From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The tenth edition of the Chambers Dictionary of
the
English language was published in 2006 by
Chambers Harrap.
Originally published in 1901 as Chambers's Twentieth
Century Dictionary, the dictionary is widely used by British
crossword solvers and setters, and by
Scrabble players. It contains many more dialectal variants
and archaic words than its rivals, and is noted for its
occasional wryly humorous definitions, such as "a cake, long in
shape but short in duration", for "éclair". It is assumed these
were originally smuggled in by subversive lexicographers—they
were at one stage dropped by the publisher (e.g. "a long cake of
choux pastry with a cream filling and chocolate or coffee
icing"), but later reinstated as something of a tourist
attraction. The dictionary is widely known for its large number
of more unconventional and often eccentric words.
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Contents
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1
Humorous definitions
-
1.1
Piquant definitions from
Chambers
-
1.2
Some pleasing words as
defined by Chambers
-
1.3
Some words dropped since
the 1901 edition
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2
External links
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Humorous definitions
Piquant definitions from Chambers
- abloom adj in a blooming state
- Agapemone n a religious community of men and
women whose ‘spiritual marriages’ were in some cases not
strictly spiritual
- baby-sitter n one who mounts guard over a baby to
relieve the usual attendant
- bachelor’s wife n an ideal woman with none of the
shortcomings of married men’s wives
- back-seat driver n someone free of responsibility
but full of advice
- bafflegab n the professional logorrhoea of many
politicians, officials and salespeople, characterized by
prolix abstract circumlocution and/or a profusion of
abstruse technical terminology, used as a means of
persuasion, pacification or obfuscation
- brains trust n a number of reputedly
well-informed persons chosen to answer questions of general
interest in public and without preparation
- buckwheat n a plant (Polygonum or Fagopyrum), its
seed used esp in Europe for feeding horses, cattle and
poultry, in America for making into cakes for the breakfast
table, etc
- devil-dodger n someone who attends churches of
various kinds, to be on the safe side
- fish vi to catch or try to catch or obtain fish,
or anything that may be likened to a fish (such as seals,
sponges, coral, compliments, information or husbands)
- flag-day n a day on which collectors solicit
contributions to a charity in exchange for small flags as
badges to secure immunity for the rest of the day
- Japanese cedar n a very tall Japanese conifer
(Cryptomeria japonica) often dwarfed by Japanese gardeners
- jaywalker n a careless pedestrian whom motorists
are expected to avoid running down
- lead out vt to conduct to execution or a dance
- middle-aged adj between youth and old age,
variously reckoned to suit the reckoner
- not to mention to say nothing of, a parenthetical
rhetorical pretence of refraining from saying all one might
say (and is about to say)
- perpetrate vt to commit or execute (esp an
offence, a poem, or a pun)
- picture restorer n one who cleans and restores
and sometimes ruins old pictures
- Santa Claus n an improbable source of improbable
benefits
- sea serpent n an enormous marine animal of
serpent-like form frequently seen and described by credulous
sailors, imaginative landsmen and common liars
- spatangoid n a heart urchin, a member of the
Spatangoidea, an order of more or less heart-shaped sea
urchins with eccentric anus
- table-turning n movements of tables (or other
objects) attributed by spiritualists to the agency of
spirits, and by the sceptical to collective involuntary
muscular action
- waist-line n a line thought of as marking the
waist, but not fixed by anatomy in women’s fashions
- xylophagan n one of the Xylophaga, a genus of
boring bivalves
- yoof n (esp of magazines, TV or radio programmes,
etc) relating to, specifically aimed at, pandering to, or
dealing with topics (thought to be) of interest to modern
youth
Some pleasing words as defined by
Chambers
- batology n the study of brambles
- beblubbered adj disfigured by weeping
- callipygous adj having beautiful buttocks
- deipnosophist n a person who converses learnedly
at dinner, a table-philosopher
- deliquesce vi to melt and become liquid by
absorbing moisture
- discombobulate vt to disconcert, upset
- flimp vt to rob (someone) while a partner hustles
- genethliac adj relating to a birthday or to the
casting of horoscopes
- goluptious adj delicious; voluptuous
- incompossible adj incapable of co-existing
- kakistocracy n government by the worst
- leiotrichy n straight-hairedness
- mulligrubs n pl colic; sulkiness
- obumbrate vt to overshadow (compare with
adumbrate, also, eg., to overshadow)
- paneity n the state of being bread
- pilliwinks n pl an instrument of torture for
crushing the fingers
- pinguitude n fatness
- Ralph n the imp of mischief in a printing house
- refulgent adj casting a flood of light; radiant;
beaming
- roscid adj dewy
- rutilant adj shining; glowing ruddily
- scroddled adj (of pottery) made of clay scraps of
different colours
- spoffish adj fussy, officious (archaic)
- squabash vt to crush, smash, defeat
- ultracrepidate vi to criticize beyond the sphere
of one’s knowledge
Some words dropped since the 1901
edition
- dacryoma n a stoppage of the tear duct
- decacuminated adj having the top cut off
- derbend n a waysideTurkish guardhouse
- effodient adj habitually digging (zoology)
- essorant adj about to soar
- fiskery n friskiness (Carlyle)
- flipe vt to fold back, as a sleeve
- lectual adj confining to the bed
- neogamist n a person recently married
- nuciform adj nut-shaped
- numerotage n the numbering of yarns so as to
denote their fineness
- pantogogue n a medicine once believed capable of
purging away all morbid humours
- parageusia n a perverted sense of taste
- presultor n the leader of a dance
- ramollescence n softening, mollifying
- roytish adj wild, irregular
- sagesse n wisdom
- salebrous adj rough, rugged
- sammy vt to moisten skins with water
- sarn n a pavement (i.e., a
sidewalk)
- scavilones n men’s drawers worn in the sixteenth
century under the hose
- tarabooka n a drum-like instrument
- tortulous adj having swellings at regular
intervals
- wappet n a yelping cur
- whinnock n the smallest pig in a litter a
milk-pail (provincial)
- zythepsary n a brewery (obsolete)
External links
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[1]
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Chambers Reference Online
Categories:
Dictionaries |
1901 books |
2003 books
