Big words: 40 hard words and what they mean

Someone once called me "perspicacious" and I said thanks, thinking it was a kind of bamboo. It was not. That is when I decided to study big words.

Here are 40 of them with plain-English meanings, plus the hardest words to spell and the hardest words to say.

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Big words and their meanings

1. Ubiquitous: found everywhere.
2. Ephemeral: lasting a very short time.
3. Serendipity: finding something good by chance.
4. Eloquent: speaking or writing clearly and beautifully.
5. Meticulous: very careful about details.
6. Ambiguous: having more than one possible meaning.
7. Benevolent: kind and wanting to help.
8. Cacophony: a harsh mix of loud sounds.
9. Quintessential: the most perfect example of something.
10. Juxtapose: to place things side by side to compare them.
11. Pragmatic: practical, focused on what works.
12. Resilient: able to recover from difficulties.
13. Procrastinate: to put things off until later.
14. Idiosyncrasy: a habit or way of being that is unique to someone.
15. Inexorable: impossible to stop or change.
16. Verbose: using more words than needed.
17. Laconic: using very few words.
18. Perspicacious: quick to notice and understand things.
19. Obsolete: no longer used; out of date.
20. Innocuous: harmless.

1. Magnanimous: generous and forgiving.
2. Ostentatious: showy, made to impress.
3. Gregarious: loves being around other people.
4. Loquacious: very talkative.
5. Melancholy: a deep, quiet sadness.
6. Nostalgia: a fond longing for the past.
7. Paradigm: a model or pattern.
8. Plausible: seems reasonable or likely.
9. Sycophant: someone who flatters important people to get ahead.
10. Conundrum: a confusing, difficult problem.
11. Euphemism: a softer way of saying something unpleasant.
12. Onomatopoeia: a word that sounds like what it means, like "buzz".
13. Petrichor: the smell of rain on dry ground.
14. Defenestration: throwing someone or something out of a window.
15. Sesquipedalian: using long words. Like this one.
16. Facetious: joking at the wrong moment.
17. Altruism: caring about the good of others.
18. Sagacious: wise, with good judgment.
19. Impetus: the force that gets something moving.
20. Ineffable: too great to be described in words.

Hard words to spell

• Accommodate (two Cs, two Ms)
• Rhythm
• Necessary (one C, two Ss)
• Embarrass (two Rs, two Ss)
• Conscientious
• Mischievous (no "i" after the v)
• Separate (there is "a rat" in it)
• Definitely
• Occurrence
• Liaison
• Bureaucracy
• Entrepreneur
• Pharaoh
• Questionnaire
• Millennium
• Weird
• Receive (i before e, except after c)

Hard words to say

• Worcestershire
• Squirrel
• Anemone
• Phenomenon
• Otorhinolaryngologist (an ear, nose and throat doctor)
• Sixth
• Rural
• Colonel (said like "kernel")
• Epitome (said "ih-PIT-uh-mee")
• Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis: with 45 letters, often called the longest word in English dictionaries. It is a lung disease caused by breathing in very fine volcanic dust.

If you like twisting your tongue, the blog also has a post full of tongue twisters.

Build your vocabulary by playing

The most fun way to learn new words is to play with them. In Letter River, you read a clue and drag across the letters on the board to spell the answer.

PolarzinhoThe otter in Letter River never procrastinates. I procrastinated writing this caption.

And in Stop!, the bigger your vocabulary, the more answers nobody else thought of.

PolarzinhoI once wrote "conundrum" for fruit. It did not count. It did sound great.

FAQ

What is the longest word in English?

The famous one is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, with 45 letters.

What big word can I use every day?

Procrastinate, nostalgia and resilient are easy to fit into a normal conversation.

What does ubiquitous mean?

Found everywhere. Smartphones are ubiquitous.

Your turn

Pick one word from the list and use it in a conversation today. Then practice your vocabulary in the games below.

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