Webster's Finest Forgotten Words

Question 1

wranglesome

Answer 1

To wrangle is “to dispute angrily” or “to involve in contention,” according to Webster. So if you’re wranglesome, then you’re “quarrelsome and contentious.”

Question 2

uptrain

Answer 2

to educate/train up

Question 3

vernate

Answer 3

to become young again

Question 4

tardigradous

Answer 4

“Slow-paced; moving or stepping slowly.”

Question 5

sheep-bite

Answer 5

“to practice petty thefts”

Question 6

scantle

Answer 6

“to divide into small pieces

Question 7

scranch

Answer 7

to grind with the teeth

Question 8

stalactical

Answer 8

resembling an icicle

Question 9

squabbish

Answer 9

thick, fat, heavy

Question 10

stramash

Answer 10

“to beat,” “to destroy”

Question 11

rakeshame

noun

Answer 11

“A vile, dissolute wretch” – also known as a rampallion, a scroyle, a runnion, a pander, a cullion and (if they seem destined to a life of crime) a crack-rope.

Question 12

quadrin

Answer 12

old copper coin, which Webster explains was “in value [worth] about a farthing”. Its name can also be used figuratively of any tiny amount of something, or an insignificant amount of cash.

Question 13

packthread

Answer 13

The strong string or twine used to wrap parcels? That’s packthread.

Question 14

obambulate

Answer 14

“to walk about.” The horseback equivalent, incidentally, is to obequitate – or “to ride about.”

Question 15

nuncupatory

Answer 15

If something is nuncupatory then it exists in name only. The word can also be used to describe a verbal rather than written agreement.

Question 16

maffle/faffel

Answer 16

To stammer or stumble on your words

Question 17

longinquity

Answer 17

Derived from the Latin word for distance, longinquity is a formal word for remoteness or isolation, or for any vast distance in space or time.

Question 18

kissing-crust

Answer 18

As loaves of bread expand in the oven as they’re cooked, a kissing-crust forms when they spread so far that they touch.

Question 19

jackpudding

noun

Answer 19

A jackpudding is a “merry-andrew” or “a zany” according to Webster – in other words, a joker who acts the fool to make other people laugh.

Question 20

illaqueation

Answer 20

A formal word for “the act of ensnaring; a catching or entrapping.”

Question 21

hugger-mugger

Answer 21

On the rare occasions when hugger-mugger appears in modern English, it’s typically used to describe a state of noisy confusion or uproar. According to Webster, however, it was a “low cant word” synonymous with privacy or clandestineness – doing something in hugger-mugger, he explained, meant doing it in absolute secrecy.

Question 22

gastriloquist

Answer 22

An old-fashioned word for a ventriloquist, or as Webster explains, “one who so modified his voice that it seems to come from another person or place.”

Question 23

fopdoodle

Answer 23

The perfect name for “an insignificant fellow” – Webster described this word as “vulgar and not used.”

Question 24

ear-erecting

Answer 24

Another of Webster’s clever compound adjectives, this time describing any sound that “sets up the ears”.

Question 25

daggle-tail

adj

Answer 25

As a verb, to daggle is “to befoul” or “dirty”, or more specifically, “to trail in mud or wet grass”. The adjective daggle-tail ultimately describes someone “having the lower ends of garments defiled with mud.”

Question 26

cycopede

Answer 26

Cycopede is all but unique to Webster, who defined it as both a variation of cyclopedia (as in encyclopedia), and as a term for the entire “circle of human knowledge.”

Question 27

babblement

Answer 27

“Senseless prattle” or “unmeaning words,” according to Webster. To twattle, incidentally, is to gossip or chatter.

Question 28

after-wise

Answer 28

Defined by Webster as “wise afterwards or too late” – or in other words, the perfect term for describing that feeling of knowing exactly what you should have said (or done) after the opportunity to say it (or do it) has passed you by. Other useful after- words on Webster’s list were after-game (a subsequent scheme or plan), after-supper (the time between supper and going to bed), and after-tossing (the rolling of the sea after a storm has passed).

Question 29

zuffolo

Answer 29

Z fairs slightly better than X in Webster’s dictionary, with a total of 85 entries in all. A zuffolo, he explains, is “a little flute… especially that which is used to teach birds.”

Question 30

xerophagy

Answer 30

the eating of dried meats

Question 31

yoke-mate/ yoke-fellow

Answer 31

companion, associate