the late nineteenth-century argle-bargle (or argol-bargol), which may be a portmanteau word: argue + haggle = argle, and (in order to rhyme) argle + bandy (as in the expression "to bandy words") = bargle.

ab-dabs

Noun

Nervousness, frustration, the shakes; echoic of the spluttering speech of someone thus affected (1946, origin unknown). The ab-dabs are bad, but the screaming ab-dabs are worse; in this condition, one quivers with rage. The variant habdabs sometimes denotes the delirium tremens ( Read more... )

Spiflicated

Overcome by drink; [from] spiflicate, to overcome, utterly defeat.

- Michael Traynor's The English Dialect of Donegal, 1953

Fankle
A Scottish word meaning 'to become entangled', as in the sheets were all fankled. It comes from fank, a Scottish term for a coil of rope.

Sward
A literary word for an expanse of short grass, or a lawn. It comes from an Old English word sweard, meaning 'hairy skin': the original, rather prosaic meaning of sward was 'the rind of pork or bacon'.

I knew the word but not were it came from, I'll be looking at my garden in a new light :)

Gongoozler
A person who idly watches an event or activity taking place. An informal term, it originally referred very specifically to someone who stared at activity on a canal and probably has its origins in the Lincolnshire dialect words gawn and gooze, both of which mean 'to gape or stare aimlessly'.

Weltschmerz
A feeling of melancholy, pessimism, and weariness, caused by long experience of life and its imperfections. The word has been taken into the English language from German, in which its literal meaning is 'world pain'.

Ohhhhhh yes!

"Chenille
Most people will be familiar with the soft, velvety feel of chenille, a type of cord or yarn that can be made into clothes or used to trim furniture. The origin of the word may not be quite so familiar: it comes from a French term whose literal meaning is 'hairy caterpillar'!"

Well I never knew that :)