risible

1. Of or pertaining to laughter.
   • 1912, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Hocken and Hunken, ch. 20:

     A joke merely affected her with silent convulsive twitchings, as though the risible faculties struggled somewhere within her but could not bring the laugh to birth.

2. Provoking laughter; ludicrous.
   • 1822, Sir Walter Scott, Peveril of the Peak, ch. 34:

     “I hope you find nothing risible in my complaisance?” replied his companion.

3. (of a person) Easily laughing; prone to laughter.

heteroclite (plural heteroclites)

1. A person who is unconventional; a maverick
2. (grammar) An irregularly declined or inflected word
3. (linguistics) A word whose etymological roots come from distinct, different languages or language groups.

   Adhocracy is an example of a heteroclite.

ob·fus·cate/ˈäbfəˌskāt/Verb

2. Bewilder (someone).

Long story short, I have a church program in front of me.  The “postlude” to the service is “Prelude In Classic Style.”  There is a post-it note attached asking, “If a prelude is used as a postlude does it become a postlude?”

The answer?  Apparently not.  The explanation we got FROM NATE was essentially that a prelude is where it appears in the original piece of music which doesn’t change if it is used by itself in a different setting.

Thus, feel free to use pre- and postludes all willy-nilly without fear of changing their definitions!

scoff·law/ˈskôfˌlô/

twyndyllyng

1. (obsolete) A twinling; twin.

twinling

1. A small or young twin, especially a twin lamb

via twyndyllyng – Wiktionary.

Janus Words are words that have two different meanings that are opposite of each other.

From Grammar Girl:

Such words are named after the Roman god Janus who has two faces that look in opposite directions. Other Janus words are “cleave” (which can mean to cling to or to separate), “screen” (which can mean to review or display or to hide or shield from view), and “trim” (which can mean to remove things or add things).

–adjective, glib·ber, glib·best.

1. readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so: a glib talker; glib answers.

2. easy or unconstrained, as actions or manners.

From the words that you hear in conversation but rarely write department: Segue.

It means to transition from one topic to another, and is pronounced Seg-Way.

This was yet another reminder that the internets are great and all, but are useless as a reverse dictionary.  If you don’t have the vaguest idea how to spell something, it’s a little tough to get anywhere.

Main Entry: pse·phol·o·gy
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek psēphos pebble, ballot, vote; from the use of pebbles by the ancient Greeks in voting

The scientific study of elections