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.

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,

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.

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.

Micromort

mi-cro-mort (ˈmaɪkroʊˌmɔ(ə)rt)

noun
1. a unit of risk measuring a one-in-a-million probability of death.
Some unusual factors are said to increase your chance of death by one micromort, such as: eating a thousand bananas; walking seventeen miles; eating 40 tablespoons of peanut butter; or living two months in Denver.

Synonyms: a millionth.

*The term was invented in 1968 as a way of looking at the trade-offs involved in taking certain risks. It can also open your eyes to some unhealthy daily lifestyle choices.

Kakistocracy

kak-ist-oc-rac-y (kækɪˈstɒkrəsɪ)

noun

1. government by the worst people.

The American poet James Russell Lowell wrote in a letter in 1876: "Is ours a government of the people, by the people, for the people, or a kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?"* (Source.)

Synonyms: democracy, government.

*Though this may seem like a veiled attempt to express my opinion on the outcome of the last presidential election, it is nothing of the sort. My view of this term is rather neutral, as the idea of who the worst people are is a subjective one. In 1876, the worst people were crazy, minorities, and women, later sexual "deviants" were included in the mix. Real change in a society usually doesn't happen by following the standard and tested models. Consequently, if you find yourself living in a society that needs a little change, it might be time for a kakistocracy.  

Sesquipedalian

ses-quip-e-dal-i-an (sɛskwɪpɪˈdeɪlɪən)

adjective/noun

1. a word with lots of syllables.

Sesquipedalian is really the opposite of monosyllabic, but far more appropriate!

Synonyms: really long word, verbose.

Barbicide

barb-i-cide (bär-bə-ˌsīd)

noun
1. an incredibly deadly disinfectant for combs razors and scissors that is capable of killing germs, the AIDS virus, and various forms of hepatitis.*
Every barber shop has a big blue container labelled: barbicide.

Synonyms: germicide, incredibly-deadly blue stuff.

*If this sounds like the term one would use for the crime of killing barbers (or worse, Barbie dolls), that's because it kind of is. In 1947, the product was invented by Maurice King, a man who hated barbers and was aware of the solution's incredibly deadly properties. He called it "Barbicide" as a secret joke because "barbicide" literally meant "to kill a barber."

Interrobang

In-ter-ro-bang (in-TAIR-uh-bang)

noun
1. a punctuation mark designed for use at the end of an exclamatory rhetorical question.
Isn't this cute‽ I can even type it on my computer's keyboard. I put it italics too!

Synonyms: combined question mark and exclamation point.

Jackalope

jack-a-lope ((jklōp)

noun
1. a mythic North American animal (or "fearsome critter"), described as a rabbit with antlers, often recreated by taxidermists.
The supercilious jackalope caused a wild hullabaloo, by claiming to be related to the pygmy deer and infamous killer rabbits.* 

Synonyms: blutschink, dahu, dilldapp, ellwetritsch, hanghuhn, horned rabbit, rasselbock, wolpertinger.

*It feels wrong to reference killer rabbits without mentioning the Rabbit of Caerbannog and Monty Python.
**Douglas, Wyoming was named "the Home of the Jackalope" because the fearsome critters were first discovered there in 1829. To celebrate their jackalope heritage, the town has erected a jackalope statue and celebrates Jackalope Days in early June.
***Ronald Reagan had a jackalope head mounted in his home, and as a joke in the 1980s, claimed to have hunted and caught the creature himself. The senator of South Dakota, James Abdnor, also gave Reagan and taxidermy jackalope head as a gag gift.

Neologist

ne-ol-o-gist (niˈɑlədʒəst)

noun

1. a person who coins new words or phrases.

Some clever neologist has been running around the internet trying to make librocubicularist a new word, with varying degrees of success. I did find it on Wordnik, a site that often seems full of neologisms.  

Synonyms: bombast, child, circumlocutionist, poet, teenager, undergrad.