balatronic

Pertaining to buffoons.

Like me!!

colt's-tooth

A love of youthful pleasure.

I love colt's tooth!!!

sackbut

An ancient trombone-like instrument.

Who knew?

imberb

A rare word that means beardless.

croodle

To snuggle.

nicknackatory

It's a toy store.

dog's nose

A mixture of ale and gin enjoyed by Londoners in the 19th century.

I always thought dog's nose was that smear left on the car window when my doggy smooshed her nose against the glass.

phobanthropy

Fear of mankind.

I guess that's kind of the opposite of philanthropy.

pinguescence

Here's a rare word for the process of becoming fat. From the Latin, pinquis, meaning fat. If you pinguefy something, you saturate it with oil, make it greasy.

abracadabra

The origin of this magician's word is from the Hebrew, avrei kadaber, meaning I Will create as I speak.

bumbledom

The pomposity and stupidity of government officials and other authority figures.

Apparently, it comes from the character Mr. Bumble who was the parish beadle in Oliver Twist.

conbobberation

A disturbance, a row.

There was quite a conbobberation downtown near the baseball stadium yesterday afternoon. I was walking to my car after work and a man was waving his arms and yelling at a woman seated at a vendor's table on the street. He was throwing the F-bomb and she was admonishing him to stop being a shithead. I have no idea what they were fighting about, but it didn't seem to be a big business draw. I had to laugh, though, as I passed the fighters and the table, the second vendor at the table yelled out at me, "PEANUTS! PISTACHIOS! CANDY!"

Like I'm going to suddenly stop and go back...OOO, candy! Ignore the man yelling the F-word. Buy some peanuts!

dumfungled

Another fun one...

It means used up.

miscomfrumple

I love the sound of this one.

It means to rumple or crease.

ludibrious

Obsolete word meaning scornful, mocking.

jingle brains

A wild, thoughtless, rattling fellow.
- Francis Grose's The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

The Dictionary of Thieving Slang (1721), says a jingle brains is "maggot-pated fellow."

Maggot-pated is an obsolete expression meaning silly.

quack oneself

A bit of slang today. It means to be a hypochondriac.

My new job has been super busy, so sorry the posts haven't been regular.

king's weather

This is what you call the vapors that you can sometimes see shimmering off the ground on a warm day.

No king's weather here in Cleveburg today. More like King Neptune's weather!

strewberries

Strawberries were originally called strewberries because the berries appeared strewn among the leaves of the plant. The name was changed through mispronunciation.

Did you know that strawberries are not berries? They are classified as an aggregate fruit - a fleshy fruit receptacle covered on the surface with single-seeded fruits. Berries are fruits with a soft ovary wall and a pit inside, such as blueberries or cranberries.

engastrimyth

A ventriloquist.

From Greek en meaning in, gaster meaning belly, and muthos meaning speech.