Unusual Words
last update: 14 July 2020
This webpage is home to meanings of unusual words, which can be loanwords, blend words, calques, portmanteaus, the odd retronyms, the very occasional apocopation and buzzword, and just words that mean different things in American and English.
A 'partner' webpage is 'New Words - New Definitions', which I view as including the way ordinary words are given different, special meanings.
Abuzz - Charles Dickens is credited with the first written use of this adjective, in his 1859 novel "A Tale of Two Cities"
Addle - one meaning was cattle urine or liquid manure, and it is at the origin of the expression "addle brain" as a foolish of dull-witted person
Lets just start with loanwords
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Anglo-Saxon_origin
Next word adware
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Words
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Words_and_phrases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portmanteaus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_retronyms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calques
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English_(A–L)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English_(M–Z)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak#Vocabulary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_apocopations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_containing_Q_not_followed_by_U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_disputed_usage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_buzzwords
Bowdlerisation (expurgation) - a form of censorship by purging anything offensive from a work