Misunderstood Words
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Are their any words you've ever been too lazy to look up the meaning, and completely misunderstood?
Yesterday, I was reading up about the historical/Biblical figure Jezebel. I learned that she had been defenestrated before being eaten by wild dogs.
I always had heard defenestrated used when describing someones grizzly death, and assumed it meant disemboweled, or worse.
Turns out it means you have been thrown out of a window. If I'd thought a little harder, I would have remembered a gradeschool classmate of mine named Mary Fenstermaker. I asked her once what her name meant, and she said it was German for Window Maker.
Go figure.
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Penultimate - is often used
Penultimate - is often used to mean "the most ultimate," but it really means "2nd place."
Ironic - maybe the most misused word in ur language. "How ironic - I was just thinking of you and you called." Um, no, that was perhaps serendipitous, but definitely not ironic,
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Disgruntled makes perfect
Disgruntled makes perfect sense, defined as - 'unhappy and annoyed'
Gruntled - 'pleased, satisfied, and contented.'
Anyone feeling super fucking GRUNTLED today? Haha
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I'm neither underwhelmed nor
I'm neither underwhelmed nor ovderwhelmed. I'm just whelmed.
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I only know what
I only know what defenestration means because of this building in SF which has since been renovated and is no longer an art project.
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And if you can extiguish, you
I ran into "benighted" in a story I was reading yesterday, and guessed it had something to do with knights. Knope.
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"Niggardly" is an interesting
"Niggardly" is an interesting word.
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Because it kind of rhymes
Because it kind of rhymes with parsimonious?