skewwhiff
When I read this word in Perdido Street Station, I assumed it was a misprint; but I looked it up, and sure enough, "skewwhiff" is an adjective or adverb from...
Archive for New-to-me Words
bunny boiler
According to Wikipedia, a "bunny boiler" is "an obsessive and dangerous individual, most commonly referring to a jilted lover who is stalking the person who has spurned her or him....
mani-pedi
I heard someone say on the phone recently that they were going to get a mani-pedi. At first I thought they'd said "Moneypenny," but then I parsed it correctly as...
vaticination
I had originally intended this blog to focus primarily on new coinages, to be a resource for early citations for dictionary makers and such. 'Cause, y'know, I figured I already...
can of corn
In a submission, I encountered the phrase "can of corn" as a baseball term; hadn't heard it before, so went and looked it up. Apparently it refers to a baseball...
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)
Apparently the term "UFO" is out; in its place, "UAP," for "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," is gaining popularity. Jon Hilkevitch of the Chicago Tribune says: The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term...
double-gaited
Apparently "double-gaited" means "bisexual," according to Chapman's American Slang. I encountered it in a 1981 Elmore Leonard novel: "[...] Yeah, I think he's fucking her. I think he'd be out...
junglist
A "junglist" is someone who listens to jungle, of course. Turns out that "jungle" is "a style of electronic music that incorporates influences from genres including breakbeat hardcore, techno, rare...
hustings
A recent Doonesbury strip used the phrase "hit the hustings." Turns out that (says Wikipedia) a "husting" is "the platform from which a candidate speaks before a parliamentary or other...
flaneur
I'm cheating a little, 'cause I may have heard the word "flâneur" before; but it came up twice in unrelated contexts on the same day, a month or so back,...