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Favourite Words

AnnieH

So I have always loved reading and wondered if anyone had a favourite word or phrase?

I read a lot of historical fiction so my favourites tend to be of a bygone era. I love the word melancholic. I also love the word apothecary. I can't tell you why but I just love the sound of them in my head. If I say them out loud it doesn't sound the same though. Weird.

I love words that really capture the essence of their meaning so that you instantly get a strong image just from reading them. Words often get stuck in my head, which I suppose is a bit like mental echolalia (a new favourite of mine ha ha).

Would be interested to see if anyone else feels likewise.

Parents

  • I love particular words for their sound too, and I have also experienced a word getting stuck in my head. 
    I have many favourites, although I can’t think of many right now. Words like entangling, lexicon, luminous, mythography, rhythm, shimmy, shingle, wild… My favourite French word is époustouflée, which is the feminine form of breathtaken.

    I also have aversions to particular words - the one I once got stuck in my head for hours one night was conglommerate

  • in reply to sphynx

    Also ashes, embers, lunar, nectar, ocean… Someone here said equilibrium, which is a brilliant one. Aquarium is nice too

  • in reply to sphynx

    Impetus, liminal, seamless, vast… I also love the French word élan, meaning something like momentum, (another good word!) Right I will now try to stop flooding this thread :) ;)

  • in reply to Mariusz

    Old English had three genders, like Modern German, masculine, feminine and neuter. The Modern English possessive apostrophe, as in "George's", indicates a now missing "e" that formed the Old English genitive case. So "ship's", meaning 'belonging to the ship' would have been "scipes" (sc was pronounced like the modern sh). Old English was better than Modern English in some ways, all letters were pronounced and spelling and pronunciation were exactly linked. So there were no, cough, bough, borough difficulties. Plus the 'th' sounds in 'thin' and 'that' (unvoiced and voiced) each had its own specific single letter.

  • in reply to Autimator

    all because of laziness,

    old english used to have declension and conjugation, derived from latin, so not as encompassing every single word like slavic languages, but still you could tell rods apart

Reply Children
  • in reply to Mariusz

    Old English had three genders, like Modern German, masculine, feminine and neuter. The Modern English possessive apostrophe, as in "George's", indicates a now missing "e" that formed the Old English genitive case. So "ship's", meaning 'belonging to the ship' would have been "scipes" (sc was pronounced like the modern sh). Old English was better than Modern English in some ways, all letters were pronounced and spelling and pronunciation were exactly linked. So there were no, cough, bough, borough difficulties. Plus the 'th' sounds in 'thin' and 'that' (unvoiced and voiced) each had its own specific single letter.