10 Weird and Wonderful Words about Literature and Reading

Interesting words related to literature and reading

We love to collect interesting words, especially those related to literature, reading, and other such things. Indeed, since the stuff of literature is words, we love to delve into the wonderful world of the lexical. Here are ten of the best literary words we’ve encountered recently, with a definition for each. If you enjoy these words, you’ll probably enjoy our 10 words for book-lovers and our 10 words for writers.

A panchreston is a broad thesis that purports to cover all aspects of its subject but usually ends up as a gross oversimplification.

Papyrocracy is government by paper, especially newspapers and literature.

Rhapsodomancy is divining the future by picking a passage of poetry at random.

Stichomancy is divining the future from lines of verse in books chosen at random.

There is a word for a fear of symbolism: symbolophobia.

A charette is a period of intense work that is undertaken in order to meet a deadline.

Someone who is omnilegent has read everything, or is familiar with a great amount of literature.

An amphigouri is another word – and a rather weird one at that – for a piece of nonsense-verse. Possibly derived from the ancient Greek for ‘on both sides’, this word is also generally applied to ‘gibberish’ or nonsense of all kinds, though it has been used in relation to nonsense literature (especially that composed in Latin). It was first used in French in the eighteenth century, and made its way across to England in the early 1800s.

A chorizont is the name for someone who disputes the authorship of a particular writer’s work, and attributes the work to someone else. For instance, those who believe that the man from Stratford didn’t write the works of William Shakespeare.

To admarginate means to note something in the margin. It is first recorded in the ‘literary remains’ of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Complement your reading with our 27 favourite word facts and our list of unusual but useful words.

Image: cat resting via Dustytoes on Pixabay.