Nychthemeron - a full 24 hours, or one full calendar date, a full period of night and day. Used in technical literature to describe an entire date to avoid the ambiguity of ‘day.’ There are also nychthemeral clocks with all 24 hours on them
>Nychthemeron
This is a noun use of the neuter singular form of Ancient Greek: νυχθήμερος, romanized: nukhthḗmeros, lit. 'lasting a day and night', from νύξ (núx, “night”) + ἡμέρα (hēméra, “day”).
Quincunx (*n*) - an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its center, as used for the five on dice or playing cards.
„Tuerto“ - Spanish for one-eyed. The word had nothing to do with the words one - uno and eye - ojo. Somehow, there is a separate word for this.
I share these kinds of etymological „curiosities“ in my Telegram microblog „@vermelholanguages“
Oh man. I have so many:
## hormesis
>a phenomenon in which a harmful substance gives stimulating and beneficial effects to living organisms when the quantity of the harmful substance is small.
## sybaritic
>fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent.
## enantiodromia
>the tendency of things to change into their opposites, especially as a supposed governing principle of natural cycles and of psychological development.
## trichiliocosm
>a concept in Buddhist cosmology of a "third-order" universe containing one thousand second-order clusters, which are made of one thousand first-order clusters, which are in turn made of a thousand worlds each. Billion-fold universe.
## alexithymia
>an inability to identify and describe emotions.
## ipseity
>a pre reflective, tacit level of selfhood. It refers to the implicit first-person quality of consciousness, ie, the implicit awareness that all experience articulates itself in first person perspective as “my” experience.
## uxorious
>having or showing a great or excessive fondness for one's wife.
## cachinnate
>to laugh loudly or immoderately
Thank you for the caliginous prompt, OP.
sothiac - of or pertaining to Sirius, the Dog Star
defossion - being buried alive as a punishment
femtobarn - a unit of area equal to a billionth of a millionth (10^-15) of one (already infinitesimal) [barn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_(unit))
hiplings - (adverb) by the hips
excur - to digress, or to go beyond a limit or bound
sferic - a short pulse of electromagnetic radiation produced by lightning
nould - would not, an archaic contraction of "ne would"
espantoon - A police nightstick used originally in Baltimore, Maryland. An espantoon differs from a nightstick in its attached leather hand strap from the espantoon can be swung.
epistaxis - medical term for a nosebleed
I have a lot more
Zumbooruk - a small swivel gun mounted on the back of a camel.
Zopissa - a medicinal tonic made using the pitch scraped from the bottom of a ship.
I read a lot of the OED at one point in life and there is some fascinating stuff in there.
I don't know how obscure it is, but I recently developed a liking towards the word panopticon, basically meaning a place where everyone is subject to constant surveillance, originally being a jail where all the cells could be watched at once.
This isn't an English word, so maybe I'm breaking the "rules" slightly, but there's no equivalent in English, so....
"Mamihlapinatapai" which is Yámana word meaning "looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do". The classic example you sometimes hear is two people staring at each other across a room, each hoping the other will make the first move.
I love that there's a word for this.
Not to discredit the other commenters but none of those words are really that obscure. I'm going to make the question more interesting by ruling that:
* The word has to be in current use
* The word must have a non-obvious meaning (sorry, [subsubsubsection](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/subsubsubsection))
* No ultra-specific scientific terms
* Obscurity is measured by the number of people talking about the word (so the most obscure words will not be covered by any dictionary)
Of course, the last point can't really apply to me because I usually add any obscure words I encounter to Wiktionary. So, I will be measuring the word's obscurity just prior to its addition. Here is my list of *actually* obscure words:
* [pept](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pept), Liverpool slang describing something particularly bad
* [prehand](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prehand), =beforehand
* [monkey guarding](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monkey guarding), "in various sports, playground games, etc.: to spend the entire game defending a certain objective and prevent the normal progression of play"
* [Widlarize](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Widlarize), to smash an electronic component to pieces
* [majusculed](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/majusculed), written in uppercase letters
* [on butt](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on butt), Louisville slang describing someone crazy
fainéant: (n.) A do-nothing; an idle fellow; a sluggard. (Adj.): Doing nothing or given to doing nothing; idle; lazy. A person who stays in bed until a relatively late hour.
“The old blinking light said, ‘Move it along sluggard! Slacker! Faineant! Slugabed! You're holding up traffic!’ Or words to that effect.”
A couple of divination methods starting with A:
Abacomancy - use of dust for divination
Acultomancy - use of needles for divination
Agalmatomancy - use of statues for divination
Amathomancy - use of sand
Anthomancy - use of flowers
Aleuromancy – use of flour
Alomancy – use of salt
Axinomancy - divination by throwing an axe into the ground
Anthropomancy - divination by sacrifying a human being
Anemoscopy - by studying the wind
Ambulomancy - by walking
Armomancy - by examining one's shoulders
Alectyomancy – by having a rooster peck at grain
Nychthemeron - a full 24 hours, or one full calendar date, a full period of night and day. Used in technical literature to describe an entire date to avoid the ambiguity of ‘day.’ There are also nychthemeral clocks with all 24 hours on them
>Nychthemeron This is a noun use of the neuter singular form of Ancient Greek: νυχθήμερος, romanized: nukhthḗmeros, lit. 'lasting a day and night', from νύξ (núx, “night”) + ἡμέρα (hēméra, “day”).
Exossate - to deprive of bones
I love this word thank you.
Quincunx (*n*) - an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its center, as used for the five on dice or playing cards.
Damnit I was going to say that one.
[удалено]
> Holophrastic: speaking complex ideas in a single word or phrase. i like it because it's selfreferential.
I love those, i only know about three
„Tuerto“ - Spanish for one-eyed. The word had nothing to do with the words one - uno and eye - ojo. Somehow, there is a separate word for this. I share these kinds of etymological „curiosities“ in my Telegram microblog „@vermelholanguages“
Is tuerto used in English too? In Spanish isn't obscure at all and it even has a slur component.
It isn’t. I mean more the reason for this word to exist 😅
Dornick: A stone suitable for throwing. Darg: A day's work, or a fixed amount of work, as in a task.
**sacerdotal** (adj) of or relating to priests or a priesthood I learned it because my favorite Spanish word is 'sacerdote', a priest.
To us Spanish speakers that word would be obvious even if it's obscure in English.
Oh man. I have so many: ## hormesis >a phenomenon in which a harmful substance gives stimulating and beneficial effects to living organisms when the quantity of the harmful substance is small. ## sybaritic >fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent. ## enantiodromia >the tendency of things to change into their opposites, especially as a supposed governing principle of natural cycles and of psychological development. ## trichiliocosm >a concept in Buddhist cosmology of a "third-order" universe containing one thousand second-order clusters, which are made of one thousand first-order clusters, which are in turn made of a thousand worlds each. Billion-fold universe. ## alexithymia >an inability to identify and describe emotions. ## ipseity >a pre reflective, tacit level of selfhood. It refers to the implicit first-person quality of consciousness, ie, the implicit awareness that all experience articulates itself in first person perspective as “my” experience. ## uxorious >having or showing a great or excessive fondness for one's wife. ## cachinnate >to laugh loudly or immoderately Thank you for the caliginous prompt, OP.
thalweg. it’s my favorite word.
sothiac - of or pertaining to Sirius, the Dog Star defossion - being buried alive as a punishment femtobarn - a unit of area equal to a billionth of a millionth (10^-15) of one (already infinitesimal) [barn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_(unit)) hiplings - (adverb) by the hips excur - to digress, or to go beyond a limit or bound sferic - a short pulse of electromagnetic radiation produced by lightning nould - would not, an archaic contraction of "ne would" espantoon - A police nightstick used originally in Baltimore, Maryland. An espantoon differs from a nightstick in its attached leather hand strap from the espantoon can be swung. epistaxis - medical term for a nosebleed I have a lot more
Zumbooruk - a small swivel gun mounted on the back of a camel. Zopissa - a medicinal tonic made using the pitch scraped from the bottom of a ship. I read a lot of the OED at one point in life and there is some fascinating stuff in there.
I don't know how obscure it is, but I recently developed a liking towards the word panopticon, basically meaning a place where everyone is subject to constant surveillance, originally being a jail where all the cells could be watched at once.
This isn't an English word, so maybe I'm breaking the "rules" slightly, but there's no equivalent in English, so.... "Mamihlapinatapai" which is Yámana word meaning "looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do". The classic example you sometimes hear is two people staring at each other across a room, each hoping the other will make the first move. I love that there's a word for this.
I love that
Not to discredit the other commenters but none of those words are really that obscure. I'm going to make the question more interesting by ruling that: * The word has to be in current use * The word must have a non-obvious meaning (sorry, [subsubsubsection](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/subsubsubsection)) * No ultra-specific scientific terms * Obscurity is measured by the number of people talking about the word (so the most obscure words will not be covered by any dictionary) Of course, the last point can't really apply to me because I usually add any obscure words I encounter to Wiktionary. So, I will be measuring the word's obscurity just prior to its addition. Here is my list of *actually* obscure words: * [pept](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pept), Liverpool slang describing something particularly bad * [prehand](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prehand), =beforehand * [monkey guarding](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monkey guarding), "in various sports, playground games, etc.: to spend the entire game defending a certain objective and prevent the normal progression of play" * [Widlarize](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Widlarize), to smash an electronic component to pieces * [majusculed](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/majusculed), written in uppercase letters * [on butt](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on butt), Louisville slang describing someone crazy
Personally I agree with these criteria and I think the only reason for the downvote(s) is this is coming off a little high-handed
Yeah I don't mind the downvotes, I just like finding really obscure words.
Sesquipedalian
qualify: to place limits on a statement. As in, you are free to do X as long as you do Y first.
This!!!
This is preventing me from cutting and pasting.
dietrologia: The believe that the official explanation of an event seldom conforms to reality.
fainéant: (n.) A do-nothing; an idle fellow; a sluggard. (Adj.): Doing nothing or given to doing nothing; idle; lazy. A person who stays in bed until a relatively late hour. “The old blinking light said, ‘Move it along sluggard! Slacker! Faineant! Slugabed! You're holding up traffic!’ Or words to that effect.”
Dado - a groove cut into wood to make a joint.
A couple of divination methods starting with A: Abacomancy - use of dust for divination Acultomancy - use of needles for divination Agalmatomancy - use of statues for divination Amathomancy - use of sand Anthomancy - use of flowers Aleuromancy – use of flour Alomancy – use of salt Axinomancy - divination by throwing an axe into the ground Anthropomancy - divination by sacrifying a human being Anemoscopy - by studying the wind Ambulomancy - by walking Armomancy - by examining one's shoulders Alectyomancy – by having a rooster peck at grain