Cheer yourself up with Oxford Dictionaries Online

The third Monday in January is allegedly the most depressing day of the year. We can see why: Christmas festivities are but a memory (apart from maybe an extra inch or two round the waist), we’ve just given up on our New Year’s resolutions, it feels like a long time since payday, and it’s been cold and miserable for as long as we can remember. (If you live in the Southern hemisphere, please don’t write to us to tell us that it’s warm and sunny where you are…)

So, assuming you feel as bleak as we do, we thought we’d try cheer you and ourselves up by contemplating the endless inventiveness of the English language. We bring you (ta-da!) the Oxford Dictionaries team’s unofficial A-Z of weird and wonderful words to make you smile in January 2011:

anguilliform, blatherskite, callipygian, doryphore, erubescent, fugacious, gallus, hallux, illywhacker, jungli, kenspeckle, lycanthropy, mamaguy, nugacity, orrery, paraph, quipu, rubiginous, sesquipedalian, thalassic, umbriferous, velleity, wabbit, xenology, ylem, zetetic

Don’t like our list? Take a chill pill – this is no time for a logomachy!

Posted on: 17 January 2011 | Categories: English in use | Tags: cheer up, most depressing day, weird and wonderful words, wordlist