Cool Words For Gamers: Abnormous – Autarchy

I love odd, archaic or just downright bizarre words. In this article, the first of a new weekly series, I’m taking a mad galavant through the alphabet to find some of the strangest words out there!

Use them today. Or don’t.

By William McAusland (Outland Arts)
By William McAusland (Outland Arts)

 

So without further ado, here are this week’s Cool Words for Gamers:

  • Abnormous misshapen
  • Abstemious sparing, especially in the context of food and drink
  • Acclumsid numbed, paralysed or clumsy
  • Acopon a soothing slave, poultice or plaster to relieve pain
  • Adumbrations to produce a faint image or resemblance; to foreshadow; to darken or conceal partially
  • Adust dried or darkened by heat; scorched, burned; archaic gloomy in appearance or mood
  • Adventitious coming from another source and not inherent or innate
  • Adyton a restricted area within a temple
  • Aeaeae magic
  • Agathokakological with a mingling of good and evil
  • Agonous struggling, engaged in mortal combat
  • Agruw to horrify, to cause shuddering
  • Aleberry ale boiled with spices, sugar and sops of bread
  • Amanuensis one employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscript
  • Amorphous lacking a definite shape
  • Anabiosis revival after apparent death; reanimation after a coma so deep all vital signs have become imperceptible
  • Anfractuous (or Anfractuose) winding; mazy; full of turnings and winding passages
  • Antaean mammoth; having superhuman strength
  • Antediluvian of the ages before the biblical flood; old-fashioned
  • Antiphonal a musical or other sound effect that answers or echoes another
  • Apoplectic furious
  • Arras a wall hanging, particularly a tapestry
  • Ataballes kettledrums
  • Atavistic a primitive characteristic that was present in an ancestor, but which has not occurred in intermediate generations
  • Augar to foretell or predict the future (particularly from omens)=
  • Autarchy unlimited rule; autocracy

Normally, I advocate using simple, easy to understand language; it means most people have the best chance at understanding what you are saying (or writing). However, if you are writing in the style of H.P. Lovecraft (for example) or trying to set a certain atmosphere sometimes you have to use different language. Hopefully, these words will help.

More Cool Words?

Do you know other cool, but odd, words beginning with the letter A? If you do, share them in the comments below and add to your fellow gamers’ vocabulary!

Published by

Creighton

Creighton is the publisher at Raging Swan Press and the designer of the award winning adventure Madness at Gardmore Abbey. He has designed many critically acclaimed modules such as Retribution and Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands and worked with Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat Press, Rite Publishing and Kobold Press.

4 thoughts on “Cool Words For Gamers: Abnormous – Autarchy”

  1. “Acopon: a soothing slave, poultice or plaster to relieve pain”

    Don’t you just love soothing slaves… Been watching Game of Thrones?

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