Is It a Real Word or Did We Make It Up?

Snollygoster is a genuine piece of 19th-century American slang. It describes someone shrewd and unprincipled, and it was most often aimed at politicians. The word faded for decades but got a famous revival in the 1950s when President Harry Truman used it in a speech.

Its exact origin is unclear, which only adds to its charm. It's a wonderfully specific insult that sounds far more playful than it really is.

We invented this one. It feels believable because it borrows from real words: “fumble” and “stumble” suggest clumsiness, while “dash” suggests rushing. Put them together and your brain happily fills in the meaning.

This is exactly how many fake words fool us. When the parts sound familiar, the whole word feels familiar too.

Lollygag has been used in American English since at least the 1800s, and it's still heard today, especially from parents and coaches telling someone to hurry up. “Stop lollygagging!” is a classic.

Its bouncy, repeated sounds make it feel informal and a little silly, which perfectly fits what it describes.

Cattywampus, also spelled catawampus, is a real word most associated with American English, particularly in the South. A picture frame hanging at an angle or a messy stack of papers can be described as cattywampus. It can also mean positioned diagonally.

It's a great example of a regional word that sounds invented simply because many people have never heard it.

This one is our invention. “Muddle” is a real word meaning to confuse, and “puff” brings to mind someone full of hot air. Combined, they create a word that sounds like an old British insult.

English really does have plenty of playful compound insults, such as ninnyhammer and blatherskite, which is why muddlepuff slips in so easily.

Borborygmus is the proper term for a growling stomach. The word comes from Greek and is thought to imitate the sound itself, much like “buzz” or “sizzle.” The plural is borborygmi.

So the next time your stomach rumbles during a quiet meeting, you can impress everyone by naming it correctly.

Yes, that tiny dot has its own name. More broadly, a tittle is any small mark used in writing, and the word came to mean a very tiny amount of something.

You may recognize it from the old phrase “every jot and tittle,” which appears in older English Bible translations and means every last detail.

We made this up, though many of us wish it were real. “Plonk” is informal British English for putting something down heavily, and the ending “-itude” appears in real words like gratitude and solitude.

Adding a formal-sounding ending to a casual word is a classic trick for creating a believable fake. It sounds like something a dictionary might add next year.

Collywobbles has been around since the 1800s. It can describe an upset stomach or the jittery nerves you feel before an exam, interview, or performance, similar to having “butterflies.”

The word is often thought to be a playful blend of “colic” and “wobble,” which fits both of its meanings nicely.

This one is our creation. It's a beautiful idea, but glimmerquist isn't an English word. It works as a fake because “glimmer” is real and poetic, and “-quist” sounds like it could be borrowed from a Scandinavian language.

Here's a real bonus fact: the sparkly specks you see in a sunbeam are made visible by light scattering off tiny particles, the same basic effect that makes beams of light visible in fog.

Before modern plumbing, residents of crowded buildings in old Edinburgh would empty buckets into the street below. Shouting “gardyloo!” gave people on the ground a split second to get out of the way.

The word is believed to come from a French-style phrase meaning “watch out for the water.” It's a vivid reminder of how unpleasant city life could be a few centuries ago.

Widdershins is a real word with roots in Scots and older Germanic languages. In traditional folklore, walking widdershins around a church or other special place was sometimes considered unlucky.

The opposite direction, following the sun, has its own traditional word too: deasil, sometimes spelled deiseal.

We invented both the word and the job. “Quibble” is a real word for a petty argument, and “toft” appears in some English place names and old land terms, which makes the combination sound convincingly historical.

Fake words with a detailed historical backstory are especially persuasive. The more specific a definition sounds, the more we tend to trust it.

Absquatulate is a real word from 19th-century America, a time when people enjoyed inventing grand, fake-Latin words just for fun. It was built to sound important and humorous at the same time.

Ironically, a word created as a playful joke ended up earning a permanent place in dictionaries. It's proof that the line between “made up” and “real” is thinner than we think.

Taradiddle, also spelled tarradiddle, dates back to the 1700s. It describes a harmless fib, like telling someone you “loved” a gift you secretly didn't, or talk that sounds impressive but means very little.

Its origin is uncertain, but its sing-song sound gives it a gentle, forgiving feel compared with a harsh word like “lie.”

Petrichor is real and surprisingly modern. It was coined in 1964 by two Australian scientists, Isabel Bear and Richard Thomas, who studied the oils and compounds released from dry soil and rocks when rain falls.

They built the word from Greek: petra, meaning stone, and ichor, the fluid said to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. It's a rare case of a scientific term that also sounds like poetry.

This mouthful comes from an ancient story retold by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. A shoemaker pointed out a mistake in a sandal in a painting by the famous artist Apelles, then started criticizing other parts of the painting too. Apelles reportedly told him, in effect, that a shoemaker shouldn't judge beyond the sandal.

The Latin phrase for “beyond the sandal” gave us ultracrepidarian. The English essayist William Hazlitt helped popularize it in the early 1800s, and it's still handy for describing know-it-alls today.

Dithermock is our invention. “Dither” means to be indecisive, and “mock” can suggest a pretend or practice version, as in a mock trial. Together they sound like a real debating term.

Notice how the definition includes a specific rule. Invented details like that make a fake word feel official, even when there's nothing behind it.

It sounds far too specific to be real, but it is. The word comes from the Latin fenestra, meaning window. It's closely linked to history: in 1618, the famous Defenestration of Prague, when officials were thrown from a castle window, helped spark the Thirty Years' War.

Today, people sometimes use it humorously, for example when talking about removing a leader from a position of power, or tossing an old computer out of their life.

Our final fake. It's built from two real pieces: “philo-,” from Greek for loving, as in philosophy, and “querulent,” which echoes the real word querulous, meaning complaining or whiny.

Because each part is genuine, the combination feels scholarly and legitimate. If you marked it “Real,” don't worry. Classical-sounding fakes are the hardest of all to catch.