A.W.A.D. - There Was A Word for That?

With the largest vocabulary of any language, in English we have a word to describe almost everything. And when we can't find one, we're happy to borrow from another language (from German: schadenfreude, pleasure at another's misfortune), or just make one up (petrichor, the pleasant smell of rain after a dry spell).

That said, let's not gloat over how many words we have. English's poverty shows in many places, for example, when it comes to words to describe relations. How useful is it to introduce the woman with you as your sister-in-law when the term could mean any number of things? This week we visit a few terms that make one say, "I didn't know there was a word for it!"

hypergelast
PRONUNCIATION: (hy-PUHR-ji-last)
MEANING: noun: One who laughs excessively.

ETYMOLOGY: From Greek hyper- (over) + gelastes (laugher), from gelan (to laugh). A related word is agelast: someone who never laughs.

skeuomorph
PRONUNCIATION: (SKYOO-uh-morf)
MEANING: noun: A design feature copied from a similar artifact in another material, even when not functionally necessary. For example, the click sound of a shutter in an analog camera that is now reproduced in a digital camera by playing a sound clip.

ETYMOLOGY: From Greek skeuos (vessel, implement) + -morph (form).

hey rube
PRONUNCIATION: (hay roob)
MEANING: noun: 1. A fight between members of a circus and the general public. 2. A call to rally circus members in a fight.
ETYMOLOGY: The term originated in the 19th century when circuses were rowdy affairs and Hey Rube was the rallying cry to call all circus people to help in a fight with townspeople. It's not clear whether Rube in this term was someone specific or simply a use of the informal term rube (shortened form of Reuben) for an unsophisticated person from a rural area.

snood
PRONUNCIATION: (snood)
MEANING: noun: 1. A fleshy appendage over the beak of a turkey. 2. A net for holding a woman's hair at the back of her head.

ETYMOLOGY: From Old English snod.

serein
PRONUNCIATION: (suh-RAN [the second syllable is nasal])
MEANING: noun: Fine rain falling from an apparently cloudless sky, typically observed after sunset.

ETYMOLOGY: From French serein, from Old French serain (evening), from Latin serum (evening), from serus (late).

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