adj. Offal-eating. (One who eat the edible parts which are cut off in preparing the carcass of an animal for food)

In a Dog, and other offivorous Quadrupeds, ’tis very large.
Physico-theology, William Derham (1713)

Someone who only gets the scraps that no one else wants is offivorous. It’s not great to only get scraps. I don’t want the shavings, I want the meat! Not some awful falafel offal … give me a hamburger! NOW!

Sorry, I haven’t been eating a great variety lately. It’s been a while since my last hamburger. My local Subway doesn’t — thankfully — give me scraps of meat, so I’m not offivorous.

Not everyone  is offivorous by choice, of course. Some dogs are offivorous. The ugly twin that lives in the attic and eats mostly fish heads is offivorous. The passengers sitting at the back of an airplane after all the good meals have been taken are offivorous.

Who else might be an offivore?

verb. To have a sensation as if a creepy-crawly was crawly-creepy all over you.

There is not a part of me that has not..crept, crawled, and forficulated ever since.
The Caxtons, a family picture, Edward Lytton (1849)

Ew, bugs. I hate bugs. But I love the word. The word comes from the name of the insect, Forficula auricularia, commonly know as an Earwig.

I often have forficulating experiences. Sometimes a hair will find its way into my face or elsewhere and I will immediately freak out, thinking that vile bug-creature has paid me a visit. False alarm. I am forfic-elated that it was not a real bug.

But sometimes a real bug decides to come my way. It looks at me with its eight eyes for just a moment before I kick its eight asses.

I have a black belt in Kung Shoo Fly.

adj. Of or belonging to surpassing depth or profundity.

Sink down into the Hyperbyssal, Supersensual, Unsearchable, Eternal One.
Behmen’s theosophick philosophy unfolded, Edward Taylor (1691)

How the heck am I supposed to talk about a word that means “beyond profound”? I’m not profound. I’m not even just plain ol’ found. Confound, maybe. What’s beyond profound? Postfound? Superfound?

Anything else I can say has be lost to the hyperbyss of space. Maybe we can use hyperbyssal to refer to space. Space is pretty profound; hard to wrap your brain around anyway. If space is infinite, that means there’s a parallel universe somewhere with a parallel me writing this blog… but he is profound. He makes me hyperbysmal in comparison.

Even thought I can’t be profound about it, hyperbyssal is a pretty rockin’ word. Not to be confused with hypabyssal; that’s a kind of rock.

verb. To extract with a forceps.

Wrapped up in the womb of this or that text of Scripture to be exforcipated by the logico-obstetric skill of High Church doctors.
Literary remains, Samuel T. Coleridge (1838)

The example above uses the word in a figurative sense, just as most other users of this word should do… unless you have some forceps handy. Do you have some forceps handy?

Besides having a great mouthfeel to it, exforcipate has a wonderful definition. I foresee it becoming very useful. I also foresee the Sun setting tonight, the Sun rising tomorrow morning, more jokes about Paris Hilton, bad movies coming out of Hollywood, and the world coming to an endoscope!

Don’t try to exforcipate any meaning out of that last sentence. You’ll be wasting your time; just like trying to exforcipate meaning from the speeches of the politicians you see on TV (The politicians you don’t see on TV don’t make much sense either).

Hm, maybe I should go into politics.

adj. That makes money in any possible way.

Those quomodocunquizing clusterfists and rapacious varlets.
The discovery of a most exquisite jewel, Sir Thomas Urquhart (1652)

There’s a ten dollar word, if ever I heard one. Take the next minute or two to practice pronouncing quomodocunquizing.

Good. Now that you’ve mastered that you’ve taken the next step necessary to become a smart-soundy-talker.

If this word were shorter (damn you modern people and your desire for short words) it might be all over the place in today’s news. There are plenty of people out there working odd jobs and even jobs to make some extra cash in this economy. If I were to shorten it for you hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobians it would probably be, um, cash-whore.

Are you and quomodocunquizer? How’s that working out for you?

noun. The condition of having short legs.

… a distressing pathological condition in which the thighs are suppressed and the buttocks spring directly from behind the knees, aptly described in Steiss’s nosonomy as Panpygoptosis.
Murphy, Samuel Beckett (1938)

This condition is also known as Duck’s Disease. There’s nothing to be ashamed about if you have it… if you’re a duck.

Now it’s not a nice thing to make fun of someone because of their physical features. So if you’re trying to be really mean, you’re on the right track. Some one, or thing, that has very short legs can be said to have panpygoptosis.

If the target of your insult reads this blog, they will be offended because the meaning is known. If they don’t read this blog, they will be offended because the meaning is unknown. Looks like panpygoptosis is a a guaranteed offender.

Perhaps you could use a form of this word for less offensive purposes. “Do you have a chair that’s less panpygoptossicky? I’m basically sitting on the ground.”

adj. Risqué, indecent; also bizarre, unusual.

I can no longer endure this ostrobogulatory behaviour.
Ostrobogulous Pigs, A. Graves (1952)

Ostrobogulatory is derived from ostrobogulous, a word attributed to Victor Benjamin Neuburg, a British writer. According to him, the word meant “Full of rich dirt.” The uses of this word (and derivative forms) in the OED are flavouriferous and make me gumfiate with glee. Here’s my favorite.

‘Ostrobogulous’ was Vickybird’s favourite word. It stood for anything from the bawdy to the slightly off-colour. Any double entendre that might otherwise have escaped his audience was prefaced by, ‘if you will pardon the ostrobogulosity’.
A. Calder-Marshall (1951)

I’m going to preface most of my conversations now with, “If you will pardon the ostrobogulosity.” Or maybe I’ll add some graffiti to public restrooms saying “For an ostrobogulous time, please call…”

Have you had any ostrobogulatory experiences lately? Why not? You can’t get all the ostrobogularity you need from the internet, you know.

verb. Flabbergast, or perhaps Verklempt.

I lay like a log, Quite flabber-de-gasky’d, as sick as a dog!
New Monthly Magazine (1822)

No, the OED didn’t use Verklempt in their definition. I wish they had. English words are much funnier when they can only be defined in Yiddish. Nu?

This is the type of word that I would be proud to use while sober. Drunk people, like this writer for New Monthly Magazine, have an endlessly entertaining vocabulary.

Flabberdegasky is probably the next step after flabbergast. Coming home to find that your stereo was stolen is flabbergasting. But coming home to find that the entire place has been swept, dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned is flabberdegasky, flabberdegaskifying, and flabberdegaskificatory!