Unusual Words | 10 Question Humanities Match Quiz

Answer: An early motion picture device

A zoetrope was a cylinder shaped device with holes cut into it all around the perimeter. Painted pictures of difference stages of action scenes, such as a running man, or a galloping horse, were featured all around the inside surface of the cylinder. People looked through the slits into the lighted centre as the cylinder was spun rapidly around. This gave the impression that whatever action scene was painted around the inside of the cylinder was indeed moving. As indicated by the breakdown of this Greek word that made its way into the English language by 1867, "zoe" translates to "life" and "trope" was a derivative of the word "tropos" which translates to "turning".

Amazingly though, the principle of the zoetrope can be dated right back to Iran some 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists in the 1970s times unearthed rounded goblets designed along the same lines at Burnt City in the Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The oldest one found depicted a series of images of a goat stretching up to a tree in order to eat its leaves. Fascinating, isn't it?

Answer: Referring to boxing gloves

This adjective arose in the English language in 1711, and lasted only marginally longer than a boxing match with which it is associated. It doesn't appear to have been used much at all since that year. The word cestus, from which it derived, were leather strips wrapped around the hands of boxers in the days of Ancient Rome. Sometimes, Roman boxers were known to illegally weigh these straps down with small pieces of lead.

Although boxing was known as a sport going back even before Ancient Rome to the days of Ancient Greece, it didn't make an appearance in England until the early 1500s. At that time, it was played with bare fists only, and with no written rules, rounds, or even referees. Players just slogged away at each other until one was knocked out or conceded defeat - or even died. With the advent of boxing rules, known as Broughton's Law, in the early 1700s, early gloves began to be worn but, oddly enough, only for practice sessions. Most boxers still preferred to fight with bare knuckles in the actual bouts. The wearing of gloves became mandatory in 1867 with the introduction of the Marquess of Queensbury boxing rules. The two section dealing with gloves are as follows:

"The gloves to be fair-sized boxing gloves of the best quality and new"

and:

"Should a glove burst, or come off, it must be replaced to the referee's satisfaction".

Answer: Pleasantly plump

Zaftig was a word that was used by Jewish people in northern European before the advent of the Second World War. Referring to women, it translated to either curvaceous, buxom or pleasantly plump. It came into use between 1935-1940, particularly so in Germany where Yiddish was spoken. Yiddish was a German dialect that was comprised of many Jewish words.

It is estimated that, at the turn of the 21st century, there were still some 200,000 speakers of this combined language, with the majority living in either Germany, Russia or the United States.

Answer: Writing device for those who cannot see

A cecograph was an apparatus that enabled people with vision impairments to write. Whether the device continued under another name is unknown, but the word itself, a noun, was in use in the English language between 1850-1875. Those with this disability today can, if they wish, write with the aid of software and a Braille printer - hideously expensive of course. People with disabilities are a captive market.

Prior to computerised devices, there was once a small manual device that enabled people to punch out braille onto paper themselves. It was a laborious process, but at least it allowed those people with visual impairments to communicate via the written word, and gave them a degree of freedom and creativity previously out of reach to them.

Answer: Highly celebrated

This adjective was only in use for a short time in 1768. It describes any person or achievement as one that is highly celebrated. This word derives from the Latin language, itself now no longer in use. The original word was "celebratus", which meant much in use and solemn. This was a word that came straight from the old Latin masses of the Catholic faith.

The past participle of "celebratus" was "celebrare", a word that either meant to gather in great numbers to honour, or to sing praises of honour. From there it evolved into "celeber" which was defined as "well-attended and famous" - and from that the adjective "celeberrimous", used in this question, evolved.

Answer: Hell or the angel of same

Abaddon comes to us via the Bible, but, because the Bible has had quite a few translations over time, the original language from which this word sprang is uncertain. In Hebrew, "Abhaddon" means destruction. That is derived from the word "Abhadh" which means one has perished.

In the Greek translation of the Bible, Abaddon is called Apollyon, the "king of an army of locusts". This section reads (in the King James version) as "And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon." The English writer John Milton (1608-1674) in his great 1667 work "Paradise Lost" uses Abaddon to refer to hell, or the pit, itself.

Answer: Counterfeit

Affictitious was an adjective in use for several years in the mid 1650s, but has died out of common use in the English language now. It referred to any activities or goods that were claimed to be the real thing, but were actually counterfeit and false. It derived from the word "fictitious", with the same meaning, which appeared in the English language circa 1610. Both words can be traced back to the medieval period of history - from the 5th to the 15th centuries - to the word "fictitius", with precisely the same definition. "Fictitius" though was a misspelling of the original Latin word "ficticius", again with the same meaning. Prior to that, the word was known as "fictus" which meant "feigned or false", and the past participle of "fictus" was "fingere", a word that was defined as "to shape, form, devise, feign".

Latin itself was a classical Indo-European language. It originated in a region in Italy from which Rome sprang. Over time, with the emerging Roman Republic (509-27 BC), it became the dominant language of Rome, and subsequently spread throughout the later Roman Empire (27 BC until 476 AD in the west and 27 BC until 1453 in the East). The colloquial form of Latin, as spoken by the general public, was known as Vulgar Latin, and it, the later Italian and French and German gave us many words in use in our own English language. Over time the original Old Latin (as opposed to Vulgar Latin), which was used in official documents, in scientific works, and international communications, evolved into Classical Latin, then Late Latin (from the 3rd to the 9th century), the Latin of the overlapping Middle Ages (from the 9th to the 14th centuries), and from there to Renaissance Latin (14th and 15th centuries). Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin grew from that period and this was in use in the scholarships and sciences until the 18th century when it was gradually replaced by the languages of the separate countries. It's rather a shame that Latin is no longer the common tongue of the western world. It's a comfortable language to speak and spell because of its strong phonetic base.

Answer: Anyone who travels in the air

Airgonaut is a noun that describes anyone who travels about in the sky in a powered or non-powered aircraft of some sort. At the time of its appearance in the English language in 1784, it would have referred only to hot air balloonists, because, although they had been conceived in the minds of a few great thinkers, such as Leonard da Vinci (1452-1519), other forms of air travel were still waiting to be invented in the future. Just think, Neil Armstrong was the first airgonaut to walk on the moon.

Answer: Religious farewell address at university or college

Baccalaureate was a word that came into use in the 1620s in various universities throughout the western word. The word is derived from the Modern Latin word "Baccalaureus" which means a first degree student. Prior to that, it was known in Medieval Latin as "Baccalarius" which translated roughly as someone who had attained the lowest university degree, but was still under the tutelage of a master until he gained his diploma, or in those times, his "Bacca lauri (his laurels).

By the time this word wandered down through the centuries to our age, and particularly in the United States, Baccalaureate, by 1864, had come to mean a religious farewell speech or sermon given to "a graduating class at an American college".

Answer: A light and springy horse drawn vehicle

A cabriolet was a small, light and springy, single horse drawn vehicle, usually sitting two - a passenger and the driver. In poor weather it had a hood that covered both driver and passenger, but not the poor old groom if one went on the journey. If so, he stood on the back of the cabriolet on a small platform unprotected, except for his hat and coat, in all kinds of weather.

These vehicles were created in France in the 1700s, and replaced the heavier hackney carriages for hire at the time. The word for taxi today, which is usually "cab" is a short form of cabriolet. Cabriolet is derived from the French word "cabriole" which means a light or little caper, so, because the later vehicle was so light and springy itself, it was probably an obvious choice of name.