groak
v. to stare at a person longingly while he is eating

“Did you ever hear of a dog before who did not persecute one with beseeching eyes at mealtimes?” wrote Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning in 1846 of her celebrated dog Flush. “And remember, this is not the effect of discipline. Also if another than myself happens to take coffee or break bread in the room here, he teazes straightway with eyes & paws, … teazes like a common dog & is put out of the door before he can be quieted by scolding.”

acapnotic
n. a nonsmoker

immerd
v. to cover with excrement

ombibulous
adj. drinking everything

I sang, and thought I sang very well; but he just looked up into my face with a very quizzical expression, and said, “How long have you been singing, Mademoiselle?”

That’s from Lillie de Hagermann-Lindencrone’s 1912 book In the Courts of Memory. What’s remarkable about it? This section:

I sang, and thought I sang very well; but he just looked up into my face with a very quizzical expression, and said, “How long have you been singing, Mademoiselle?”

… contains all 26 letters of the alphabet.

At 56 letters, it’s the shortest known example of a “pangrammatic window.”

obsolagnium
n. waning sexual desire due to age

epicaricacy
n. taking pleasure in others’ misfortune

A aptronym is a name that is aptly suited to its owner’s occupation. Examples:

• Sally Ride, astronaut
• William Wordsworth, poet
• Margaret Court and Anna Smashnova, tennis players
• John Tory, leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party
• Learned Hand, judge
• Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan’s press secretary
• Chuck Long and Willie Thrower, NFL quarterbacks

And Joe Strummer, guitarist for The Clash.

cacozelia
n. the use of rare or foreign words to appear learned

tegestologist
n. a collector of beer mats