Favorite words to say or hear

I love words, passionately, unabashedly, genuinely, and really not in any pretentious Reader's Digest "It Pays To Enrich Your Word Power" sense.  The sound of an especially wonderful word pleases me in the same way that a good wine pleases the palate of those who are really into wines.  So anyway, on a bored let's-add-something-to-the-webpage impulse one day, I made a list of some of the words I find especially delightful because of the way they sound to hear or say.  Weird and nerdy, I admit, but that's me.  It was going to be like a Top 50 or 100 list, but since then I've found myself adding to it like the way I add to my page of signature file quotes.   Many of the words are obscure, I know, but it's hard for something to remain a verbal treat if it's something you hear or say it all the time.  

I've been putting rough synonyms or definitions in parentheses as well, although they're basically off the top of my head and so I certainly wouldn’t trust them over a dictionary.  For that matter, here's a link to one online dictionary that contains audio pronunciations of many words.  Let me know if I've got something wrong, although I suppose I would like I reserve the right to use any word that is fun to say in any way I please.  Or feel free to suggest any additions.

1. abecedarian (in alphabetical order [or someone who is unsophisticated])

2. adumbrate (foreshadow)

3. allele (alternative version of a gene)

4. amaranthine (unfading)

5. antediluvian (literally before The Great Flood; something that is severely outdated)

6. antinomy (fundamental tension; not to be confused with antimony, the element)

7. aplomb (composure)

8. arugula (tangy green vegetable)

9. assuage (relieve; allay)

10. autodidact (someone who is self-taught)

11. avuncular (like an uncle)

12. azalea (kind of plant)

13. bashful (shy)

14. belle epoch (a good period in history)

15. besmirch (sully; make dirty)

16. bricolage (something built from whatever materials are at hand) 

17. briny (salty)

18. bulrushes (a kind of long grass found by marshes and rivers)

19. cacophemism (using an extreme expression in place of a milder one [the opposite of euphemism])

20. cajole (coax)

21. calliope (a musical instrument [also one of the muses])

22. calumny (an instance of slander)

23. capacious (spacious)

24. caterwaul (howl and wail, like cartoon cats on a fence at night)

25. cerulean (sky-blue)

26. chattel (property)

27. chamois (especially soft cloth or the animal whose skin is sometimes used to make it)

28. cocklebur (a dreaded weed to be removed from soybean fields, although not as dreaded as the buttonweed, which is sort of like the evil doppelgänger of the soybean plant)

29. coldcock (knock unconscious)

30. colloquy (intellectual conversation)

31. congeries (aggregation)

32. connubial (marital)

33. contiguous (adjacent)

34. cornucopia (horn o' plenty)

35. crotchety (ill-tempered, dyspeptic)

36. dally (waste time; dawdle)

37. dawdle (waste time; dilly-dally)

38. denouement (conclusion)

39. desuetude (something that's fallen into disuse)

40. dilettante (dabbler)

41. dodecahedron (a twelve-sided object)

42. doppelgänger (like an alter ego)

43. dyspeptic (crotchety; ill-tempered)

44. eleemosynary (engaged in charity)

45. enthymeme (term from logic for an argument with an implicit premise)

46. equanimity (calmness)

47. ethereal (otherworldly)

48. femur (long bone in the leg)

49. feral (wild, untamed)

50. flummox (baffle)

51. frothy (foamy)

52. fructify (to make fruitful or productive)

53. frumpy (dowdy)

54. gallivant (walk about ostentatiously, strutting)

55. gambol (frolic)

56. gelatinous (jelly-like)

57. glissando (quick movement up or down [non-metaphorically, on a musical scale])

58. gnomon (the pointer on a sundial)

59. gossamer (light and delicate)

60. grandiloquent (fancy-speaking)

61. grouse (complain)

62. heterodox (contrarian)

63. inchoate (nascent)

64. ingenue (naive young woman)

65. in zugzwang (chess term for a situation where all possible courses of action have bad consequences)

66. joie de vivre (zest for life)

67. kewpie (kind of doll)

68. lamia (female demon)

69. lederhosen (a shorts-and-suspenders combination)

70. loquacious (talkative)

71. malapropos (inappropriate)

72. marmalade (a kind of jelly)

73. marshmallow (somewhat mysterious food when you think about it)

74. marsupial (pouch-wielding animal)

75. meander (wander)

76. mélange (mismash)

77. mellifluous (sweet to the ear)

78. mercurial (moody, unpredictable)

79. minx (similar to how vixen is sometimes used)

80. mollify (soothe)

81. moxie (spunk)

82. mullet (kind of hairstyle)

83. nimbus (rain cloud)

84. nympholeptic (wanting something passionately that one will never obtain)

85. obfuscation (deliberately obscure)

86. obsequious (sucking up)

87. onomatopoeia (a word whose etymology is based on its sounding like what it means)

88. panacea (cure-all)

89. peripatetic (one who moves a lot from here and there)

90. pièce de résistance (showpiece)

91. pilfer (steal; purloin)

92. pleiotropy (instance in which a single gene causes multiple effects)

93. plucky (courageous)

94. pomegranate (fruit)

95. preternatural (extraordinary)

96. propinquity (closeness)

97. puckish (whimsical, in a mischievous way)

98. puerile (childish)

99. pugnacious (combative)

100. pulchritude (beauty)

101. pulverize (smash into powder)

102. pusillanimous (wimpy)

103. pustule (sort of a pimple-like blister)

104. qualia (properties of objects as considered separately from their actual material manifestation in objects)

105. quantophrenia (excessive enthusiasm for quantification [from Sorokin, charmingly enough])

106. quirky (full of oddities)

107. raconteur (storyteller)

108. raison d'etre (reason for being)

109. rapprochement (reconciliation)

110. recherché (can mean either elite or pretentious)

111. retronym (adjective-noun pair that comes into being when the original meaning of the unmodified noun becomes outdated, as with black-and-white televisions or silent movies)

112. salacious (lustful)

113. salubrious (healthful)

114. scalawag (scamp; rascal)

115. schadenfreude (pleasure taken in the misfortune of others)

116. schluffy (napping, sleep)

117. sclerotic (rigid, unbending in thinking or ways)

118. scrumptious (delicious)

119. sequela (secondary consequence, esp. of a disease; plural sequelae)

120. sesquipedalian (very long words or those who love them)

121. skittish (leery or easily frightened)

122. slipshod (careless, unconscientious)

123. slake (quench, as in thirst)

124. slouchy (someone given to slouching)

125. soporific (sleep-inducing)

126. spelunk (go down into a cave)

127. sphygmomanometer (device for checking blood pressure)

128. squeamish (easy to make queasy)

129. squishy (either physically squishy or intellectually soft)

130. stealthy (secretive)

131. strudel (pastry)

132. stupefying (causing a stupor)

133. sully (besmirch; taint)

134. sumptuary (regulations against extravagant spending)

135. supine (lying on one's back)

136. sweltry (hot)

137. sycophant (yes-person)

138. synecdoche (rhetorical device of using a part to refer to the whole)

139. thrush (a bird)

140. toothsome (physically attractive)

141. trenchant (incisive)

142. tu quoque (a way of responding to a criticism that argues that the criticism is undermined because it applies just as well to the critic or the critic's argument)

143. turpitude (depravity)

144. twaddle (prattling)

145. ukulele (musical instrument)

146. unctuous (smooth or suave, but in a pejorative way)

147. undulate (move in a wavy way)

148. uvula (the hanging little thing in the back of one's mouth)

149. vicissitude (fluctuations outside of one's control)

150. vinaceous (wine colored)

151. vitiate (contaminate)

152. vitriolic (scathing; more than truculent)

153. wallow (to roll about in something)

154. yokel (provincial person; bumpkin)

Vitally important legal disclaimer: The above list reflects my own favorite words to say or hear out loud as an ordinary private citizen of these United States.  In no way should it be read as reflecting or representing the opinions of my employer, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, or any other body with which I am affiliated.  These organizations likely detest some of the above words and may have their own favorites that would never make my list.

Insert standard disclaimers here.
Whatever is original is copyright © 2003 by Jeremy Freese.
All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed.