Dictionary of the Strange, Curious, and Lovely

by Robin Devoe

A curated list of the 3500 most interesting words in the English language.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Reference, Language, Poetry, Words, Linguistics

150 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2017

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable book. Many of the words were easily defined, others defied my 4 years of high school Latin and 2 years of college French (I tried to guess the definitions before reading). There are more than a few words that I am going to integrate into my everyday conversations.
But I do wish that the pronunciation was given for a few more of the words!

I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway.

[Carole Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was interesting and I was about to get the free Giveaway copy! 5 stars!

[Anne Derkat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book from Goodreads and think it is quite wonderful and fun. Full of strange and interesting words that I will certainly try to use in my correspondence from now on.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one’s a treat. Not to be overused, but sometimes there’s a gem in here that really shines when you stick it in the right setting.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this dictionary. It is not very useful, as the number of words is limited and there are few pronunciations listed. However, it was just fun to read through slowly and to savor! Some words are archaic, some odd, some beautiful, and some would be nice to add to our vocabularies.

[Klinsman Hinjaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top-Tier English Vocabulary Booster

I've been trying to supercharge my vocabulary by consuming books on this subject. The year 2024 concluded with me finishing up Big & Fancy Words That Might Make You Smarter...er by Albert B. Squid, which presents one big and fancy word (as the title says) for every day of the year. In the middle of this year, I wrapped up my reading of the lexically luminiferous resource The Lexicologist's Handbook by Dane Cobain. Now here I am reviewing Dictionary of the Strange, Curious & Lovely by Robin Devoe, which, in a sense, is the ne plus ultra of all such I've read to date.

Why so? Dictionary of the Strange, Curious & Lovely by Robin Devoe lists English words that you would most likely not encounter in everyday life. Here is a selection of random expressions from the book: amaranthine, limerence, oneiric, catachthonian, mansuetude, quiddity, gourmandism, esprit d'escalier, plumigerous, hesternal, zeitgeist, redivivus, encincture, devenustate, and spizzerinctum. On the whole, the definitions are easy to understand, and I like the fact that the author also provides information about etymology, parts of speech, synonyms & antonyms, rarity, obsoleteness, etc., although this doesn't apply to every entry. A tiny number of entries show how to pronounce the words – I kind of wish each and every one had such information; natheless, I realize that it would probably be too massive an undertaking. Hence, I had to use other resources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), to grok this aspect of the vocabulary.

All of these notwithstanding, I have encountered a number of inaccuracies, without which the dictionary would be more outstanding. Here are several examples:
- In the entry for "nanization", "bonzai" should be "bonsai" – a mistake probably caused by the similarity between "bonsai" and "banzai" (another word of Japanese origin). (p. 86)
- As the definition is that of a verb, the word "scintillant" (adjective) should be "scintillate". (p. 118)
- In the entry for "spiracle", "anthropods" should be "arthropods". (p. 125)

All in all, Dictionary of the Strange, Curious & Lovely by Robin Devoe is an absolutely frabjous English resource! I am sempiternally grateful for its existence and wholeheartedly recommend this dictionary to any logophile, poet, or one who wants to delve deep into the English lexicon.

[Hans Ostrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun for any word-nerd to browse through.

[robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

shame how unreadable this was as a book

[Paul Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

One to dip into from time to time.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots and lots and lots of interesting words await you in this book. Don't miss it! (Note: I started out reading the Kindle edition, but switched to the paperback edition because of Amazon Kindle's copy limit (which is stupid, by the by).)