Words for "Language Junkies"

Is it possible to take vocabulary expansion too far? A piece in the Wall Street Journal points out the situations where word knowledge can work against you. True sesquipedalians, or "word nerds" need to be careful of the words they chose lest they alienate people they're trying to impress, or just render themselves incomprehensible.

Just for fun, we've rounded up the offending words quoted in the Journal piece, into a List for "Language Junkies." Whether you relish these words or think of them as ones to avoid, it's fun to look them over, add them to your learning at Vocabulary.com.
17 words 180 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. ebullient
    joyously unrestrained
    Dotcom, a large, ebullient German national with New Zealand residency, could not be reached for comment.
  2. innocuous
    not injurious to physical or mental health
    Insects live near us, with us and on us, innocuous roommates in our urban dwellings – a veritable natural history museum in our homes.
  3. malodorous
    having an unpleasant smell
    Glenda Richmond, 70, spoke of violations in her senior building, including roach, mouse, and bedbug infestations, malodorous garbage, and a lack of wheelchair access.
  4. prevaricate
    be deliberately ambiguous or unclear
    And while Britain has prevaricated on airport expansion, Amsterdam now has six runways.
  5. sagacious
    acutely insightful and wise
    He was a daring and sagacious researcher, indefatigable in his quest for information. Scientific American (Aug 24, 2012)
  6. ignominious
    deserving or bringing disgrace or shame
    The bank's 23,000 employees might need cheering up, given its ignominious fall from grace several years ago.
  7. fastidious
    giving careful attention to detail
    Mr. Guiraudie’s camera never moves beyond the lake and records the passage of time with fastidious precision.
  8. esoteric
    understandable only by an enlightened inner circle
    This sort of vocabulary question would replace the more esoteric version on the current SAT.
  9. penultimate
    next to the last
    She outlasted George, the penultimate survivor of her species and her only companion, by four years.
  10. non sequitur
    a reply that has no relevance to what preceded it
    And now the article has been edited and my comment looks like a non sequitur. Seattle Times (Mar 25, 2014)
  11. didactic
    instructive, especially excessively
    And their presence in a larger saga can whip a plodding, didactic tale into something rich and vivid.
  12. circumlocution
    an indirect way of expressing something
    We encourage candor to the point of tactlessness: No circumlocution, no fancy rhetoric, no beating around the bush. Forbes (Mar 29, 2013)
  13. perspicacious
    mentally acute or penetratingly discerning
    Delivered economically, her judgments are not only clever but perspicacious, humane, and, for the most part, convincing. Slate (Apr 5, 2013)
  14. remunerative
    for which money is paid
    Corporate salaries, while enabling a very comfortable lifestyle for those near the top, were far less remunerative than in later years.
  15. sesquipedalian
    a very long word (a foot and a half long)
    He was indebted to a ruse of Aunt Margaret for his historic and sesquipedalian name. Spalding, Henry S.
  16. vicissitude
    a variation in circumstances or fortune
    Despite its expansion, Poland hasn’t been totally shielded from the vicissitudes of the business cycle.
  17. perfidious
    tending to betray
    That overarching sense of Pakistan being a “perfidious partner” has narrowed the willingness of Washington to entertain Pakistani concerns in the wider region.
Created on Tue Mar 25 13:26:44 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Mar 26 00:52:23 EDT 2014)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.