Tuesday

Five Obsolete Words We Really Need to Bring Back Into Common Usage

As the English language adopts new words and terms, it also discards others. Often the terms that are discarded or no longer receive usage are obscure or relate to matters that had great importance at one time but no longer do (ineffective folk medications, inaccurately-diagnosed ailments, antiquated machinery, etc.)

However, there are some words that didn't deserve to become obsolete because they are so perfect for what they describe that nothing has improved on them since they went out of fashion. Here are just five words that we need to bring back:

1. Crapulous (height of popular use in the early 1500s): To feel ill as a result of excessive drinking and eating. The fact that this word seems to incorporate the word "crap" (as in "feel like crap") just adds to its usefulness.

2. Snowbroth (height of popular use in the late 1500s): The pool of liquid and mush that occurs when snow melts. It's a beautiful word that sounds like something Shakespeare would have created.

3. Apricity (height of popular use in the 1600s): The warmth of the sun on a cold winter's day. Knowing how amazing this feels, it's quite sad that we no longer have a word for this wonderful sensation.

4. Twattle (height of popular use in the early 1600s): To gossip or chatter without purpose or relevance. This is a good example of a word that sort of sounds exactly like what it is describing. Even if you didn't know what twattle meant, you would guess that it wasn't anything of importance.

5. Fuzzle (height of popular in the early 1900s): To make drunk or intoxicated. True, we have many words to describe intoxication, but fuzzle just seems to much more sophisticated, no? "Oh, Jeeves, I am feeling somewhat fuzzled by that particularly potent madeira Jules brought back from his last jaunt to the continent."

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