To top off my fortnight of word-related posts, I am channeling Rob Gordon and making a Top 5 list of my favorite words, either learned or relearned, from my recent trip through a small thesaurus. I love these words either for their sound, or simply for the fact that they exist.
5. niminy-piminy: Affectedly dainty or refined.
4. rejectamenta: Things thrown away or dismissed.
[I have got to incorporate this one into my repertoire. Though I suppose I should be careful, since it apparently has an excretory connotation — not that most people hearing it would know that!]
3. absquatulate: To leave in a hurry; depart.
2. hemidemisemiquaver: In music notation, a sixty-fourth note.
[Every time I think of this one, I feel like shouting it out a la Zippy The Pinhead: “Hemidemisemiquaver! Hemidemisemiquaver! Hemidemisemiquaver!”]
And of course, the Number One favorite word has to be:
1. sesquipedalian: Having many syllables; given to the use of long words.
[I have to love something that so perfectly and beautifully enacts what it describes.]
Oh, and as I mentioned in the comics post, honorable mention goes to “defenestrate.”
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