Being part the 10th of a shambling parade of posts extracting my favorite words and their definitions from the Word Lover’'s Dictionary: Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words by Josefa Heifetz (New York: Carol Publishing, 1974, 1994). For beginning entries in this series, please see Part 1 and Part 2. If you want to find all posts in the series, search on the title "Will Geek for Words" on this site. Eventually I add them to the sidebar listing. Part 10 encompasses the letter M words and their definitions. And, yes, I am using "geek" in the older carny definition of a sideshow act. I love words in a very, very special way.

Amazingly, this is not a promotional stunt. I am not paid to plug this book yet here I am, mentioning it at the top of each of these posts and linking to the Amazon page for it. Someone should give me an award or something. (What I'll probably get is a "cease and desist" letter from their lawyers. As the saying goes: So sue me. I'm sure it's fair use to include excerpted selections in a non-commercial venture. And did I mention that I'm poor?)

I'm particularly pleased by the insults possible with some of these words. I think calling someone a "dumb fuck" or even "fucktard" is dull and lacking in verve. Let's face it: the word "fuck" as an insult and intensifier has been played into the ground. It is, in my opinion, overused to the point of meaninglessness and now has little shock value. Better terms of derision and insult await. And if the target of your verbal insult doesn't understand what you've said, all the better. That ignorance becomes another level of insult as they look stew-pid. Yes, beneath my seemingly genteel exterior lurks a sly demon of vicious verbal assault. But only in the service of Truth and Justice. Really.

• mab, v.t. & i.:to dress sloppily; a sloppy woman.
• macrobian, adj.: long-lived.
• macrology, n.: unnecessary repetition; redundancy.
• macrophobia, n.: fear of long waits.
  
• mactation, n.: sacrificial murder.
• maliferous, adj.: producing evil; unhealthy, as a climate.
• malism, n.: the theory that the world is mostly bad.
• malnoia, n.: a vague feeling of mental discomfort.
• malversation, n.: corruption in office (politics).
• mancipate, v.t.: to enslave. also adj.
• maniaphobia, n.: fear of insanity.
• matronymic, adj. & n.: using the mother's name, or tracing descent matrilineally.
• mattoid, n.: a congenitally insane person.
• maunderer, n.: 1. someone wandering aimlessly. 2. a grumbler, mutterer; an incoherent speaker.
• mazophilous, adj.: pertaining to mammary mania.
• megalonisus, n.: a tendency to exaggerate.
• melosis, n.: 1. an understatement in rhetoric. 2. nuclear change in cell maturation. 3. abatement of symptoms in a disease. also miosis.
• mendaciloquent, adj.: pertaining to lying as a fine art.
• mentulate, adj.: well-hung (Latin mentula=penis).
• meraculous, adj.: demi-dirty, slightly filthy.
• mesial, adj.: middle, median. opposite of lateral.
• metempirical, adj.: pertaining to concepts or ideas outside human experience; concerning intuitive knowledge, opposite of empirical.
• miasmatic, adj.: noxious, contagious, blechhy.
• mimp, n.: pursing the lips. -v.i. to speak affectedly.
• mimsy, adj.: prim, prudish.
• minacious, adj.: menacing; minatory.
• mingy, adj.: mean and stingy.
• mirabile dictu, n.: strange and wonderful to tell.
• misarchist, n.: a person who hates authority.
• miserotia, n.: aversion to sex.
• misogamy, n.: hatred of marriage.
• misomania, n.: hatred of everything.
• missionate, v.i.: to proselytize; act as a missionary.
• mixty-maxty, adj.: mixed up; confused. -n. a mishmash.
• momzer, n.: a really impossible person; a sponger, liar, troublemaker, and pest who is humorless and unattractive; a nothing (Yiddish).
• monolatry, n.: the worship of only one of many gods.
• monorchid, adj.: having one testicle.
• monstricide, n.: the killing of a monster.
• moonglade, n.: moonlight reflected on water.
• morbific, adj.: causing disease.
• mordacious, adj.: biting, acrid, caustic.
• morigerous, adj.: obedient, obsequious.
• mos, n.: the singular of mores.
• mossback, n.: a conservative.
• muglent, adj.: bellowing.
• mugwump, n.: 1. an ex-Republican; a political independent. 2. a chronic party critic. 3. a "big" man; a chief (Algonquian mugquomp = a chief).
• mump, v.t.: to nibble; to prattle incoherently; v.i. to mumble; to deceive; to sulk.
• mumpsimus, n.: 1. an unswerving bigot. 2. a prejudice adhered to regardless of evidence.
• mungo, n.: one who retrieves valuables from garbage (slang). 2. the mung bean. 3. the mongoose. 4. an herb used as a snake charm in India. 5. reclaimed wool.
• myriotheism, n.: polytheism.
• myrmidon, n.: a blindly loyal, though unscrupulous, factotum.
• mythomania, n.: compulsively telling lies and believing them.