cordialplay - my friend called me it. I had no idea if it was compliment, insult or backhanded compliment. Cordial describes someone or something that is politely pleasant and friendly.

Cordial describes someone or something that is politely pleasant and friendly.

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ClericalRogue@reddit

Twatting - in reference to hitting someone. I'd never heard it before and thought someone was pulling my leg, instead found out its mostly used up north.

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Ok-Ebb5960@reddit

We need to make this a team sport yes?! 🤨

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fishfingerchipbean@reddit

Used commonly UK wide to mean headbutting, I thought.

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I’m wide and common and from London and we use it to mean hitting anything with anything in any fashion. Golf? Just twat it. TV broken? Twat it. Fellow behaving reformishly down the ‘spoons? Fucking twat him.

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chemical-realm@reddit

Needs a good twatting.....

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DaveBacon@reddit

I grew up in the midlands in the 80s and we used it there too. e.g. “I’m going to twat you” etc.

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Brilliant_Ask_82@reddit

Correct it was common in the 1990s.

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TelephoneOrnery1394@reddit

Bukkake - erm. wish I hadn’t

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The_Fyrewyre@reddit

It's a type of noodle.

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AlucardVTep3s@reddit

I thought that was Buldak?

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The_Fyrewyre@reddit

Look it up.

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Acceptable-Sentence@reddit

Why do they never seem to get it IN their mouths?

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VarangianWRLD@reddit

vicissitude

Jestergooning

The duality of man and all that

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blinkclink@reddit

secular

/sĕk′yə-lər/

adjective

Worldly rather than spiritual. the secular affairs of the parish.
Not relating to religion or to a religious body; nonreligious. secular music.
Not bound by the full monastic rule of a religious order. Used of clergy.

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Sasspishus@reddit

Not heard, but read it in a book: catamite. Turns out it's the victim of a peado priest in US English :(

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Electrical_Trade377@reddit

ataraxia

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VisionInMidfield@reddit (OP)

meaning?

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Electrical_Trade377@reddit

“a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety, especially as an ongoing condition of soul-fulfilling attainment; unconditional tranquility”

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mdmnl@reddit

I've never been but the brochure looks nice

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Electrical_Trade377@reddit

it’s just off the corner of the a13 and has two percy ingles and a luscious bit of pavement, can’t complain tbf

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evenstevens280@reddit

Timorous

It means "shy"

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MrsWaltonGoggins@reddit

I think every Scottish person knows this from learning about Robert Burns’ at school! His famous “To A Mouse” poem (where the phrase “the best laid plans of mice and men” originated) begins:

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie

(Little, sleek, cowering, timorous beast)

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General_Ignoranse@reddit

Sagacious - able to understand difficult ideas lol

I genuinely love looking new words up when I heard them. As a kid my mum would get me to look them up in the massive dictionary and that was so fun

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Briggykins@reddit

Agog, because I saw it used in a way I thought was wrong. I thought it meant like surprised or astonished, but it actually means curious or eager to hear/see/experience something.

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NotThatGoodAnymore@reddit

supercilious

A book i was reading used it twice in one chapter. Even from context I couldn't figure it out

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mdmnl@reddit

Ha, had to look up supercilious, how plebeian.

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NotThatGoodAnymore@reddit

Very very well played

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mdmnl@reddit

Thank you - it was a bit of a gamble 😀

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CaptainMcClutch@reddit

The last thing I looked up was the difference between a pantry and a larder.

But the last meaning I had to look up was recalcitrant, defiance toward authority.

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PenneTracheotomy@reddit

Did you hear recalcitrant on the Harry Hill Show with Joe Lycett too?

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CaptainMcClutch@reddit

I actually didn't, I'd read it on a news article reporting a court case. 😅

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evenstevens280@reddit

Well... Don't leave us hanging. What is the difference between a pantry and a larder?

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CaptainMcClutch@reddit

A larder is a cool storage unit for perishable baking ingredients or produce. A pantry is usually larger room temperature unit for storing bread, drinks or crockery.

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Winston_Carbuncle@reddit

I'm guessing a six figure sum in the bank

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whispysteve@reddit

Titration.

Used in medicine (and chemistry) - means to try different strengths of a medicine to get the desired effect with no, or minimal, side effects.

In chemistry, mixing chemicals in various formulations to get a desired effect.

Galimaufry.

A jumbled mix of disparate things.

Originally French. A meal or soup make up of leftovers that don’t normally go together.

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AlucardVTep3s@reddit

“Knickerbocker” - loose fitting, knee length trousers

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Fantastic_Back3191@reddit

Cromulent.

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musicallymotivated93@reddit

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

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Veeb@reddit

Using it correctly embiggens your lexicon.

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Fantastic_Back3191@reddit

I don't think its a real word, i think its made up

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Tight-Principle-743@reddit

Well now you’re just sounding like a Kwjibo.

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Veeb@reddit

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

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Unbeknownsttooyou@reddit

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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teut509@reddit

All words are made up

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West_Yorkshire@reddit

Did you hear it from Lewis Brindley per chance?

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Old_Introduction_395@reddit

Cleithrophobia

Fear of being trapped in a tight space. It was apropos the Nutty Putty Cave. Not an irrational fear.

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TangaroaBrit@reddit

My wife hates it when I call it the Nutty Putty Cave.

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MrHlk2020@reddit

Dictionary. Had no idea what it meant.

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sneakylithops@reddit

Ordure

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Icy-Hippopotenuse@reddit

Castellated, i knew crenellated but i thought the alternative was made up estate agent language.

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MerchantofDoom@reddit

Carapace - gone my entire life not registering it until this year!

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mdmnl@reddit

Got that one from reading Goldfinger, of all places.

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horbu@reddit

Compersion. It’s the opposite of jealousy

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mdmnl@reddit

Damn I wish I'd been the one to post that.

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lapppiiii@reddit

Corpulent

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mdmnl@reddit

I'm big boned

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TheEnglishNorwegian@reddit

Swotty.

Basically just sweaty (as in try hard) with a speech impediment from what I can tell.

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Extension-Law-1575@reddit

Swot is the original sweat (us older folk really would have no clue what a sweat was but if you called us a swot we’d get you!)

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TheEnglishNorwegian@reddit

How old are we going here? Because I never once heard swot as a teachers pet / studious thing until very recently, where as sweaty goes back at least 20 years if not more. Kids who would try hard would be called sweaty in whatever context. You could be a sweaty students a sweaty gamer and so on.

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DameKumquat@reddit

I've never heard sweaty in that sense! I'm 50 and it's been swotty all my life, but swotting goes back to the 1920s or earlier - used by Enid Blyton, Angela Brazil, PG Wodehouse. More recently for Hermione in Harry Potter.

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Extension-Law-1575@reddit

I left school over 30 years ago and we were still swots over sweats then

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TheEnglishNorwegian@reddit

Probably a regional thing. We mostly used sweats or boff.

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Objective_Quiet_751@reddit

I think "sweaty" in that context comes from gaming culture. I still instinctively get my hackles up if it's said with an English accent though, far too used to it being a xenophobic insult for decades.

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Brilliant_Ask_82@reddit

It's a way of insulting someone for being studeous, intelligent or putting in too much effort to appease a teacher

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Djinjja-Ninja@reddit

Swot Iin British English is a synonym for teachers pet.

It's a derogatory term for someone who studies excessively or acts like an overachieving student.

So bring swotty would be studying when you don't need to.

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MEaster@reddit

Amanuensis. That one came up in A History of Middle Earth, and I had to look it up.

It roughly means a person who makes a copy of a document.

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DameKumquat@reddit

Also used when people need to dictate their exams to someone who writes on their behalf.

It's the writing someone's thoughts that makes it different from a scribe. IIRC

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Flimsy_Pie2947@reddit

Troglodyte

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Which_Performance_72@reddit

"look up there"

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rubberbandhands@reddit

Emolument. An emolument is a legal term for any salary or profit derived from employment, service, or holding an office.

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BuncleCar@reddit

Some of this is social - eg when I was young, in the 1950s, my mother made meals in the scullery. Later in she announced the scullery had now become the kitchen, and a few years later it became the kitchenette, though it hadn't reduced in size.

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GerryPrecious@reddit

Sluce.

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Laorii@reddit

Sluice though.

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GerryPrecious@reddit

Thanks

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BuncleCar@reddit

Someone asked me some 50 years ago the difference between continuous and contiguous. I waffled for a while then had to admit I didn't know. He explained that the land in the UK mainland was continuous, allowing for streams and rivers, but if you looked in a map then the counties, for example, weren't continuous, but divided by lines, which you didn't see in the real world.

The counties were therefore contiguous, but the land was continuous.

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LoudCar7846@reddit

Pedestrian (adjective) - ordinary, boring, mundane

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PiesPiesAndPies@reddit

Some walks are wonderful

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Salt-Evidence-6834@reddit

I had to look up the difference between recurring & reoccurring. I possibly assumed they were meant the same thing. I was wrong.

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Embarrassed_Park2212@reddit

Subliminal

I have wonderful brain fog so can randomly forget words or phrases usually mid conversation. But I was looking up the word for when someone is trying to get you to do something without actually asking. I remembered the subliminal bit but not the other word.

Subliminal messages.

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OedipusRe10@reddit

Abstruse

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Parking-Tip1685@reddit

Logophile. Someone with a passion for words.

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Unbeknownsttooyou@reddit

Ad hominem. It's a phrase used on Reddit by people who got their feelings hurt and want to sound smart.

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obbitz@reddit

Proctosculator.

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jptoc@reddit

Trammel! Never heard it before and it's a cool word.

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Imtryingforheckssake@reddit

Isthmus

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CouchKakapo@reddit

Ontology

I think it means the concept of existence, but I'm still a bit confused. Which tracks.

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Ok-You4214@reddit

Ephemeral - not because I didn’t know it but because every time I see it used, it doesn’t mean what the writer thinks

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limboxd@reddit

Sequelae - chronic complication from another health issue. 99% of mine would be medical terms admittedly

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_gothick@reddit

“Hautbois”, which is an old name for the oboe. I’m reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, so that might not count as having “heard” it, mind.

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Ruddington9@reddit

Valhalla

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KFlaps@reddit

I love to look up words and I try to keep a list of new ones I learn. These are three of my most recent:

Sonder

The profound feeling of realising that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.

Genuflect

Lower one's body briefly by bending one knee to the ground, typically in worship or as a sign of respect:

"she genuflected and crossed herself"

Balletic

Relating to or characteristic of ballet: "a graceful, balletic movement"

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BeardedBaldMan@reddit

Katabasis - a journey to the underworld and I also had to look up the pronunciation

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OddPerspective9833@reddit

Touristic - apparently it's common for ESL speakers to use it instead of touristy

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Boniouk84@reddit

42 year old male and my 4 year old daughter asked me to read the Blurb on the back of the book.

Humbled

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VisionInMidfield@reddit (OP)

also include meaning of the word

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longbottomleaf29@reddit

perseverate

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Ravdoggydog@reddit

Yappertron - someone who talks a lot. (Son and friends got warning for calling each other in the playground )

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VisionInMidfield@reddit (OP)

I’ll start
Trendslop - low-effort online content made to chase viral popularity.

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