8. Pygalgia: The medical profession has many entertaining words for “pain in the ass” and pygalgia is perhaps the best by virtue of being easy to remember – just think “pig” and “algia”. For that reason it comes out ahead of coccydynia (a pain in the coccyx, to be honest, but so close to the ass as makes no difference), proctalgia (a pain in the rectal muscle) and rectalgia (a pain in the rectum). Technically, pygalgia is actually a pain in the buttocks, but if you’re delivering an insult you probably don’t care much for the technicalities.
If pygalgia appeals to you, then you’ll probably go for steatopygous which is the medical terms for a lard ass (or lard arse). And just so you have the complete collection, the medical profession also gives us ankyloproctia which is the condition of having a tight ass – as in “he’s so tight-assed he could eat coal and he’d shit diamonds.”
9. Poltroon: If you want to call someone a coward and you’ve grown tired of “yellow belly” and “chicken” then poltroon is an excellent substitute. The word comes originally from the Italian poltrone, which meant both lazy fellow and coward. In fact poltrone may have been the old Italian word for couch potato, since the Italian poltro means couch. However, as it morphed its way through French into English the coward aspect of its meaning was emphasized.
There are a few other obscure words that you might also be tempted to use. There’s milquetoast which is eponymous, dating back to dates back to Caspar Milquetoast, a cartoon character created by H.T. Webster in 1924. There’s also caitiff which has the same etymology as the word captive and there’s dastard, from which we get “dastardly”, which means cowardly, but also sly and cunning. Poltroon is less ambiguous than these options and, to my mind, more impressive. I heartily recommend it for addressing all the cowards you encounter.
10. Clapperdudgeon: This qualifies as my favorite insult because it’s completely off the wall. A clapperdudgeon is a beggar whose parents were beggars. A clapperdudgeon is not just a bum deadbeat mendicant hobo panhandling vagabond, but someone who is skilled in a trade proudly handed down from father to son and from mother to son. There are probably even calapperdudgeons whose parents were clapperdudgeons. They’re not just beggars, they’re the essence of beggar. That’s pretty insulting really.
Also:
10 Curse Words You Don’t Know
10 Words I Predict You Don’t Know
10 Nonsense Words You Don’t Know
10 Words You Don’t Know With Limericks
10 Units of Measure You Don’t Know
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~ Thomas Jefferson
