The Lexicon Obscura
Words Nobody Uses
(But Everyone Should)
(But Everyone Should)
They were very patient. Here they are.
Vol. 7 · Thirty-five words by the end of this page. The collection endures.
Seven volumes in, and the supply shows no signs of running low. The English language — and the languages it has cheerfully borrowed from without asking — contains more precise, useful, and almost entirely unused vocabulary than any reasonable person would expect. This week’s five continue in that tradition.
One of them you will want to use immediately. One of them will make you think of a specific person. One of them describes something you have done this week. The remaining two are simply excellent words that deserve to exist in more conversations than they currently do.
This Week’s Specimens
Zwischenzug
/ˈtsvɪʃ.ən.tsuːk/
noun
strategy
German
chess
An unexpected move that disrupts an opponent’s plan before responding to their threat — an in-between move that changes everything.
In chess, a zwischenzug is an intermediate move made before the expected response — one that introduces a new threat, forcing the opponent to react, and thereby changing the terms of the exchange entirely. In life, it is the unexpected pivot that reframes a negotiation, a conversation, or a conflict before it plays out the way the other side expected. The move nobody saw coming because everyone assumed you would respond in the obvious way.
Example
“Rather than respond to the criticism directly, she played a zwischenzug — introducing a new question that shifted the entire frame of the discussion before anyone could object.”
Origin
German: zwischen (between, intermediate) + Zug (move, pull). A standard term in chess theory, borrowed into English by players who found no adequate equivalent. The concept transfers well beyond the board.
Rarity
●●●●●
Useful in chess. More useful in meetings. Most useful in arguments you did not start.
Tarantism
/ˈtær.ən.tɪz.əm/
noun
impulse
Italian
historical
An irresistible urge to dance — specifically, the kind that overtakes you without warning and cannot be politely ignored.
Historically, a condition believed to result from the bite of a tarantula spider — characterized by an uncontrollable urge to dance, which was thought to be both the symptom and the cure. Medieval southern Italy took this very seriously. In modern usage, it describes the sudden, overwhelming impulse to move when the right song arrives at the right moment — when your body has simply decided, independent of your intentions, that dancing is now happening.
Example
“The song came on and the tarantism was immediate — she was across the kitchen and moving before she had consciously decided anything.”
Origin
From Taranto, a city in southern Italy, where the tarantula spider was common and the dancing epidemic was documented from the 15th century onward. The tarantella, the famous Italian folk dance, takes its name from the same source. The cure and the condition were always the same thing.
Rarity
●●●●●
A medical diagnosis you can deploy the next time someone asks why you’re dancing in the kitchen. You’re welcome.
Palimpsest
/ˈpæl.ɪmp.sest/
noun
history
Greek
poetic
Something that carries visible traces of its earlier versions — reused, overwritten, but never quite erased.
Originally, a manuscript page that has been scraped clean and written over again — but in which traces of the earlier text remain visible beneath the new. By extension, anything that bears the marks of its previous states: a city where old buildings show through new ones, a person whose earlier selves are still legible in how they move through the world, a relationship that carries the memory of what it used to be in every exchange. Nothing is ever entirely erased. The palimpsest is the proof.
Example
“The city was a palimpsest — Roman walls beneath medieval streets beneath Victorian buildings, each era written over the last and none of them quite gone.”
Origin
From the Greek palimpsestos: palin (again) + psestos (scraped). Medieval scribes reused expensive parchment by scraping away the ink — but the ghost of the earlier text often remained. Modern imaging technology has recovered texts lost for centuries this way.
Rarity
●●●●●
One of those words that, once known, you will see everywhere. Cities, people, conversations. Everything is a palimpsest.
Jargogle
/ˈdʒɑː.ɡəl/
verb
language
17th century
To confuse or jumble — to mix things up in the mind until they make no sense.
To confuse or muddle — to scramble facts, ideas, or someone’s understanding until the original meaning is lost in the jumble. Used transitively: you can jargogle an argument, a set of instructions, or — perhaps most usefully — a person. The word sounds exactly like what it means, which is relatively rare and should be rewarded with use.
Example
“Three hours into the meeting, the consultant had managed to completely jargogle what had been a straightforward decision — nobody could remember what they were originally trying to decide.”
Origin
17th-century English, of uncertain origin — possibly related to jargon and gargle, both of which involve something getting mixed up in the throat or the mind. Used by John Locke in 1692, then largely abandoned. Locke would have wanted it to continue.
Rarity
●●●●●
Sounds like what it means. Works exactly as advertised. Bring it back.
Senescence
/sɪˈnes.əns/
noun
biology
Latin
poetic
The process of growing old — biological aging as it actually happens, not as a euphemism but as a precise description.
The process of deterioration with age — in biology, the gradual decline in function that all organisms undergo over time. In broader use, the particular quality of late autumn afternoons, of institutions past their peak, of technologies that have been superseded but not yet replaced, of anything in the long, slow process of becoming something that used to be more than it currently is. Not tragic, exactly. Just honest. The word treats aging as a process worth naming precisely rather than politely avoiding.
Example
“The garden had a beauty particular to senescence — every leaf at the absolute edge of itself, color pushed to its furthest point before the fall.”
Origin
From the Latin senescere (to grow old), from senex (old man). The same root as senator — in Rome, a council of elders. Aging was once considered a qualification. The word remembers this.
Rarity
●●●●●
A more honest word for aging than most of the alternatives. Honesty is underrated.
· · · ✦ · · ·
Thirty-five words. Seven volumes.
The language is not running out.
Neither are we.
Vol. 8 next week. More words that have been waiting.
They know how to wait.
The language is not running out.
Neither are we.
Vol. 8 next week. More words that have been waiting.
They know how to wait.
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