verb. TO SMASHTICATE

Nay, if you be no better in the Reare then in the Van I shall make no doubt to vanquish, and vanquash you, too, before we part.
Dick of Devon (c1626)

The OED is boring. The definition there is “To Smash,” but that doesn’t really conjure the meaning I think of when I hear vanquash. It conjured the word vanquish (to deafeat, conquer) along with squash. If something has been vanquashed, it wasn’t just smashed, it was annihilated, (Check out Charles Hodgson’s excellent post/podcast on annihilate), hence my definition of SMASHTICATE.

It’s a very useful word, especially when describing incredible feats and defeats in history. Remember when the Rebels blew up the second Death Star? Empire got totally vanquashed.

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.

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.

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!

verb. To live in a remote, rural, or provincial place.

Bankrupt scholars, whose parents had been mofussilising in an inordinate degree.
Qualk The Circumnavigator, George Augustus Sala (1863)

Here’s a word I’d never heard before. Mofussil is an Anglo-Indian word that refers to a rural part of India. Whew knew? I obviously haven’t spent enough time fossicking through my dictionaries.

My research shows that these parts of the country were so called because there was alway’s mo’ fussin’ going on. By research I mean imagination. My teachers never liked my research papers for that reason.

I have never mofussilized but I have traveled to mofussilitory areas, becoming a temporary mofussilizer. Have you traveled to or lived in a mofussil? If so, how did you survive without internet?

verb. To puff up, to swell.

The inflamed gout of polemical controversy..had gumfiated every mental joint and member of that zealous prop of the Relief Kirk.
The Ayrshire legatees, John Galt (1820)

I hit my shin with a piece of wood last weekend — it immediately gumfiated. The painful gumfiation lasted for a few days, but now it’s back to normal.

This word is related to conflate but they don’t see each-other except at reunions and thanksgiving.

This word’s mouthfeel makes me think that this term can be best used to describe swellings that are particularly gross. To swell sounds logical and pretty straightforward, but to gumfiate sounds so much worse. I attribute that to the “guh” sound. You know, the sound of something gross and swollen.

verb.  To take part in a boozing party, to booze.

Never boozify a second time with the man whom you have seen misbehave himself in his cups.
Blackwood’s Magazine (1824)

What a fun intransitive verb! And useful too. Use of this and related words would help solve the ambiguity of the word drink. Drink refers to both all beverage as well as those that contain alcohol. And used as a verb, to drink means to ingest a beverage, as in “to drink a glass of water,” but also the alcoholic version “to drink an Irish car bomb.”

I submit that we should separate the two meanings. To go out drinking is now to boozify. There’s a word for it, let’s use it! Perhaps we change drinking [alcohol] to boozification. Next time you go to Las Vegas for a wild time you can call it a boozification vacation. If it’s too wild the janitors will be doing some swabification.

Maybe we can’t change or separate the meanings but I can dream, can’t I? It would sure make some interactions easier.

“Do you drink?”
“Everyone drinks. Otherwise we’d die.”
“Shut up.”

That must be why I don’t boozify too often.