[Anne FS]

Thanks for the confirmation!

(lol) You're welcome. We don't even need the OED for that one, it's in the regular dictionary. I'd recently looked it up at dictionary.com because I knew people who had "Hough" for a last name. It's pronounced "Hock" so I thought, hmmm.....to the interwebz!

[Anne FS]

"Strumpet!" That's a good one, chemteach.

The list of archaic words I linked earlier today has some lovely ones. I found that when I was reading Ngaio Marsh's "Scales of Justice." (Great old-fashioned mystery). The English village in that one she called "Swevenings," saying it meant "dream," and I'd never heard that before.

"Sweven – A vision or a dream. “[The Queen] went in to the Sultan and assured him that their daughter had suffered during all her wedding-night from swevens and nightmare.” 1001 Nights, translated by Richard Burton."

[redhorse5]

Drayage. I worked for the Baldwin Piano Company in the 1980's and the shipping charges were still called "drayage".

The icebox thing is interesting. I'm 63 and until I was three we still had an icebox. My earliest horse memory is waiting on the front porch for the iceman who arrived in a horse drawn wagon to deliver the ice. I couldn't wait for that horse to get there. This was a small North Carolina town which was decidedly behind the times.

[sk_pacer]

Strumpet reminds me of other words seldom used: tart, trollop, guttersnipe and my all time favourite in this genre, loose woman.

[Houndhill]

Vixen is technically a female fox, no?

Yes.
And bitch is a female dog, used as insult when applied to human.
Have not heard "gyp" used as human insult...or "queen" (cat) or mare. Human females may be called "fillies" not as an insult, but not mares. "Cow" is an insult but ewe and doe are seldom heard applied to humans.

All interesting.

[MHM]

The icebox thing is interesting. I'm 63 and until I was three we still had an icebox. My earliest horse memory is waiting on the front porch for the iceman who arrived in a horse drawn wagon to deliver the ice. I couldn't wait for that horse to get there. This was a small North Carolina town which was decidedly behind the times.

That's such a neat memory to have. I never saw that process in action, but the thought of those horses who knew their route and all their stops just tickles me as a demonstration of the way man and horse used to work together.

[ezduzit]

Linoleum is one that is still being used even tho its really been vinyl for about 50 years or more!

Gay...meaning light-hearted, happy...isn't used anymore. I think a book titled "Our Hearts were Young and Gay" would have a whole 'nuther meaning these days!

[KathyR]

I tell my 7th graders not to lollygaggle in the hall. Then, I have to explain what that means.

[Guin]

Chortle. I think I still do.

Lewis Carroll invented "chortle" in Alice in Wonderland. It didn't exist before then. Specifically, in the poem "Jabberwocky." 'O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! He chortled in his joy.'

(A bunch of us in freshman English memorized Jabberwocky because we loved it so.)

[Guin]

I'm partial to "vignette" and "petticoat."

[Ghazzu]

Lewis Carroll invented "chortle" in Alice in Wonderland. It didn't exist before then. Specifically, in the poem "Jabberwocky." 'O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! He chortled in his joy.'

(A bunch of us in freshman English memorized Jabberwocky because we loved it so.)

My office-mate and I often break spontaneously into recitations of either "Jabberwocky" or "The Walrus and The Carpenter" .

I do believe it rather frightens some of our students.

[fooler]

(lol) You're welcome. We don't even need the OED for that one, it's in the regular dictionary. I'd recently looked it up at dictionary.com because I knew people who had "Hough" for a last name. It's pronounced "Hock" so I thought, hmmm.....to the interwebz!

LOL - not in any of the dictionaries available to me at this time or on the web. I searched for the word for a few years after I first read the short story with no luck.

[glfprncs]

I am absolutely positively going to start using all of these words in my classroom next week. My 8th graders won't know what hit them. They'll be flummoxed!

[Calvincrowe]

Just don't call them little strumpets and you'll be fine, Glfprncs! I use the words loathe, dawdle, shirk and waggle in my classroom--there is usually a bit of confuzzling going on (I made that one up!).

[Dreamwalker]

And now a modern usage for trousers is the abbreviation, "trou" as in, "to drop trou".

Do people still say that , or was that just in my college days?

Well we still say it here. If we are a little old-fashioned we may wear and drop our strides instead

But when I'm 'irked' I get a few odd looks for saying so.

[kookicat]

Chiffarobe and Chest of Drawers are 2 of my favorites

Chest of drawers is still widely used in England.

[kookicat]

Longe.

Seems everyone's gone to "lunge," which considering most of them are just chasing their horses around in a circle, they are indeed just "lunging" their horses and not "longeing" them at all.

Lunge is the way we spell it in England. Longe just sounds odd to me.

[VirginiaBred]

Supper (my mom is the only person I've heard use this instead of dinner in the last decade)

Now, now.......around here "supper" is used daily. It's definitely a southern term more than anything and typically is used for the evening meal. Dinner is more of the main meal and in the south frequently meant the mid-day meal.

[Anne FS]

I use the words loathe,....

"Loathe" is a lovely word. Fun to say.

Another favorite word of mine I try to work into conversation is "defenestration," which is the act of throwing someone out the window. I think it's fabulous that there's a word for this.