Take the World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test

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Take the World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test

By Brad Shorr | March 12, 2008

Over the last few years, Words for Nerds has been a regular feature in my blogs. To qualify as a Word for Nerds, it must meet three criteria –

1. The word must be in current usage, not an archaic term.
2. The word must be usable in general conversation, not a narrow, technical term.
3. The word must be very uncommon, but not totally obscure. (This is the tricky one. The perfect Word for Nerds is one which you kind of recognize, but don’t quite exactly know the meaning of.)

Many of the words on the Words for Nerds list are ones I had to look up when reading.
They’re tough; over my head, anyway, for the most part. So here’s the complete list to-date. How many of these 57 head scratchers do you know? Give it a try, and at the end, check out the Word Sell Challenge.

The World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test

WHEW! That had to be tough. My hat’s off to anybody who knew more than ten. If you knew 20 or more, well, you have one of the best vocabularies IN THE WORLD!

Word Sell Challenge

These Words for Nerds deserve to be more widely used!

Write a post using ten or more Words for Nerds and let me know — I’ll link to it from my blog, or if you’d like, I’ll run it as a guest post right here.

Related:

30 Responses to “Take the World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test”

Joanna Young Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Probably only about 8 I could try and define - might do better choosing from multiple choice answers (though that’s a bit of a cheat)

I don’t think I can resist your challenge - I’ll see what I can do!

Joanna
--Deb Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Okay, just skimming the list looking for words I recognize and would know if I read them in a sentence. 27. To actually try to define, though? Fewer. Because this is the problem with a good working vocabulary–you can use it yourself but trying to share it with others is tricky! It’s like trying to explain how you know when your bread dough is the right consistency–you just KNOW, but it’s an internal thing (grin).
Brad Shorr Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Joanna, I thought about multiple choice, but it would take me forever to put that together. Deb, building a working vocabulary is hard work all the way around. I can’t resist the urge to look up a word if I don’t know it, but remembering the definition is tough. Even though I wrote extensive posts about each of these words, I still can’t precisely define several of them. How do you and Joanna build your vocabularies? I’m really curious.
Joanna Young Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Brad, 1) read 2) tune into my parents’ conversations!

I am thinking about challenging my dad to this test

Joanna
John Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am
That sounds like a fun challenge, but I can’t help thinking that the post would be very hard to read.
Brad Shorr Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Joanna, thanks for the tips. Let us know how your dad does on the test - from what you’ve shared I expect big things. John, such a post would be difficult, but may serve as a way to help people take their vocabulary to the next level.
dangerblond.org » i love stuff like this Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
[…] The World’s Hardest Vocabulary Test […]
Jeanne Dininni Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Brad,

What a tough vocabulary test! Got seven and almost got an eighth. Defined somnolent as “asleep,” when it actually means “sleepy” or “drowsy.” Not exactly right–but close!

Thanks for challenging us to learn new words!

Jeanne
Brad Shorr Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 5:26 am
Jeanne,seven or eight is not bad at all. I dubbed this “world’s hardest” for a reason!
enormous iNCoNgrUiTieS » Blog Archive » Words for Nerds Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
[…] I too love this kind of stuff. The world’s hardest vocabulary test: […]
ArtD0dger Says:
March 14th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Cool. I did well, but the sad part is I recognized a lot of words that I looked up recently and still didn’t get quite right.
Just gotta keep drilling on that Firefox dictionary search extension…
DeafinitelyHurts Says:
March 14th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
It helps if you ever studied Latin, Greek, or one of the Romance languages. Most of these words have Greco-Roman etymologies.
Harl Delos Says:
March 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
1. Jejune is a marine boot camp.

2. Pissmire is the muddy ground around a portajohnny that leaks.

3. A moil is a mafioso’s girlfriend.

4. A fribble is a milkshake at Friendly’s.

5. Protean is a non-crabohydrate nutrient.

6. Gravamen haul stone from the river bed.

7. A parapatetic is a vet that specializes in those little caged birds.

8. Turpitude is what you use to clean paint brushes with.

9. A sinecure is a medical treatment for mathematicians who are all clogged up from a cold.

10. A juggernaut is a NASA employee who can keep 6 or 7 balls in the air at once.

That’s ten. What is it I win, again?
Brad Shorr Says:
March 15th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Harl, I like some of your definitions better than the conventional ones. DH, too bad most of us don’t know Latin or Greek these days. Our vocabularies would be much better. AD, it’s tough to remember words unless you use them, and a lot of these are hard to work into a conversation.
Guest Post from Joanna Young - A Plain English Guide to Writing with Difficult Words | Word Sell, Inc. Says:
March 18th, 2008 at 6:44 am
[…] piece was inspired by Brad’s challenge to write a post using 10 or more of his words from the ultimate word nerd vocabulary test. I couldn’t resist the challenge! […]
Cartoon - Foozle and Fribble | Word Sell, Inc. Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 4:59 am
[…] Foozle and Fribble will be recurring characters who act out your favorite Words for Nerds. Any suggestions for the next cartoon? For the latest Words for Nerds list, click here. […]
Jrock Says:
March 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I was familiar with many of these words from reading “classic” novels but I forgot their meanings! I think most avid readers stumble across these words at some point. That being said I only remembered a few words.
Brad Shorr Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 5:48 am
Jrock, I have the same problem. Even after writing posts about the words, I have trouble remembering some of them.
Harl Delos Says:
April 1st, 2008 at 6:17 am
It’s April Fool’s day, so on my blog, I made a post - “It Pays To Increase Your Word Power” with funny definitions for all these words. Click on my name to go directly to that page….
Brad Shorr Says:
April 1st, 2008 at 7:13 am
Very good, Harl! Some of your definitions are better than the originals.
Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:43 am
Learning new words is a sort of hobby for me…felt delighted to come across your post…
I had been writing a blog http://wordabode.blogspot.com
since last month - each post about some word which we don’t normally use but might as well
I will try to write a post using around 10 Nerd words
Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:05 am
It is a veritable hegemony of the non-nerds. Hark! The vilification of my innocent penchant for words grows! The gravamen of these captious canard-mongers is that my otiose propensity for sesquipedalian vocabulary is nothing but a blatant rodomontade. Alas, even Uncle Bob seems to have shed his affable avuncular indulgence and seems to have transmogrified into some flagitious “word philistine”.

Why?! Did I ever ask you to sing an encomium or even cheaply blandish my efforts? I asked none…only with the hope to be conferred with the dignity of a Nerd.

Do I not understand that my occassional circumbendibus ramblings even in colloquialism might have sounded cacophonosly recondite and my writing insuperable to the masses. My purpose is not to communicate- neither to discombobulate. It is a silently puissant uprising - in my own way- to the quotidian order of the day an increasing tendency to extol some ill-defined putative goodness of the forced parsimony of verbiage. Pardon my lack of protean tastes of rebellion - I will stand my ground!

In conclusion of the adumbration of my mission, I can only hope to look forward with an unbridled Micawberism that my vacuous detractors will find me far too soporific and that Somnolence will win over Schadenfreude!
Brad Shorr Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 am
Jeevanjyoti, that is some incredible comment you just left! Thanks for visiting Word Sell. Good luck with your blog. It’s already given me a few spectacular adds to my vocabulary.
Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
Thanks a lot! Just for the record, I never write like that and I fully appreciate the nice guest post of Joanna Young….was only trying to cross the 10 Nerd words barrier…
Brad Shorr Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:02 am
Jeevanjyoti, let’s hope nobody writes like that on a regular basis! Your comment was enjoyable regardless.
pevin krovert Says:
April 11th, 2008 at 11:05 am
This was hard.
Hayley Says:
April 30th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I agree that it’s a lot easier if you have some knowledge of Classical or Romance languages - my A-Level French and Latin helped me get a solid 19 with a couple of vaguely-right ‘guesstimations’. Fiendishly tough, and enjoyably so!
Brad Shorr Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 5:13 am
Hayley, no question, 19 is an outstanding score. My hat’s off to you!
Gregory Heyworth Says:
May 4th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Grampus, foozle, moil, and aril. The rest I knew and enjoyed. I would be glad to contribute some from my working collection for “hardest” list mark 2. For me, old and superannuated phrases or phrasal verbs are the most interesting. They have a flavor that can enrich period writing where most of these, if used, merely pose and annoy.
Brad Shorr Says:
May 5th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Gregory, You are the new champion - very impressive. Thanks for visiting Word Sell.