A Graveyard For Words

The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Glory of glories! A book about dead words! HUZZAH!

Some English words are no longer used. Jeffrey Kacirk poured through old dictionaries and found some gems. Let's go already!!! --->>>

Roozles: Wretchedness of mind; the "miserables".

Quanked: Overpowered by fatigue.

Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news; a gossip-monger; what we today would call a columnist.

Beblubbered: Swollen.

Puke-stocking: "Wilt thou rob this…puke-stocking [knave]?" 1 Henry IV Here, puke-stocking probably means dark-coloured, perhaps equivalent to puce. That it describes the material of the stocking or hose is less likely.


A few of the words have died, but been reborn…or maybe I mean reincarnated. Have a look...

Spooning: Spooning, in rowing, is dipping the oars so little in the water as merely to skim the surface.

All sorts: A slang term designating the drippings of glasses in saloons, collected and sold at half-price to drinkers who are not overly particular.


Some words could use a more detailed or clearer definition:

Special-bastard: A child born of parents before marriage, the parties afterwards intermarrying.

Spoops: At Harvard College, a weak, silly fellow, or one who is disliked on account of his foolish actions is called spoops, or spoopsy.

Biggening: Uprising of women. SEE Crying-cheese.

All righty…

Crying-cheese: Cheese given to neighbors and visitors on the occasion of the birth of a child.

…and that helped clear up biggening how?


Whereas some words mean just what you suspect (E.G. Egg-wife-trott: An easy jog, such a speed as farmers' wives carry their eggs to the market.), others do NOT (E.G. Babyshed: Deceived by childish tales. [I was sure it meant a place where babies were kept.]


The Word Museum is…scrumtrulescent! A must-read for wordies!


Rating Note: This is a ridiculous 5 stars. This book is not perfect. It's not even great. But it's just right for me, because I like words.


Here's a crusty old video I just re-uploaded for this review. It's of me reading and reenacting some of the words within this book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08jR5g...