Underused but delightful, descriptive words

Eiderdown
Bolster reminded me of this Beds were so much more complicated

I love the word ‘equidistant’ and it’s useful. I do actually use it.
😁

Pantry. We had one before refrigerators were designed for use in the home. The pantry was a walk in shelved cupboard, built into the coldest part of the house, walls and shelves lined with ceramic tiles. All the foods that needed a cold place were stored in the pantry.

Galoshes
Trilby.
Milk churn.
Liberty bodice
Smithy
Chandler

windborne !

as in borne by the wind, I looked it up,
sorry,

Yes Marthjolly pantry is a good one. My parents had a pantry which was beside their scullery where the cooking and washing up was done. Their kitchen was where meals were eaten and their cats and dogs lounged on a sofa.

Balderdash
Rapscallion
Floozie!

Gin

My grown up children still think it hilarious that when I am upset or annoyed about something I will utter loudly ‘ oh fossilised fish-hooks’. Does anyone else know this expression or where it came from, I am sureI did not make it up!

I thunk it comes from the “Jennings and Derbyshire” books by Anthony Buckeridge (sp?). I loved them as a child. Who can forget the village establishment with the sign saying “Home made cakes and bicycles repaired”?

Witzend

Balderdash
Rapscallion
Floozie!

blunderbuss
jackanapes
jezebel

When I was little my mum and other mums in the flats all wore a pinny.

I like serendipitous, a lovely unexpected surprise.

Marthjolly1

Pantry. We had one before refrigerators were designed for use in the home. The pantry was a walk in shelved cupboard, built into the coldest part of the house, walls and shelves lined with ceramic tiles. All the foods that needed a cold place were stored in the pantry.

I thought it was quite a swanky thing to have a pantry nowadays, if you have space for it. I would guess that many of us don’t.

Tickety boo
Woebegone

Liberty bodice.

Marydoll

MissAdventure

Wasn't macasser a hair oil, a bit like brylcreme, years ago?
Not sure if I've made that up in my own head now, but it was to protect the backs of chairs from getting marked by it that antimacassers were used.

If I've made that up, I'm quite impressed with myself.

I think you may be correct, Miss A!!

I cannot remember if it was called macasser, but it was definitely a hair-oil much beloved by Victorian gentlemen, especially those who had been in whichever far-flung part of the British Empire the hair-oil came from.

To avoid upholstered furniture being completely ruined by greasy stains, these gentlemen's womenfolk embroidered rectangles of cloth that were pinned into place on chair backs and completed the set with two smaller cloths fixed to the arms of armchairs and settees - doubtless to avoid dropped cigar or cigarette ash burning holes in the upholstery.

I can vividly see a great-aunt carefully removing the pins from her antimaccassers so that my small sister aged one would not pull them out of the chairs and swallow them - a most necessary precaution when my sister was a toddler.

Flibertygibbet, shenanigans.

I just found this on the national trust website-

Antimacassars are pieces of cloth placed over the backs of chairs to protect them from grease and dirt, or simply as an ornament. The name also refers to the cloth flap ‘collar’ on a sailor’s top, which was used to keep Macassar oil off their uniforms. Macassar oil was an unguent (ointment or lubricant) for the hair commonly used by men in the early 19th century. It was often made with coconut oil or palm oil, combined with ylang-ylang or other fragrant oils. The fashion for oiled hair became so widespread in the Victorian and Edwardian period that housewives began to cover the arms and backs of chairs with a washable cloth to prevent the fabric from being soiled. Around 1850 these started to be known as antimacassars.

Loving this thread. we had a pantry until we moved house, and my Nana had a scullery as well.
My sister says Tickety boo. I like quagmire, but I wish it didn’t describe my garden at the moment.
I also like, but don’t hear
Inconsequential
Mumbojumbo
Extraneous

Girdle
Soporific
Furtle
Slake
I use the last three words, not often, but when appropriate.

We have a pantry. I believe they are back in fashion. Not that ours is. This house was built in the 1950s. We have kept the pantry.

spats.
galoshes.

My Dad always wore a trilby to work and galoshes in wet weather.
My word, which isn’t a compliment is trollop!

ablutions - my OH still uses this

conspicuity.
i just like the sound of it, also perspicacity.
but the first wins.

I love 'Malapert'.
I must try and fit it in to a sentence .