adj. Blameless

[the Church] shold be holi and without blemish, or rather Amomous..that is irreprehensible, safeguarded from the bitings of Momus, one of the feined Gods among the Gentils.
Theologica Mystica, John Pordage (1683)

What do you mean, Mr. Pordage, when you say the church should be amomous? Are you saying it isnt!?

Apparently this word is borrowed from Greek word for blameless, amomos; how convenient! It’s a shame it hasn’t been used in so long. So many unamomous people claim to be amomous, you’d expect someone to say amomous. And why not? It’s fun to say!

My parents always thought I stole the cookies from the cookie jar, but I was entirely amomous. It was my imaginary enemy. Damn you, Roderick.

noun. Being half in jest, half serious.

Our own poet has lately characterized himself as a jocoserious genius; and in fact this jocoseriosity seems of much the same quality with the eironeia of the Greek.
Browning Society Papers, E. Johnson (1885)

Comedians are well known for jocoseriosity: they’ll point out something ridiculous about our lives to make us laugh, as well as to make us think. I’m sure you speak with jocoseriosity all the time.

“Does this dress make me look fat?” she asked.
“Yeah, so huge!” he said with jocoseriosity.
He was swiftly incapacitated by a strong kick to the groinal region.

Don’t be that guy. Be jocoserious when appropriate, not on a seriosityful occasion. She wasn’t fat, just not as thin as she used to be.

Leave a comment full of jocoseriosity and jocoserious things you’ve said today!

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. Rich in story.

This is..Some lone land of genii days, Storyful and golden!
Poems, The Lovely Land, James Clarence Mangan (1846)

I’m flabbergasted that this word hasn’t had more of a life to it. It turned up surprisingly few results on Google. Of all the words I’ve posted thus far, this might be the most usable. The meaning is undeniably apparent.

It’s not every that funny or silly of a word. Have I run out of them? Of course not. This word just appealed to me because it’s so user-friendly. The OED can say it’s a nonce word, I will tag it as such, but from now on it’s will be resurrected as a flavoriferous word to describe a really juicy tale.

Movies that have a great plot are storyful, your last family vacation is storyful, last night was probably storyful — I wish I could remember it.

Go out into the wild and tell your storyful stories! And if the squirrels aren’t interested go back to civilization and tell your storyful stories!

Oh boy have I got some storyful gossip for you. Did you hear about so-and-so doing such-and-such? Gross, right!?

adj. Hazily confused.

The altogether nebulochaotic condition of her mind.
Mary Marston, George Macdonald (1881)

I don’t think the OED definition above does justice to the potential of this word. We have ‘nebulo’ as in ‘nebulous,’ meaning hazy, foggy, cloudy, and ‘chaotic’ which you already know. That’s what your morning is like when you hit snooze a few too many times — also known as “pandemornium.”

So the two parts together suggest to me, “Cloudy chaos.” That’s not just hazily confused, that’s trying to play ping-pong in a tornado. The “altogether nebulochaotic condition of her mind” must have been very dangerous for all those around her.

Next time you’re having a nebulochaotic moment, remember: don’t blame me for it.

adj. Of, pertaining to, or having shapely buttocks.
/ˌkæləˈpɪdʒiən/

Callipygæ and women largely composed behinde.
Pseudodoxia epidemica, Sir Thomas Brown (1646)

Because a shapely posterior deserves a word just as bootylicious.

While bar hopping with friends, do you worry about talking about a woman’s physical features without her hearing? Fear no more. “Bro, Check out that callipygian female!” Or you could use it as a noun… because I say you can. “Don’t look now. Callipygian: 9 o’clock!”

Ladies: Baby got back? Does your callipygous behind bring all the boys to the yard? If you ever hear “Damn girl! You is callipygian!” You know the man has a very large… vocabulary.

noun. A mad extravagance such as Caligula comitted.

Alas! it would be endless to tell you all his Caligulisms.
Letters to Sir Horace Mann, Horace Walpole (1745)

Caligula was a ruler with an appetite for excess. He became emperor of rome in 37 AD and very quickly squandered the state treasury that his predecessor, Tiberius, had amassed… but you already knew that.

Right?

So he liked to party! He was only about 25 when he became emperor and clearly hadn’t outgrown is fratboy phase. Give the guy a break! How good of a ruler can you be when your nickname means “Little Boot”?

This word is in need of a comeback, or any life at all; there doesn’t seem to be any record of its use other than the above citation. Despite our economic situation there isn’t a lack of opulence, ostentation, and extravagance in our society. All the rich, drunk, crazy celebrities hitting the front pages need new words to keep the stories fresh.

Journalists, this one’s for you! You’re welcome.

Verb. To annoy, irrititate.

There’s nothing niggles me more than cutting myself shaving.
- A Kind of Loving, Stan Barstow (1960)

The word has had many different meanings over the years but ‘to annoy’ is the most recent and the one I like best.

It’s almost too cute not to use, isn’t it? It has a savory sound to it. If it bugs you – it gets under your skin or pinches. If it pisses you off – it makes you angy. If it perturbs you – you’re vocabulary is above average. If it niggles you… what is it exactly?

I would probably use it to describe the little annoyances in life. As in the above example, to cut one’s self shaving; to misplace keys; to oversleep just enough to make you rush though the morning routine…

I get very niggled when pop-up ads flood my screen. What niggles you?