Unusual and Literary English Vocabulary

A collection of uncommon and intriguing English words I've learned. Notes include the word, a definition, a description of the source where I encountered it, and an excerpt from that source showing the word in context (unless that context isn't helpful in understanding the usage of the word, which happens very occasionally). This is not a deck you want to study if you are a beginning or intermediate student of English; it is made up of only words I, a native speaker of English interested in vocabulary and linguistics, had to look up. You should only study this deck if you rarely encounter new words and are still interested in learning more. Most selections come from high literature, only because that's the context in which I encounter most words that I'm unfamiliar with, but some are also from nonfiction, periodicals, or websites. Changelog:

• 2021-06-08: Added 124 new words.
• 2020-11-02: Added 95 new words.
• 2016-05-10: Added contact info and fixed formatting on deck information page.

Contact: For questions or to report an error or inconsistency in this deck, please email me at [email protected]. Sources:

• I write the definitions myself after reviewing a variety of sources on a Google or DuckDuckGo search results page, emphasizing my own background knowledge and the particular context I encountered the word in.
• Example sentences are taken from the places where I learned the word.
• Images are freely available on the Web under various licenses and are cited as such where they appear.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. [Note to author: Update this deck under the name 'LitShare'.]