What is your favourite word
It might be the sound it, its look on the page, shock value, sentimental, romantic, resonance.
I have a particular word I don’t think I have ever said to anyone. But I regularly use it in the car, after a phone call. Saying it relieves stress. However, no doubt someone else my favour this particular.
However, for the purposes of this thread I will nominate “ephemeral”. Hard to use, not easy to define. Lovely on the lips.
Another one “mum”. At the core of all that was loving, and supportive, caring. And missed.
I have a weakness for the high-scoring words. I try to rein it in because it always sounds like you’re showing off if you use them in conversation, not that everyday conversation demands the frequent use of vituperative, or phlogiston, or psychopomp. If I have to pick one it would be Vituperative.
As anyone who followed Lev Parikian’s World Cup of Words last year knows, people have strong opinions about words. They can even become vituperative. And I still think it’s a crying shame that Bollocks didn’t win.
I keep hoping some combo of letters will crop up in Wordiply so I can use floccinaucinihilipilification.
Typical claim from a antidisestablishmentarian.
I am a completely antidisestablishmentarianless zone.
Nice! (But not in a literal sense)
Partly because it sounds so poncey – “refulgent”.
I have a strange, unexplained attachment to the word “notwithstanding” – not sure why it appeals so much, but I do use it when appropriate.
A lot of the time, my favourite word is the latest one I’ve had to look up after reading it somewhere.
Yes.
“Liminal” is my most recent one. It cropped up in the titles of two different pieces of instrumental music.
Here’s one.
.
..and here’s the other
‘abundance’ is good. It means a lot to me.
Also, pull it apart and you’ve got a bun dance, and who doesn’t like the idea of that?
Onomatopoeia. I like the way it sounds.
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
I prefer a cake walk to a bun dance.
Recently I’ve been enjoying persiflage.
Until your post, I considered this thread to be of nugatory interest
Apropos of nothing, apropos.
Chthonic
It’s got a ‘ch’ directly followed by a ‘th’! What’s not to like?
People who liked chthonic also liked:
autochthonously.
ichthyosaurians.
ichthyosauridae.
ichthyopterygia.
paleichthyology.
ichthyodorulite.
ichthyodectidae.
heterochthonous
Among others.
Conducive. Just like the sound.
The one with Dido on the cover
Now I remember why we used to have “ups”
We spoke about this @Springer-Bell and I think we might be in a minority of two.
Defiance.
Otiose, because so much is.
Akimbo
Put an exclamation mark after it and imagine Lenny Henry shouting it.
Pelmet. Mundane, straightforward word – but also bristling with enigmatic innuendo.
see also “Flange”
Nonchalant.
I work amongst squads of IT techies as a Service Manager and the bane of my life is translating the appalling syntax and assumed knowledge of their written ‘explanations’ and setting them into plain English, for my records and for end users to understand.
I prefer simple words and clear statements. Which is meant to be the Civil Service way, anyway.
However, I do like ‘recondite’ and will slip it in somewhere once in a while.
Discombobulated
Folderol.
Inculcate
Flimflam.
Concupiscent
Brobdingnagian
I like obviate.
A mate of mine thinks “rooves” is hilarious for some reason.
Crepuscule.
Sounds as mysterious as what it describes.
Crepuscular is my fave too. Great word.
In my head, this is what it sounds like…
Petrichoral
*sniffs, appreciatively*
Ironmonger.
Lazarette.
Watching Gardener’s World tonight with a friend. Monty used the word friable and we both said what a lovely word it is.
I like quotidian because the unusualness of the word is in direct contrast to its meaning.
Skeuomorph. Only learnt a couple of years ago and an instant favourite.
I once heard a woman’s outfit described as ‘some kind of diaphanous gauze’. That phrase immediately became my favourite.
Re an earlier response: Marking the Higher School Certificate (Insert equivalent UK high school graduation credential) I see a direct relationship between the use of ‘liminal space’ (or, even better, *that* liminal space) and essays that attract full marks.
Diaphanous is a nice word.
Not top of my pops, but it’s there in the lower reaches of my chart.
Diaphanous is filed alongside voluptuous in my mental Rolodex©…
ooooh, you are awful!
My late mother-in-law had a made-up word for people she considered unnecessarily voluptuous: burstly.
I’m quite nonchalant that no one has commented on my favourite word.
Doesn’t have to be fancy -,Nonsense for example is a great word. Also like Ribald.
However and not lowering the tone of the conversation I have to offer up Cunt. This must be one of the most powerfully offensive words – guaranteed to spark a reaction like no other. You can call someone an idiot or any number of words with little or no reaction yet utter the C word and you are guaranteed a response – or a punch in the face.
Ricky Gervais uses it frequently in the Afterlife and I think it works well as a shock tactic.
Kate Lister’s latest Between the Sheets podcast is about the history of the word Cunt and reactions to it. Susie Dent did a similar podcast last year.
If lowering the tone is permitted then I offer up as my favourite word “nevertheless” purely due to this brilliant anecdote about the magician Ricky Jay…
But, as remarked on elsewhere, in Oz you have to be a really good mate to be upgraded to being a cunt.
Defenestration…
I cannot believe that enough people in history have been thrown out of a window to warrant a separate word being needed.
It probably existed in Russian first.
Nincompoop
Which, I read somewhere, is a contraction and ridicualisation of ‘non-compos mentis’
Anyone unlucky enough to read my posts and other peccadilloes will know I love a long word, or an archaic word. Or a completely made up neologism. Which isn’t.
A couple of peccadilloes recently.
Here’s a challenge; try to sneak the phrase “Crepuscular petrichor” into a conversation this evening and see what happens.
This came to mind immediately:
I like the crunchy rumble of made-up words as I form them in my mouth. An unending source of pleasure.
klompomps.
Wheelbarrow.
Especially when used in a sentence with “right-angled” and “valve”.
You’re not wrong. It’s also the longest word I know.
No it isn’t
It’s wheelbarrows.
I’m not an idiot.
I used to like ennui and enervating but these days I haven’t got the energy.
Sounds like entropy has set in
Entropic (as opposed to entropy) is another of my favourites…
“Lunting”
The act of walking and smoking a pipe at the same time
Pareidolia. Make of that what you will.
Doily
Edit: oh, hang on…no ‘Y’…
A touch of apophenia?
New masthead quote for the Afterword website…
I had a slice of toast this morning that looked just like Robert Fripp.
Pottingerism
Thaumaturgy.
Antediluvian
The only word I never understood in my English Language O level in 1981.
Possibly could be used to some contributors on here?
I got a B.
Billowing is evocative. I like a bit of spume as well and ultramarine. And then there’s myggbesprutning but that’s dålig för fåglar.
I am quite taken by Lee, the word. Clearly I know nothing of him/her/they but it is the word takes a nice glissando off the tongue.
Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Heavens to Murgatroyd! You’re right!
A late contender.