that as 'a-hole,' then think again. Aholehole is pronounced
“ah-holy-holy,” and is the name of a species of Hawaiian flagtail
fish native to the central Pacific.
2. AKTASHITE
Aktashite is a rare mineral used
commercially as an ore of arsenic, copper, and mercury. It takes
its name from the village of Aktash in eastern Russia, where it was
first discovered in 1968. The final –ite , incidentally, is the
same mineralogical suffix as in words like graphite and
kryptonite.
3. ASSAPANICK
While exploring the coast of
Virginia in 1606, Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) wrote in
his journal of a creature known to local tribes as the assapanick .
By 'spreading their legs, and so stretching the largeness of their
skins,' he wrote, 'they have been seen to fly 30 or 40 yards.'
Assapanick is another name for the flying squirrel.
4. ASSART
Assart is an old medieval English
legal term for an area of forested land that has been converted
into arable land for growing crops. It can also be used as a verb
meaning 'to deforest,' preparing wooded land for farming.
5. BASTINADO
Derived from bastón, the Spanish
word for a cane or walking stick, bastinado is an old 16th century
word for a thrashing or caning, especially on the soles of the
feet.
6. BOOBYALLA
As well as being the name of a
former shipping port in northern Tasmania, boobyalla is also an
Aborigine name for the wattlebird, one of a family of honeyeaters
native to much of Australia.
7. BUM-BAILIFF
In his Dictionary of the
English Language (1755), Samuel Johnson described a bum-bailiff as
'a bailiff of the meanest kind,' and in particular, 'one that is
employed in arrests.'
8. BUMFIDDLER
To bumfiddle means to pollute
or spoil something, in particular by scribbling or drawing on a
document to make it invalid. A bumfiddler is someone who does
precisely that.
9. BUMMALO
Like the aholehole, the bummalo is
another tropical fish, in this case a southeast Asian lizardfish.
When listed on Indian menus it goes by the slightly more appetizing
name of “Bombay duck.”
10. CLATTERFART
According to a Tudor
dictionary published in 1552, a clatterfart is someone who 'wyl
disclose anye light secreate'—in other words, it’s a gossip or
blabbermouth.
11. COCKAPERT
Cockapert is an Elizabethan
name for 'a saucy fellow' according to the Oxford English
Dictionary, but it can also be used as an adjective meaning
'impudent' or 'smart-alecky.'
12. COCK-BELL
A cock-bell can be a small
handbell, a type of wildflower that grows in the spring, and an old
English dialect word for an icicle. In any case, it’s derived from
coque, the French word for a seashell.
13. COCKCHAFER
The cockchafer is a large
beetle native to Europe and western Asia. The origin of its name is
a mystery, but one theory claims the beetles are so
characteristically aggressive that they can be made to
fight one another like cockerels.
14. DIK-DIK
Standing little more than a foot
tall at the shoulder, the dik-dik is one of the smallest antelopes
in all of Africa. Their name is apparently an imitation of their
alarm call.
15. DREAMHOLE
A dreamhole is a small slit or
opening made in the wall of a building to let in sunlight or fresh
air. It was also once used to refer to holes in watchtowers used by
lookouts and guards, or to openings left in the walls of church
towers to amplify the sounds of the bells.
16. FANNY-BLOWER
According to one 19th
century glossary of industrial slang, a fanny-blower or fanner was
'used in the scissor-grinding industry,' and comprised 'a wheel
with vanes, fixed onto a rotating shaft, enclosed in a case or
chamber to create a blast of air.' In other words, it’s a
fan.
17. FARTLEK
Fartlek is a form of athletic
training in which intervals of intensive and much less strenuous
exercise are alternated in one long continuous workout. It
literally means 'speed-play' in Swedish.
18. FUKSHEET
Fuk was an old Middle English
word for a sail, and in particular the foremost sail on a ship. A
fukmast, ultimately, is a ship’s foremast, while the fuksheet or
fuksail is the sail attached to the ship’s fukmast.
19. GULLGROPER
To grope a gull is an old
Tudor English expression meaning 'to take advantage of someone,' or
'to swindle an unsuspecting victim'—and a gullgroper does just
that.
20. HABOOB
Taking its name from an Arabic
word meaning 'blustering' or 'blowing,' a haboob is a dry wind that
blows across deserts, dustbowls, and other arid regions often at
great speed, forming vast sandstorms as it goes. Haboobs are
typically caused by the collapse of a cold front of air, which
blasts dust and sediment up from the desert floor as it
falls.
21. HUMPENSCRUMP
The Oxford English
Dictionary calls a humpenscrump 'a musical instrument of rude
construction.' Alongside others like humstrum, celestinette and
wind-broach, it was originally another name for the
hurdy-gurdy.
22. INVAGINATION
Invagination is simply the
process of putting something inside something else (and in
particular, a sword into a scabbard), or else is the proper name
for turning something inside out. The opposite is called
evagination.
23. JACULATE
Jaculation is the act of
throwing or jostling something around, while to jaculate means 'to
rush or jolt forward suddenly.'
24. JERKINHEAD
A jerkinhead is a roof that is
only partly gabled (i.e., only forms part of a triangle beneath its
eaves) and is instead levelled or squared off at the top, forming a
flattened area known as a 'hip.' Jerkinheads are also known as
'half-hipped' or 'clipped-gable' roofs.
25. KNOBSTICK
As well as being an old
nickname for a walking stick or truncheon, knobstick is an old 19th
century slang word for a workman who breaks a strike, or for a
person hired to take the place of a striking employee.
26. KUMBANG
Like the haboob, the kumbang is
another hot, arid wind, in this case one that blows seasonally in
the lowlands of western Indonesia.
27. LOBCOCKED
Lobcock is an old Tudor English
word for an idiot or an unsophisticated, clownish bumpkin.
Lobcocked is an equally ancient adjective meaning 'boorish' or
'naïve.'
28. NESTLE-COCK
A nestle-cock is the last
bird to hatch from a clutch of eggs. It dates from the early 1600s,
when it was also used as a nickname for an overly spoilt or
pampered child.
29. NICKER-PECKER
Nicker-pecker is an old
English dialect name for the European green woodpecker, the largest
woodpecker native to Great Britain. In this context nicker is
probably a derivative of nick, meaning a small cut or
scratch.
30. NOBBER
In early 19th century English,
boxers were nicknamed nobbers, a name apparently derived from the
earlier use of nobber as a slang name for a punch or blow to the
head.
31. NODGECOCK
Nodgecock, like lobcock, is
another Tudor word for a fool or simpleton. It likely derives from
an even earlier word, noddypoll, for someone who senselessly nods
their head in agreement with any idea, no matter how good or bad it
might be.
32. PAKAPOO
Pakapoo is a 19th century
Australian word for a lottery or raffle. It apparently derives from
a Cantonese phrase, baahk gáap piu, literally meaning 'white pigeon
ticket'—the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that in the original
form of the game, a white dove might have been trained to select
the winning ticket from all of the entries.
33. PENIAPHOBIA
Definitely not what it sounds
like, peniaphobia is actually the fear of poverty.
34. PENISTONE
Penistone (pronounced
“pen-is-tun”, before you ask) is the name of a picturesque market
town in Yorkshire, England, which has given its name to both a type
of coarse woollen fabric and a type of locally produced
sandstone.
35. PERSHITTIE
The Scots word pershittie
means 'prim,' or 'overly meticulous.' It’s one of a family of late
18th–early 19th century Scots words all of similar meaning,
including perjinkity, perskeety, and, most familiar of all,
pernickety.
36. PISSALADIÈRE
Pissalat is a condiment
popular in southern French cookery made from puréed anchovies and
olive oil, mixed with garlic, pepper, and herbs. It’s used to make
a type of open bread tart called a pissaladière, which is flavoured
with onions and black olives.
37. PISSASPHALT
Pissasphalt is a thick
semi-liquid form of bitumen, similar to tar. The first part of the
name is the Greek word for pitch, pissa.
38. POONGA
Poonga oil is obtained from the
seeds of the Indian beech tree, Pongamia pinnata, and is widely
used across southern India as everything from a skin treatment to a
replacement for diesel in engines and generators.
39. SACK-BUTT
Spelled with one T, a sackbut
is an early Renaissance brass instrument similar to a trombone.
Spelled with two Ts, a sack-butt is a wine barrel.
40. SEXAGESM
The adjective sexagesimal means
'relating to the number 60,' while anything that proceeds
sexagesimally does so in sets of 60 at a time. A sexagesm,
ultimately, is one-sixtieth of something.
41. SEXANGLE
Both sexangle and the equally
indelicate sexagon are simply old 17th century names for what is
otherwise known as a hexagon, a plane geometric shape with six
sides. The prefix sexa– is derived from the Latin word for 'six'
rather than its Greek equivalent, heks.
42. SEXFOILED
Dating back to the Middle
English period, foil is an old-fashioned name for a leaf or petal,
which is retained in the names of plants like the bird’s-foot
trefoil, a type of clover, and the creeping cinquefoil, a
low-growing weed of the rose family. A sexfoil is ultimately a
six-leaved plant or flower, or a similarly-shaped architectural
design or ornament incorporating six leaves or lobes.
43. SHITTAH
The shittah is a type of acacia
tree native to Arabia and north-east Africa that is mentioned in
the Old Testament Book of Isaiah as one of the trees that God 'will
plant in the wilderness' of Israel, alongside the cedar, pine, and
myrtle. Its name was adopted into English from Hebrew in the early
Middle Ages, but it can probably be traced all the way back to an
Ancient Egyptian word for a thorn-tree.
44. SKIDDY-COCK
Billcock , brook-ouzel,
oar-cock, velvet runner, grey-skit, and skiddy-cock are all old
English dialect names for the water rail, a small and notoriously
elusive wading bird found in the wetlands of Europe, Asia, and
north Africa. The name skiddy-cock is thought to be derived from
skit, an old 17th century word meaning 'to act shyly,' or 'to move
rapidly and quickly'—but it could just as probably be derived from
an even older 15th century word, skitter, meaning 'to produce
watery excrement.'
45. SLAGGER
In 19th century English, a
slagger was a workman in a blast furnace whose job it was to siphon
off the stony waste material, or slag, that is produced when raw
metals and ores are melted at high temperatures. Even earlier than
that, in 16th century English, slagger was a verb, variously used
to mean 'to loiter' or 'creep,' or 'to stumble' or 'walk
awkwardly.'
46. TEASE-HOLE
Staying with furnaces, a
tease-hole is simply the opening in a glassmaker’s furnace through
which the fuel is added.
47. TETHERADICK
Sheep farmers in some rural
parts of Britain once had their own traditional counting systems,
many of which are particularly ancient and predate even the Norman
and Anglo-Saxon invasions of England. Most of these counting
systems vanished during the Industrial Revolution, but several
remain in use locally and have become fossilised in local rhymes,
sayings and folk songs. Tether was an old Lake District name for
the number three, while dick was the number ten; tetheradick,
ultimately, was a count of 13.
48. TIT-BORE
Tit-bore—or tit-bore-tat-bore,
in full—is an old 17th century Scots name for a game of peekaboo.
It was once also called hitty-titty, as was, incidentally, hide and
go seek.
49. TIT-TYRANT
The tit-tyrants are a family
of eight species of flycatcher native to the Andes Mountains and
the westernmost rainforests of South America. One of the species,
the ash-breasted tit-tyrant, is one of the world’s most endangered
birds with fewer than 1000 individuals left in a handful of remote,
high-altitude sites in Peru and Bolivia.
50. WANKAPIN
Wankapin, or water chinquapin,
is another name for the American lotus, Nelumbo lutea, a flowering
plant native to Central American wetlands. The lotus was apparently
introduced to what is now the southern United States by native
tribes who would use the plant’s tubers and seeds (known as
'alligator corn') as a source of food.
