While these words are mostly for fun, they sometimes appear as extra-credit points on tests!
Hertnon, Simon. Endangered Words: A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Lovers. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009. Print.
omnist
noun. The OED defines this word as "a person who believes in a single transcendant purpose or cause uniting all things or people, or the members of a particular group of people." Mid-19th century.
glandaceous
Adj. From the OED: Acorn colored. From the Latin glans, glandis, "acorn" and the suffix aceous, "of the nature of." Late 19th century.
imbroglio
Noun. There are always two sides to an imbroglio, but the OED appears to have captured them all:
1. A confused heap.
2. A state of great confusion and entanglement; a complicated or difficult situation; a confused misunderstanding or disagreement, embroilment.
3. A passage, in which the vocal instrument parts are made to sing or play, against each other, in such a manner as to produce the effect of apparent but really well-ordered confusion.
Imbroglio is a loanword from Italian, formed from imbrogliare," to embroil, entangle," and is a cognate with (and probably derived from) the Middle French very embrouiller, "to muddle, embroil." 18th century.
chavish
Noun. According to the Reverend W.D. Parish's A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect (Farncombe & Co 1875), a chavish is "a chattering or prattling noise of many persons speaking together. A noise made by a flock of birds." Etymology: who knows!? The OED offers nothing but an invitation to compare chirm (noise, din, chatter, the "hum" of insects or school children. Late 17th century.
anacampserote
Noun. Anacampserote is an herb feigned to restore departed love. A French borrowing from the Greek anakamptein (to bend back) and eros (the Greek god of love). Anacampserote is a cognate of the only slightly less rare anacamptic (causing or suffering reflection; chiefly in reference to sound). Early 17th Century.