Forgotten Words

[Chaeronea]

Buss

[ buss | bəs | buhs ]



noun or verb (transitive)

• Kiss.

Just a quick note - buss is used to refer to a quick kiss, usually to the lips, cheek or forehead as a gesture of affection. Two people passionately making out are not engaged in bussing.

Quockerwodger

[ KWOK·​er·​wad·​jer​ ]

Oh, I love this word! As an avid D&D player I have to get our GM to use it as the name for some type of malevolent construct :)

Cozen

"Cozen me if you can."

[ coz·​en | ˈkə-zən | kuhz-uh n ]


verb (with or without an object)

• To swindle by artful deception.
• To cheat, deceive or trick.

Similar Words

Cozener (noun)
Cozeningly (adverb)

'Cozening' can apparently be used to refer to the process of someone cleaning themselves up or making them look respectable. I saw it used in one of Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern novels - a man was told he 'needed cozening' by his girlfriend after she finally awoke from a week-long coma to find he'd been waiting by her bedside the whole time, and as a result was unshaven, exhausted and overall unkempt.

Palfrey

[pal·​frey | ˈpȯl-frē]

"I want to ride the pretty palfrey."

noun (archaic)

1. A saddle horse not bred or trained for war.
2. A docile horse used for ordinary riding, especially by women.

Often used in modern fantasy novels as a term for a horse ridden by a lady, so a fair number of people know that a palfrey is a horse. To be precise a palfrey is a small or light horse capable of an amble, a smooth gait faster than a walk but slower than a canter which could be maintained for long periods of time.

[FortunatePilgrim]

I always liked "Gruntle" meaning to please or make happy. It's fallen out of use because it sounds like the opposite of what it is. But I'm always fascinated that we kept the opposite and it sounds fine.

[Ozolosterna]

Defenestration

Noun

• The act of throwing someone or something out of the window
• A swift expulsion or dismissal from an office (usually political).

Prague, 1419, 1618

Related Term: Yeet

[solkar]

Sorry to be nitpicking but it's 'defenestration', without the 'r'.

[Ozolosterna]

Sorry to be nitpicking but it's 'defenestration', without the 'r'.

Whoopsie... There, I fixed it.

[Ozolosterna]

Gerrymandering

Noun

• Rigging an election in favor of a specific party/group/candidate.
• Protecting Incumbents via Cracking: diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts or Packing: concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts

Massacheutsets, 1812
politician name + mander (Jerrymander, Henrymander, Tullymander)
Rig, Political-Sleight-of-Hand. Electoral Fraud.

[TexasWarren]

This is a GREAT thread and I am only posting to try and spark a revival. I will be looking for words to use.

[Oniya]

I'm not sure if this counts, as the word was nearly forgotten in the 1930's, but has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity:

Verb

bloviate (bloviates, bloviating, bloviated)

    (intransitive, US) To speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner.

1845, US, Ohio, from blow (“speak idly, boast”) + -i- +‎ -ate, by analogy with deviate.