Pseudepigrapha

pseud-e-pi-graph-a (sd-pgr-f)

noun pl.
1. Spurious writings, especially writings falsely attributed to biblical characters or times.
Many old religious texts, outside of any particular religion's canon, are just pseudepigraphia. In secular, literary texts, scholars usually just apply the prefix "pseudo" to describe the text, as with all of the early twentieth-century pseudo-Oscar Wilde homosexual porn that Robert Ross fought so hard to get off the market.

2. A body of texts written between 200 b.c. and a.d. 200 and spuriously ascribed to various prophets and kings of Hebrew Scriptures.
When Derek's friend claimed to have never heard of any pseudepigrapha, Derek asked if she had ever heard of the bible.

Synonyms: apocryphal, pseudological.

Smithereens

smithereens (smi-thə-ˈrēnz)

noun
1. fragments or splintered bits.

Noel and Teddy’s discussion about railway safety had Mary picturing us all smashed to smithereens in a train accident.

Synonyms: atoms, bits, crumbs, dabs, dashes, drops, flyspecks, grains, granules, iotas, mites, modicums, particles, pittances, scraps, shreds, smidgens, specks, touches, traces.

* Of course, the singular form of smithereens would be smithereen, but that's not a very useful word. You are welcome to try, but, as of today, no one has answered the question: how can you use smithereen in a sentence.

** According to one source:

Smithereens is an Irish word. It derives from, or is possibly the source of, the modern Irish 'smidirín', which means 'small fragments'. There is a town near Baltimore, close to the south-west coast of Ireland, called Skibbereen. The name means 'little boat harbour' and it is tempting to imagine sailing ships arriving there from the wild Atlantic by being 'blown to Skibbereen'. The more recent 'Troubles' also bring up images of property/people being dynamited and 'blown to Skibbereen' from all over Ireland. There's no record of any such phrase however, and the similarity between the words Skibbereen and smithereens seems to be no more than co-incidence.

Another enticing notion as to the source of smithereens is that it refers to the shards of metal formed when iron is forged and hammered in a smithy. Again, there's nothing but wishful thinking to support that idea. The actual origin is more prosaic. 'Smiodar' means fragments in Irish. 'Een' is a commonplace diminutive ending, as in colleen (girl), i.e. Caile(country woman) + een. Similarly, smiodar + een lead us to smithereen. As with many words that are inherited from other languages, it took some time for the English spelling to become stable. Both 'smiddereens' and 'shivereens' are recorded in the mid 19th century.

The notion of things being 'broken/smashed/blown to smithereens' dates from at least the turn of the 19th century. Francis Plowden, in The History of Ireland, 1801, records a threat made against a Mr. Pounden by a group of Orangemen: "If you don't be off directly, by the ghost of William, our deliverer, and by the orange we wear, we will break your carriage in smithereens, and hough your cattle and burn your house."

['Hough' is a variant of 'hock' - to disable by cutting the tendons]

Smithereens is one of those unusual nouns that, like suds and secateurs, never venture out by themselves - the word is always plural.

Tyromancy

ty-ro-man-cy (tie-row-man-see)

noun
1. An old form of divination based on interpretations from cheese. Unfortunately, the method does not appear to have been recorded.

Tyromancy always reassures us that the future is gouda. 

Synonyms: beware of munsters, harzer days ahead, palmita reading, havarti dreams come true. 

Percontation

per-con-ta-tion

noun
1. A question or inquiry which requires more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

Twenty Questions is a game of percontations; a percontation point, however, is punctuation used for irony.

Synonyms: backwards question mark.

Effete

effete (ɛˈfiːt)

adjective

1. impotent.
In effete attempts to prove their virility, so many set out to lure a woman to bed, when the real adventure is loving her.

Synonyms: barren, crippled, dud, enervated, enfeebled, feeble, forceless, frail, gutless, helpless, inadequate, incapable, incapacitated, incompetent, ineffective, ineffectual, inept, infecund, infirm, nerveless, paper tiger, paralyzed, powerless, prostrate, sterile, unfruitful, unproductive, weak.
2. Of material substances: That has lost its special quality or virtue; exhausted, worn out.
To the bitter, be that through a lack of love or exhaustion by society's gross tendency toward commercialization, the valentine has grown effete.

Synonyms: crapulous, decadent, epicurean, gluttonous, gourmandizing, greedy, hedonistic, immoderate, lush, parsimonious, sybaritic.

3. Figuratively of persons in an intellectual sense, of systems, etc.: That has exhausted its vigour and energy; incapable of efficient action. Also, of persons: weak, ineffectual; degenerate.
And just when the appeal of punny valentines cards seemed effete, we have dictators!

Synonym: bankrupt, burn out , conk out, cripple, debilitate, disable, do in, drain, draw, enervate, enfeeble, fag, fatigue, frazzle, impoverish, overdo, overexert, overextend, overfatigue,overtire, overwork, peter out, poop, poop out, prostrate, run ragged, sap, suck dry, tucker,use up, weaken, wear down, weary.

Prurient

prur-i-ent (ˈpruriənt)

adjective
1. Exhibiting or characterized by excessive or inappropriate desire or interest; overly curious.

As Walt Disney once said, when you're prurient, you can find lots of interesting things to do! Okay, maybe those weren't his words.

2. Lascivious, lewd; exhibiting or characterized by an excessive or inappropriate concern with sexual matters; encouraging such a concern.

Filth is in the mind of the beholder; from the right angle, everything is prurient. 
A face agog might signify a prurient mind!

Synonyms: bawdy, carnal, crude, desirous, erotic, fleshly,horny, hot, lecherous, lewd, libertine, libidinous, licentious, lustful, obscene, offensive, orgiastic, pornographic, raunchy, salacious, sensual, sexual, smutty, suggestive, unchaste, vulgar.

3. Causing an itching or stinging sensation. 

Hey you, out there in the cold getting lonely, getting old, can you feel me? Hey you, standing in the aisles with prurient feet and fading smiles, can you feel me?*

Synonyms: crawling, crawly, prickling, tickling, tingling.

*I'm aware that those are not the actual words to the Pink Floyd song, but you get it.

Rhinolaryngology

rhin-o-lar-yng-ol-og-y (raɪnoʊˌlɛrənˈɡɑlədʒi/)

noun
1. a branch of medicine or surgery that deals with conditions affecting the nose and larynx.
Due to extenuating circumstances, Pinocchio developed an interest in rhinolaryngology as a child. Yet, after achieving fame at such an early age, few people expected him to grow up to be a reputable rhinolaryngologist. 

Synonyms: laryngology, otolaryngology,

Chary

char-y (/ˈtʃɛərɪ/)

adjective
1. causing sorrow.
2. feeling sorrow.
3. dear, precious, cherished.
4. careful, cautious, circumspect.
5. fastidious, shy, particular.
6. careful.
7. careful not to waste or part with.
8. requiring careful handling.
No stories or poems were ever created about the chary love between Oscar and Florrie because is was requited, genuine, and went utterly unfulfilled; no one wants to remember that.

Synonyms: delicate.*

*Chary is really the only word that says so many things so concisely. I think Damien Rice could have used it for his song: "Delicate."

Preproperous

pre-prop-er-ous* (priprɑpərəs)

adjective

1. over-hasty.

Never trust a preproperous toad in a pink airplane.

Synonyms: abrupt, boisterous, booming, breakneck, breathless, brief, brusque, cursory, festinate, feverish, furious, fussy, headlong, hot, impelled, impelling, impetuous, impulsive, in a hurry, in all haste, hasty, in hot haste, partito in quarta, perfunctory, precipitate, precipitous, preproperous, pressed for time, pushing, rudderish, rushing, saccadic, scrambling, short, slapdash, speedy, spoffish, subitaneous, umbeer, urgent.

*This word originates in classical Latin, in which properus means speedy.

Hornswoggle

horn-swog-gle (ˈhɔːnswɒɡ(ə)l)

verb
1. to get the better of; to cheat or swindle; to hoodwink, humbug, bamboozle.*

Nolan Daniels hornswoggled more than 450 thousand Facebook users with a poorly photoshopped photo and the hope of the hopeless.

Synonyms: ambush, artifice, bamboozle, blind, bluff, casuistry, cheat, chicanery, circumvention, con, concealment, conspiracy, conundrum, cover, deception, decoy, delusion, device, disguise, distortion, dodge, double-dealing, duplicity, equivocation, evasion, fabrication, fake, falsehood, feint, forgery, fraud, game, gimmick, hoax, illusion, imposition, imposture, intrigue, invention, jape, machination, maneuver, perjury, plot, ploy, pretense, ruse, snare, stratagem, subterfuge, swindle, trap, treachery, wile.

*Hornswoggle is an American colloquial term that originated in the Wild West. A cow herder, who has allowed a cow to escape by wiggling free of his or her lasso, is said to have been hornswoggled. This was probably a mixed reference to a bull's horns and said wiggling. 

Vag

 vag (væɡ)*

noun

1. dried turf or peat used as fuel; a piece of this.

When we run out out of firewood, we can always throw some vag in the wood stove.

Synonyms: peat, sod.

2. colloquial abbreviation of vagrant; phrased "on the vag."

Vladimir and Estragon are on the vag, waiting endlessly in vain for someone named Godot.

Synonyms: beggar, bum, drifter, floater, hobo, homeless person, itinerant, rolling stone, street kid, street person, tramp, transient, vagabond, vagrant, wanderer.

verb/slang

1. to charge with vagrancy.

If you have no visible means of support you can be vagged.

Synonyms: charged with vagrancy.**

*Note the hard G pronunciation in this word, as opposed to the soft G from the slang term, which is an abbreviation for vagina. This actually makes the two words heteronyms because they are spelled the same, but sound different and have different meanings; very different meanings!

**Sorry. I got stumped there.

Agog

a-gog (əˈɡɒɡ)

adverb and adjective
1. in excited readiness, expectation, or desire; in or into a state of great eagerness, enthusiasm, excitement, suspense, or (in later use) astonishment.

Learn the difference between a man who flatters you and a man who compliments you. A man who spends money on you and a man who invests in you. A man who views you as property and a man who views you properly. A man agog and a man who loves you.

Synonym: anxious, avid, breathless, eager, enthusiastic, excited, expectant, impatient, in suspense, on tenter hooks. 

Quacksalver

quack-salv-er* (kwækˈsælvər)

noun
1. a derogatory term for a person who dishonestly claims knowledge of or skill in medicine; a pedlar of false cures.
The medical impostors on the information superhighway are no more scrupulous than earlier quacksalvers who traveled along the streets of towns and villages. One notorious historical quacksalver managed to establish brand-name recognition that lasts to this day. Clark Stanley billed himself as the "Rattlesnake King," gathering crowds by killing rattlesnakes while delivering his pitch. For 50 cents a bottle, you could cure your toothaches, neuralgia, ankle sprains and pretty much everything else. Stanley claimed his snake-oil medicine came straight from an Indian medicine man and that his blend of snake oils worked miracles. When the Feds seized a shipment in 1917 and tested it, it was discovered that his snake oil was about 99 percent mineral oil and 1 percent beef fat, with traces of red pepper and turpentine thrown in the mix to give it a more medicinal smell. His business was shut down, but "snake oil" lives on in our lexicon to this day.**

Synonyms: charlatan, quack.

*This term actually comes from the Dutch: kwakzalver, meaning the same thing.
**My source for this example is a clever Discovery Health article.

Yahoo

Ya-hoo ()

noun
1. a boorish crass or stupid person.
Believe it or not there's only one yahoo in the picture to the right because one of those men respects women, loves his mom, and gives back to his community.*

Synonyms: addlebrain, ass, blockhead, blunderer, bonehead, cretin, dimwit, dork, dumbbell, dunce, fool, idiot, ignoramus, imbecile, jerk, kook,  misologist, moron, muttonhead, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, out to lunch, pinhead, simpleton, stupid, tomfool, twit.**

2. a probably mythical creature resembling a big hairy man, said to haunt eastern Australia.
Said one mate to another: "Is that a sasquatch?" And his mate replied: "No! It's a yahoo!"

Synonyms: large monster, sasquatch, yeti.

*Hint: it's NOT the younger one.
**Many expletives could be included here, but I assume most of my readers know those words.
***We know exactly how old "yahoo" is because its debut in print also marked its entrance into the English language as a whole. "Yahoo" began life as a made-up word invented by Jonathan Swift in his book Gulliver's Travels, which was published in 1726. The Yahoos were a race of brutes, with the form and vices of humans, encountered by Gulliver in his fourth and final voyage. They represented Swift's view of mankind at its lowest. It is not surprising, then, that "yahoo" came to be applied to any actual human who was particularly unpleasant or unintelligent. Yahoos were controlled by the intelligent and virtuous Houyhnhnms, a word which apparently did not catch people's fancy as "yahoo" did.

Jape

jape (dʒeɪp)
noun
1. a device to trick, deceive or cheat.
So you think you can get rich at Blackjack through some card counting jape?*

Synonyms: ambush, artifice, blind, bluff, casuistry, cheat, chicanery, circumvention, con, concealment, conspiracy, conundrum, cover, deception, decoy, delusion, device, disguise, distortion, dodge, double-dealing, duplicity, equivocation, evasion, fabrication, fake, falsehood, feint, forgery, fraud, game, gimmick, hoax, illusion, imposition, imposture, intrigue, invention, machination, maneuver, perjury, plot, ploy, pretense, ruse, snare, stratagem, subterfuge, swindle, trap, treachery, wile.

verb
1. to trick, deceive or cheat.
C'mon, Bro!?! Does this look like the face of someone who would jape at cards?

Synonyms: baffle, bamboozle, befuddle, bilk, con, confound, confuse, deceive, defraud, delude, dupe, flimflam, hoax, hoodwink, hornswoggle, mystify, perplex, puzzle, stump, swindle, trick.

*The answer is no. I do not think that. Card counting, though interesting, is a waste of time because most casinos do not use only a single deck, but a “shoe” with up to six decks active at any time. While card counting does increase a player’s chance for success, statistics indicate that most players working against a “shoe” or multiple decks only increases their rate of success by less than a single percentage point.

Rapscallion

rap-scall-i-on (ræpˈskæliən)

noun
1. a humourous mischief maker, or rogue.
A practical joke (also known as a prank, gag, jape or shenanigan) is a mischievous trick or joke played on someone by a rapscallion, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks or hoaxes in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or other valuables. Practical jokes or pranks are typically lighthearted, reversible or non-permanent, and aim to make the victim feel foolish or victimized to a certain degree; however practical jokes may also involve cruelty. Hence, we call the joker a rapscallion, rather than a kidder or down-right asshole.

Synonyms: bully, cad, caitiff, charlatan, cockamamie, culprit, delinquent, fink, hoodlum, hooligan, mischief-maker, miscreant,  ne'er-do-well, prankster, profligate, rascal, scallawag, scamp, skunk, tramp, trickster, tyrant, vagabond, varmint. 

Yissing

yis-sing (yɪsɪŋ)

noun
1. a covetous state of being.
Yissing is how one feels when kissing.

Synonyms: aphrodisia, appetite, appetition, avarice, avidity, close-fistedness, concupiscence, covetousness, craving, cupidity, eroticism, frugality, grabbiness, greediness, hankering, hunger, impulse, longing, lust, lustfulness, motive, passion, parsimony, penuriousness, prurience, rapacity, resltessness, urge, yearning, yen.

Ziraleet

zir-a-leet (ˈzɪrəliːt)

noun
1. a cry of joy.*
He fantasized about it, carefully planned it out, executed it with precision, and could not hear his girlfriend's ziraleet through the overwhelming satisfaction of his perfect vegan cupcake.

Synonyms: cheer, cry of joy, expletive, hail, hurrah, hurray, oh my God... YES!!!, whoop, yay, yippee.

*Though I found this word in the Oxford English Dictionary, it originated in the Arabic for an expression of joy by a group of women in Aleppo, consisting of the words "Lillé, lillé, lillé" repeated as often as possible in one breath.

Cockamamie

cock-a-mam-ie (ˈkɒkəˌmeɪmɪ)

adjective/noun/slang
1. inexplicable or ridiculous, not well thought out.
Sheldon: Wait! You have to drive me.
Penny: What?!
Sheldon: You know I don't drive.
Penny: Well, go ask Leonard!
Sheldon: I did; he said, and I quote: "Ask Penny, it was her cockamamie idea."
Penny: Leonard said "cockamamie"?
Sheldon: Actually, I'm paraphrasing. Having been raised in a Christian household, I'm uncomfortable with the language he used. And to be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with "cockamamie."

Synonyms: aberrant, absurd, batty, brainless, clueless, cockamamie, crazy, cuckoo, delirious, demented, disconnected, disjointed, distraught, dumb, fallacious, flaky, foolish, freaky, idiotic, ill-conceived, incoherent, injudicious, insane, invalid, kooky, loony, mad, mindless, nonsensical, nutty, off-the-wall, preposterous, raving, reasonless, ridiculous, silly, sophistic, specious, stupid, unreasonable, unreasoning, unsound, unstable, unthinking, unwise, wacky, wild, wrong.

*American English slang word attested by 1946, popularized c.1960, but said to be New York City children's slang from mid-1920s; perhaps an alteration of decalcomania.

**The Word Detective says: "Cockamamie ... is a grand word in danger of extinction through neglect," and suggests, like Clint Eastwood does, we should use it every once and a while, just to keep it alive. It just makes me think of Foghorn Leghorn.

Otiose

o-ti-ose (/ˈoʊdiˌoʊs)*
adjective
1. having no practical result or outcome.
Most of our most wonderful desires are otiose at their root; their function being simply giving us something to wish for; and, ultimately, leaving us empty when our wish has been fulfilled. 

Synonyms: empty, futile, hollow, idle, inactive, indolent, ineffective, laggard, lazy, slothful, sterile, superfluous, surplus, vain.

*Though in pronunciation and meaning, this word is very close to the word odious; so close, in fact that I had to triple check to be sure that this was not just a variation in spelling. It's not. A thing that is odious is useless, but also despised. Our feelings about an otiose thing, however, can be neutral or even positive. Indeed, Oscar Wilde might have said that all art is otiose.