A personal lexicon of unusual, archaic, scientific, and otherwise interesting words encountered in reading. Browse other letters from the Dictionary catalog.
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| façade | the face of a building; an artificial or deceptive front. |
| facile | easy; working, acting or speaking with effortless ease and fluency; arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial; readily manifested, together with an aura of insincerity and lack of depth |
| façons de parler | |
| factotum | an assistant who serves in a wide range of capacities. |
| fait | fact |
| fakir | religious mendicant, esp. one who performs feats of endurance |
| falsetto | (music) a male singing voice marked by artificially produced tones in an upper register beyond the normal range esp. of a tenor |
| fatuity | smug stupidity; utter foolishness; something that is utterly stupid or silly |
| fatuous | vacantly silly, purposeless, idiotic |
| faux pas | a social blunder |
| fawn | to seek favor or attention by flattery and obsequious behavior |
| feckless | weak, ineffective; worthless, irresponsible. |
| fecund | capable of producing offspring or vegetation; fruitful; marked by intellectual productivity |
| fedora | a soft felt hat with a fairly low crown creased lengthwise and a brim that can be turned up or down |
| feign | sham; pretend. |
| feldspar | rock-forming minerals occurring principally in igneous, plutonic and some metamorphic rocks, and consisting of silicates of aluminium with potassium, sodium, calcium, and rarely barium. About 60% of earth’s outer crust is composed of feldspar. |
| fermata | (Music) unspecified prolongation of note or rest. |
| fetid | having an offensive odor |
| fiat | an arbitrary order or decree; authorization or sanction |
| fiducial | based on or relating to faith or trust; regarded or employed as a standard of reference |
| filibuster | the use of obstructionist tactics, esp. prolonged speech making, for the purpose of delaying legislative action; an adventurer who engages in a private military action in a foreign country; int.v., tr.v. |
| filigree | n. delicate and intricate ornamental work make from gold, silver or other fine twisted wire; an intricate, delicate or fanciful ornamentation; tr.v. |
| fisticuffs | fistfight |
| fizzen | |
| fjord | a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between steep slopes |
| flabbergast | to cause to be overcome with astonishment; astound. |
| flagrante delicto | adv. in the very act red-handed |
| flay | to strip the skin or outer covering of; to strip of money or goods; fleece; to whip or lash; to assail with stinging criticism; excoriate |
| flea | small, wingless, blood sucking insects that have legs adapted for jumping and are parasitic on warm-blooded animals |
| fledge | tr.v. to take care of a young bird until it is ready to fly; to cover with or as if with feathers; intr.v. to grow the plumage necessary for flight. |
| flimflam | tr.v. to cheat, swindle; n. nonsense, humbug; a deception, a swindle |
| flippant | marked by disrespectful levity or casualness; pert |
| flophouse | a cheap, run-down hotel or boarding house |
| flue | a pipe, tube, or channel for conveying hot air, gas, steam or smoke from a furnace or fireplace to a chimney |
| flummox | to confuse, perplex. |
| fluorescence/phosphorescence | the emission of light from a substance being stimulated by light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation or by certain other means. If the luminescence continues after the stimulus ceases it is known as phosphorescence. |
| fluoroscope | device containing a fluorescent screen which converts the x-ray into visible light. |
| flute | n. (architecture) a long, usually rounded groove incised as a decorative motif on the shaft of a column, eg.; tr.v. |
| foible | a minor weakness or failing of character |
| folly | a lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight; an act or instance of foolishness; a costly undertaking having an absurd or ruinous outcome |
| fop | a man who is preoccupied with and often vain about his clothes and manners |
| foppery | dandy. |
| foraminifer (pl. -a) | marine protozoan having a calcareous shell with perforations through which numerous pseudopods protrude. |
| forbear | v.tr. to refrain from; resist; to desist from; cease; v. intr. to be tolerant or patient in face of provocation |
| forints | currency of Hungary |
| forlorn | appearing sad or lonely because deserted or abandoned, forsaken or deprived; wretched or pitiful in appearance or condition; nearly hopeless; desperate |
| forsooth | in truth; indeed |
| forsythia | shrub with yellow flowers. |
| forte | a person’s strong point, thing in which one excels |
| fortissimo | adj., adv. in a very loud manner; n. |
| Foucault pendulum | rate of rotation of pendulum; rate of rotation of earth x sine of angle of latitude. |
| foundling | a deserted or abandoned child of unknown parentage |
| fount | reservoir of oil in lamp or of ink in pen; spring, source, fountain |
| frangible | breakable |
| fraternity | a social, honorary or professional organization. |
| frenetic | wildly excited or active; frantic; frenzied |
| frizzy/frizzly | adj. tightly curled |
| frugivorous | fruit-eating |
| frustum | part of cone or pyramid formed by cutting of top by plane parallel to base. |
| fugue | a polyphonic composition in which themes or a theme stated successively by a number of voices in imitation are developed contrapuntally. |
| fumarole | a hole in a volcanic area from which hot smoke and gases escape |
| funk | n. a state of cowardly fright; a panic; a state of severe depression; a cowardly, fearful person; tr.v., intr.v. |
| furrow | n. long, narrow, shallow trench made in the ground by a plow; a rut, groove or narrow depression; tr.v., intr.v. |
| fylfot | a swastika |
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