I love this stuff.
Snoutfair: A person with a handsome countenance
“The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten” by Jeffrey Kacirk
Pussyvan: A flurry, temper
“The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten” by Jeffrey Kacirk
Wonder-wench: A sweetheart
“The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten” by Jeffrey Kacirk
Lunting: Walking while smoking a pipe
John Mactaggart’s “Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia,” 1824
C
alifornia widow: A married woman whose husband is away from her for any extended period
John Farmer’s “Americanisms Old and New”, 1889
Groak: To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them
ObsoleteWord.Blogspot.com
Jirble: To pour out (a liquid) with an unsteady hand: as, he jirbles out a dram
Wordnik.com
Curglaff: The shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into the cold water
John Jamieson’s Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger, what we would today call a columnist
“The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten” by Jeffrey Kacirk
Tyromancy: Divining by the coagulation of cheese
“The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten” by Jeffrey Kacirk
Beef-witted: Having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating too much beef.
John Phin’s “Shakespeare Cyclopaedia and Glossary”, 1902
Queerplungers: Cheats who throw themselves into the water in order that they may be taken up by their accomplices, who carry them to one of the houses appointed by the Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons, where they are rewarded by the society with a guinea each, and the supposed drowned person, pretending he was driven to that extremity by great necessity, is also frequently sent away with a contribution in his pocket.
“The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten” by Jeffrey Kacirk
Englishable: That which may be rendered into English
John Ogilvie’s “Comprehensive English Dictionary”, 1865
Resistentialism: The seemingly spiteful behavior shown by inanimate objects
ObsoleteWord.Blogspot.com
Bookwright: A writer of books; an author; a term of slight contempt
Daniel Lyons’s “Dictionary of the English Language”, 1897
Soda-squirt: One who works at a soda fountain in New Mexico
Elsie Warnock’s “Dialect Speech in California and New Mexico”, 1919
With squirrel: Pregnant
Vance Randolph’s “Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech”, 1953
Zafty: A person very easily imposed upon
Maj. B. Lowsley’s “A Glossary of Berkshire Words and Phrases”, 1888