About 20 years ago, I started collecting ‘colorful’ words. I realized that some words sound a bit funnier and
have a somewhat greater emotional impact than others.

Some examples: aghast, amok, begrudge, besmirch, bliss, bogus, chafe, coy, crave, cringe, dawdle, dote, dwindle, eke, feisty, ferret, fester, festoon, fickle, finagle, finicky, flabbergasted, flutter, foible, frazzled, frenzy, frolic, frumpy, garble, gawk, gibberish, glimmer, glitch, gloat, gruff, guffaw, hubbub, ilk, irk, lush, mayhem, mollify, mull, nab, ogle, paltry, pander, penchant, plight, plummet, posh, pummel, quibble, raucous, ravage, rebuff, rubble, scoff, scour, scrimp, scrounge, sham, shenanigans, sizzle, splurge, spree, squalid, squeamish, squelch, squirm, sully, surly, swath, throng, thug, thwart, trounce, trudge, woo, zeal.

Whenever I read or heard a colorful word, I added it to my list. By 2001 I had about 200 such words. But the
list was burned up on 9/11 because I worked in 7 World Trade Center, a building that came down in the afternoon.

So I continued to compile the list. As of now, I have almost 1190 words, all gems

I, too, collect words. Not as many as you, however. Getting to
use them is the trick.


WELCOME

I don't know the etiquette of this forum - is it possible trade emails?

I'll offer you two more for your list of colorful words, on behalf of former Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz. They were his two favorite words, he said.

eleëmosynary - linguistic precursor of "alms"

and

phantasmagorical - a double-dactyl, if you're into such things...

(P.S. Click on the flashing envelope.)

Akiva: as wofa said above - click on the flashing envelope at the top.

Some more good words:

altazimuth
angelology
buckminsterfullerene
cancrizans
clanjamfrie
mesembryanthemum
noumenon
oological
paraprosdokian
tintinnabulation
tmesis
umquhile
xenoglossy
zugzwang
Ftatateeta
Schiermonnikoog
Witwatersrand

there is a university in Witwatersrand

Witwatersrand means "ridge of white waters" in Afrikaans, in reference to the waterfalls there.

Schiermonnikoog, an island off the coast of the Netherlands, means "Grey Monk Island".

Ftatateeta is a character in George Bernard Shaw's play Caesar and Cleopatra.