by Kevin Burton
Merriam-Webster dictionary took to social media to ask readers to identify some of their favorite underrated words. Yesterday we posted some of these words and today we finish their list.
This may be the weirdest list I’ve ever posted. Some of these words don’t strike me as particularly useful. Others are not underused or underrated.
As we did yesterday I will share their words and definitions, with my snide comments to follow:
7-Lanceolate: shaped like a lance head, specifically: tapering to a point at the apex and sometimes at the base
The Twitter user who identified lanceolate as a favorite underrated word also gave shout-outs to cordate (“heart-shaped”) and pinnate (“feather-shaped”) as worthy of praise. We agree!
Botany is full of evocative words describing the shapes of leaves.. Lanceolate isn’t reserved for leaves of course, but it’s usually found in botanical contexts, describing the foliage of various beeches, chestnuts, willows, and more.
KB’s take: No chance I use Lanceolate. Not a useful word.
8-Chatoyance: the quality or state of being chatoyant (having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light).
The complex structure of a cat’s eye not only enables it to see at night but also gives it the appearance of glowing in the dark. Not surprisingly, jewels that sport a healthy luster are often compared with the feline ocular organ, so much that the term cat’s-eye is used to refer to those gems (such as chalcedony) that give off iridescence from within.
If you’ve brushed up on your French lately, you might notice that the French word for cat (chat) provides the first four letters of chatoyant, an adjective used by jewelers to describe such lustrous gems (and by others who see the same luster elsewhere).
Chatoyant comes from chatoyer, a French verb that literally means “to shine like a cat’s eyes.” Chatoyance and its slightly more common synonym chatoyancy both followed the adjective as nouns referring to a chatoyant quality.
KB’s take: Even as a cat lover, I can’t imagine what kind of conversation I would drop chatoyance into.
9-Widdershins: in a left-handed, wrong, counterclockwise, or contrary direction
English speakers today are most likely to encounter widdershins as a synonym of counterclockwise. But in earliest known uses, found in texts from the early 1500s, widdershins was used more broadly in the sense of “in the wrong way or opposite direction.”
To say that one’s hair “stood widdershins” was, in essence, to say that one was having a bad hair day. By the mid-1500s, English speakers had adopted widdershins to specifically describe movement opposite to the apparent clockwise direction (as seen from the northern hemisphere) of the sun traveling across the sky, which, at the time, could be considered evil or unlucky. The word originates from the Old High German widar, meaning “back” or “against,” and sinnen, meaning “to travel.”
KB’s take: Not buying widdershins as a useful word. But how about a movie or perhaps a sit-com about the madcap antics of an off-kilter family, and that family (and the comedic vehicle) is called “The Widdershins?”
10-Succotash: lima or shell beans and kernels of green corn cooked together
Succotash comes from the Narragansett word for boiled corn kernals, msíckquatash, and is used to refer to a dish of corn and beans cooked together. The pairing of corn and beans (often with squash) is not only delicious but (as Indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere have long known) nutritionally important, as each ingredient enhances the nutritional value of the others, forming what are known as complete proteins. Far from “sufferin’,” as some cartoon house cats have been known to describe it, succotash is a wondrous dish (and word) with a long history.
KB’s take: Love me some lima beans, but green corn? Never heard of such.
11-Galore: in large numbers or amounts
Galore means “in large numbers or amounts,” making it a synonym of useful words like abundant and plentiful. But its charm lies not in its meaning but in its sound and syntax. Galore doesn’t sound like one of our run-of-the-mill Germanic or Latinate words, and for good reason—it’s one of a relatively small number of Irish borrowings in the English language. It comes from the Irish go leor, meaning “enough,” and dates to the early 17th century. It also takes an odd position in phrases: it’s used postpositively, which means that it follows the word or words it modifies.
KB’s take: Galore is far from underused. The word has uses galore.
12-Quixotic: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action
If you guessed that quixotic has something to do with Don Quixote, you’re absolutely right. The hero of Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th-century Spanish novel El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (in English “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”) didn’t change the world by tilting at windmills, but he did leave a linguistic legacy in English.
The adjective quixotic is based on his name and has been used to describe unrealistic idealists since at least the early 18th century. Its meaning has also broadened and can often mean simply “capricious” or “unpredictable.”
KB’s take: This word, with its prominent Q and X, has me dreaming of Scrabble glory!
Also, can a pessimist be quixotic?
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