Why use common words like untidy, contemptible, vain, simple, etc., when describing a person when there are so many fun words available to use?
prickmedainty – This word has a much different meaning than I thought it would. Oh, and this is a Scottish word. If someone describes you as a prickmedainty, they are saying you are affectedly nice or a goody-goody, one who is ingratiatingly good or proper. Or they could be saying you are a fop, one who is devoted to or vain about his appearance or dress.
draggletailed – Draggletailed is a fun word to use (at least I think it is) when describing someone as dirty or untidy. As a transitive verb, draggle means to make wet and dirty by dragging. As an intransitive verb, draggle means to trail on the ground.
dandiprat – A dandiprat is a silver coin of 16th-century England, equal to about twopence. But that isn’t the definition I’m looking for. How could this word describe a person? A dandiprat is someone who is insignificant or contemptible. It is a child or someone of small stature.
gaberlunzie– Calling someone a gaberlunzie might sound better than calling them a beggar, but a gaberlunzie is a licensed professional beggar, especially one who wanders around. I didn’t realize that one could get a license to be a beggar. But if you need to beg, how could you afford one?
grumbletonian – A grumbletonian does just what the word makes is sound like he would do; he complains or grumbles all the time. Do you know a person who does this?
pejorist – A pessimist is someone who always sees or anticipates the worst and is probably a grumbletonian. A pessimist would likely also be a pejorist, someone who believes the world is progressively getting worse.
toplofty – A toplofty person is arrogant, haughty, and condescending. Toplofty sounds as though it is high and above the rest, a stuck-up word.
worrywart – I’m pretty sure you know at least one worrywart, a person who worries, often needlessly, about almost everything. In the 1920s, there was actually a comic strip character named Worry Wart, but instead of worrying about everything, he just annoyed everyone else, causing them to worry. Could this be where the word worrywart comes from?
verigreen – I get so many emails that are obviously junk or spam. One of them will try and tell me that my credit card has just been charged for a year of Microsoft Word. Now I do have Microsoft Word, and I do pay a subscription fee for it each year, but it’s nowhere near the $399 or more that these scammers tell me they are charging me. And I never get just one at a time. Usually I get three or four at a time, each from a different address. Now a simple or gullible person, a verigreen, one who has just started getting emails and is inexperienced at telling which ones are real and which ones are scams, could possibly be taken in by such emails.
faitour – If you want to call someone a cheat, an imposter, or a fake, but don’t want anyone to realize what you have done, faitour is your word. It looks as though it would be rather tricky to pronounce, but it isn’t; it rhymes with later. This word is now mostly obsolete, so very few people know its meaning.
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