Wordsmithing Under Burgess

No one my age really knows much about Gelett Burgess. I admit I knew little until I started poking around for unique words in the English language and it just so happens that Burgess knew quite a bit.

We can thank him for blurb, for example. A good word, I must say.

Anyhow, I am reading a reprint of his 1914 Burgess Unabridged: A Classic Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed and I am loving every word. So now, I am going to share some.

Are you excited?

I am.

Today's word is...

Agowilt

Ag'o-wilt, n. 1. Sickening terror, sudden, unnecessary fear. 2. The passage of the heart past the epiglottis, going up. 3. Emotional insanity.
Ag'o-wilt, v. To almost-faint.

And my favorite part of his brilliant, witty examples for this word...

"It may be but a single extra step which isn't there and the agowilt playfully paralyzes your heart. So a sudden jerk of the elevator, the startling stopping of the train, the automobile skidding, the roller-coaster looping the loop -- bring agowilts."

Consider this word, though never mainstreamed into Modern English, in my vocabulary.

Tally: Webster 0, Burgess 1

Source: Burgess, Gelett. Burgess Unabridged: A Classic Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed. New York: Walker & Company, 1914. Print