08/16/2026:
Parnel
(noun) A priest’s mistress
08/09/2026:
Fluviatile
(adjective) Living in rivers
08/02/2026:
Atopognosia
(noun) The inability to tell where something is touching you
07/26/2026:
Assoil
(verb) To absolve, to pronounce Not Guilty
07/19/2026:
Corncrake
(noun) An elusive, omnivorous, chestnut-colored bird of the family Rallidae (rails) that ranges through Eurasia and winters in Africa
07/12/2026:
Agonic
(noun) The imaginary line, roughly longitudinal, where magnetic and true north lie in exactly the same direction. It wanders unpredictably, typically about 10 miles per year.
07/05/2026:
Penniform
(adjective) Feather-shaped
06/28/2026:
Nixie
(noun) A letter or package that’s undeliverable due to a faulty address. Or, a female water spirit. Or, one of those old-fashioned numeric displays consisting of a neon-filled glass tube and multiple cathodes.
06/21/2026:
Grimthorpe
(verb) To alter or remodel a building without taking its history and character into account. Named for Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, QC (1816–1905).
06/14/2026:
Ulotrichous
(adjective) Having tightly curled or “peppercorn” hair
06/07/2026:
Distichiasis
(noun) The condition, caused by a genetic mutation, of having double rows of eyelashes. One of its better known sufferers was actress Elizabeth Taylor.
05/31/2026:
Absquatulate
(verb) To slip out without being seen
05/24/2026:
Semiotician
(noun) An expert at reading signs, symbols, gestures, and other visual cues
05/17/2026:
Jyngine
(adjective) Wryneck-like. A wryneck is either of two species of European woodpeckers that can whip their heads around almost 180 degrees, which, combined with hissing, serves as a threat display.
05/10/2026:
Idiolect
(noun) The individualistic traits of a person’s speech. A further subdivision of dialect.
05/03/2026:
Hapax legomenon
(noun) The bane of dictionary authors, a word within a particular language that occurrs only once in the written record
04/26/2026:
Mesonoxian
(adjective) Pertaining to midnight
04/19/2026:
Morepork
(noun) An owl, Ninox novaeseelandiae, found in Australia and New Zealand
04/12/2026:
Retromingent
(adjective) Cowardly (literally, “urinating backward”)
04/05/2026:
Chrysopoeia
(verb) The act of transmuting base substances into gold
