Do you know what one of the key factors allowing languages to stay alive for centuries is? It’s because they are evolving together with the people they are used by, the culture, and the historical happenings. And we, being not so green on the topic of evolution, know that once something has evolved, the primary version of it becomes obsolete (usually). The same goes for words! Take, for instance, some of the old English words, like bumfuzzle and cattywampus - nobody knows anymore what they mean or that they ever existed! Sorry, now you are aware of their existence, so scratch the latter. Still, they definitely fall under the category of obsolete words and find their place neatly in our list of outdated words!
Before you scroll down below to see the funny words, be advised to do so in your leisure time as you might find yourself spending way more time than you should reading these weird words and laughing at them heartily. Or trying to make your own dictionary entirely out of these outdated words. Now that sounds like a dandy idea, doesn’t it? What’s even more fun is that some of these also fall under the category of outdated slang words, so, yeah - a wave of nostalgia is incoming!
Right-o, grab a pen and a piece of paper - you will definitely want to write some of these bad boys down! Be sure to give your vote for the obsolete word that has amused you the most, and share this article with your friends!
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Growlery
Meaning: A place where you can retreat from the world when you’re in bad mood
Hornswoggle
Meaning: To scam or con
Cool beans
Meaning: Used to express approval or delight
Fuzzle
Meaning: To have a good time – drunk or intoxicated
Our family has always used "fuzzled" to describe the look of someone who has just awakened.
Poltroon
Meaning: A spiritless coward; craven
Sean Connery used this word for Alex Trebek on Celebrity Jeopardy!
Twelvemonth
Meaning: A year
Whippersnapper
Meaning: A young and unimportant person who behaves in a way that others think is too confident and rude
Baloney
Meaning: Ideas, statements or beliefs that you think are silly or not true; lies
Peeler
Meaning: A police officer
A very Irishism. Mr Peel is the same source for the (still in use) English term Bobbies for police officers. The Irish chose to use the slightly more denigrating-sounding Peelers.
Paramour
Meaning: A person that somebody is having a romantic or sexual relationship with
Lumming
Meaning: The overwhelming urge to do nothing
Hootenanny
Meaning: An informal social event at which people play folk music, sing and sometimes dance
Resistentialism
Meaning: Seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects
Zenzizenzizenzic
Meaning: An obsolete form of mathematical notation representing the eighth power of a number
Apricity
Meaning: The warmth of the sun in winter
Twattle
Meaning: To gossip
Elflock
Meaning: A lock of hair, fancifully regarded as having been tangled by the elves
Sluberdegullion
Meaning: A filthy, slobbering person
Fizgig
Meaning: A silly or flirtatious young woman
Pistoleer
Meaning: One who is armed with a pistol
Beef-witted
Meaning: Stupid; dull
Never heard of beef-witted. I assume it is the masculine version of hen-witted. There is also more hair than wit, nitwit, numbskull, featherbrain.
With squirrel
Meaning: Pregnant; expecting a baby
Expecting, in an interesting way/condition, about to be confined (very pregnant), bun in the oven, and so many more euphemisms
Sanguinary
Meaning: Involving or causing much bloodshed
Or an imbalance of the blood humor. Compare to phlegmatic, bilious and choleric
Fiddlesticks
Meaning: Used to say that you disagree with somebody
Tickled
Meaning: Pleased; when you think something is funny.
Hooch
Meaning: Strong alcoholic drink, especially something that has been made illegally
Yuppie
Meaning: A young college-educated adult who is employed in a well-paying profession and who lives and works in or near a large city
California widow
Meaning: A married woman whose husband has been absent for an extended period
Fun tangentially related fact. A California tuxedo or a California suit is when you pair a navy blazer with light/tan/khaki pants.
Gammer
Meaning: An old woman
Jakes
Meaning: An outdoor toilet
Small beer
Meaning: Weak or inferior beer
Sweetmeat
Meaning: An item of confectionery or sweet food
As opposed to sweetbreads, which are some internal organs of animals, like the pancreas and thalmus glands so sweetmeat is not meat and sweetbread is not bread.
Zounds
Meaning: An expression of surprise or indignation
Zoiks! Gadzooks! Ye gads! I could be wrong, but I think zounds comes from God's hounds. (Edit because autocorrect turned gads into gadsden for some reason)
Grog-Blossom
Meaning: The rosy red hue of an alcoholic’s nose
Broad
Meaning: A woman
Boob tube
Meaning: The television
Britches
Meaning: Short trousers fastened just below the knee
Cockalorum
Meaning: A self-important little man
Callipygian
Meaning: Having well-shaped buttocks.
Houppelande
Meaning: A loose belted overgown usually with long wide sleeves, dagged edges, a fur lining, and full-length skirt often with slits in it
Asunder
Meaning: Apart from each other
Still at use in weddings, right? "What God has joined together let no man put asunder"
Bedlam
Meaning: An asylum for the mentally ill
Shortened from "Bethlehem" from the name of an English sanitarium (St Mary's of Bethlehem), hence the connection to chaos and insanity
Cordwainer
Meaning: A shoemaker
Espousal
Meaning: A marriage; engagement
Also 'an act of adopting or supporting a cause, belief, or way of life'
Gadzooks
Meaning: An expression of surprise or annoyance
Leech
Meaning: A physician; healer
Love apple
Meaning: A tomato
The New World tomato was suspected of inflaming sexual desire. Italian cuisine: we’ll have that.
Parlor
Meaning: A room used primarily for conversation or the reception of guests
Slugabed
Meaning: A person who stays in bed after the usual or proper time to get up
Unhand
Meaning: To remove the hand from; let go
Water closet
Meaning: A compartment or room with a toilet
Tittynope
Meaning: A small quantity of something left over
I think this is the first one that made me go 'no, that can't be a real word' XD
Kerfuffle
Meaning: A disturbance or commotion typically caused by a dispute or conflict
Clicker
Meaning: A device that allows you to operate a television, etc. from a distance
Stoked
Meaning: Excited and pleased about something
Tight
Meaning: Drunk; tipsy
Stepping out
Meaning: Being unfaithful; cheating
Could also mean going on a date, even if single. Bachelor stepping out, not a big deal. Married person stepping out was fodder for gossip (as well as straight up wrong)
Pismire
Meaning: An archaic word for an ant
Similar to my favourite 'mouldwarp, archaic word for mole (animal)'.
Excogigate
Meaning: Think out, plan, or devise
Lunting
Meaning: Walking around while smoking a pipe
Brimstone
Meaning: Sulfur
Schoolmarm
Meaning: A woman who is a schoolteacher especially in a rural or small-town school
Pocketbook
Meaning: A small bag for money, keys, etc., carried especially by women
Bosom
Meaning: A woman’s chest or breasts
🎶 Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow, everybody needs a bosom! 🎶
Percolator
Meaning: A pot for making coffee, in which boiling water is forced up a central tube and then comes down again through the coffee
Camping gear, I have used this frequently. I have one in blue and white enamelware.
TiVo
Meaning: A brand of digital video recorder and subscription-based service used chiefly for recording television programs
Videotape
Meaning: A type of magnetic tape used in the past for recording moving pictures and sound; a box containing this tape, also called a video cassette
Whoopee
Meaning: A sexual play
TV game show Newlywed Game, Bob Eubanks used "making whoopee" as a euphemism for sex.....anyone remember? whoopee-63...8c587a.jpg 
Quockerwodger
Meaning: A type of wooden puppet controlled by strings
Ague
Meaning: A fever (such as malaria) marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals
Apothecary
Meaning: One who prepares and sells drugs or compounds for medicinal purposes
Behoof
Meaning: Advantage; profit; benefit
Yes, following the same rule as Hoof/Hooves, Staff/Staves, Dwarf/Dwarves, Leaf/Leaves. Behoof/Behooves.
Buck
Meaning: A fashionable and daring young man
I have a buck in my wallet ( one dollar ) how much that cost 40 bucks ( 40 dollars )
Bumper
Meaning: A generous glass of an alcoholic drink
Damsel
Meaning: A young unmarried woman
Fourscore
Meaning: Being four times twenty; eighty
Score means twenty. So three score is sixty. Four score is well known because it was a poetic way to say eighty in the Gettysburg Address.
Man-at-arms
Meaning: A heavily armed and usually mounted soldier
Rover
Meaning: A pirate
Also 'a person who spends their time wandering' which is why the Scouts Australia uses it for their 18-25 year old group.
Icebox
Meaning: A separate section in a fridge for making and storing ice
actually, it was the name of fridges that used big blocks of ice and not electricity
Floppy Disk
Meaning: A thin plastic disk coated with magnetic material on which data for a computer can be stored
Crapulous
Meaning: Marked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking
Groak
Meaning: To stare at people who are eating in the hope that they will offer to share their food
Galoshes
Meaning: waterproof shoes; shoes with a heavy sole
Scruple
Meaning: A unit of capacity equal to ¹/₂₄ Apothecaries' ounce
Another meaning is of course a principle someone holds. Hence "unscrupulous" for a scumbag who has no principles.
Scurvy
Meaning: Worthless; contemptible
Steed
Meaning: A horse used or trained for riding; a spirited horse
Turnkey
Meaning: A jailer
Wherefore
Meaning: For what reason or purpose; why
Yonder
Meaning: At or in that indicated more or less distant place usually within sight
"Hither, thither and yon" is an old phrase meaning Everywhere. My boss wrote (in our daily notes) that he had appointments "hither, dither and yon." Since he's largely ineffectual, the "dither" misprint was quite funny.
Courting
Meaning: To try to please somebody in order to get something you want, especially the support of a person, an organization
Whither
Meaning: To what place or state
Whither? Thither and hither. Praythee mayest I have the car fobbery?
Yoke
Meaning: The amount of land that one pair of oxen could plough
in a day
World Wide Web (WWW)
Meaning: A system for finding information on the internet, in which documents are connected to other documents using hypertext links
Heavens
Meaning: Used to show that you are surprised or annoyed
Fair
Meaning: Beautiful
Go-cart
Meaning: A baby walker
please don't put babies in Go-karts.. their poor little legs won't reach the peddles
Desuetude
Meaning: A state of inactivity or disuse
Ostentatious
Meaning: Attracting or seeking to attract attention, admiration
Mobile phone
Meaning: A phone that does not have wires and works by radio, that you can carry with you and use anywhere
Pictures
Meaning: A painting or drawing, etc. that shows a scene, a person or thing
Coz
Meaning: Cousin
I particularly missed Fortnight and Curmudgeon, both of which belong here, but lovely job, thank you 😊
I particularly missed Fortnight and Curmudgeon, both of which belong here, but lovely job, thank you 😊
