Check out the final board from a World Scrabble Championship and you might feel like you’re reading a foreign language.
You’d only know all those words if, like many Scrabble champions, you’d spent months poring over the dictionary, learning names for plant parts and ancient instruments.
We dug up the words from the last four years of Scrabble championships and highlighted some of the weirdest below. See if you can guess what they mean – we’ve included the definitions, too.
From Merriam-Webster: Plural of gynoecium, or “the aggregate of carpels or pistils in a flower”
From Merriam-Webster: Archaic variant of piragua, or “a 2-masted flat-bottomed boat”
From Merriam-Webster: An alternate spelling of catty, or "any of various units of weight of China and southeast Asia varying around 1 1⁄3 pounds"
From BBC: "An old English word for sobbing"
From Merriam-Webster: "One of a class of criminals in India and Burma who rob and murder in roving gangs"
From Merriam-Webster: Alternate spelling of trews, or "close-fitting tartan trousers"
From Merriam-Webster: "Any of the nymphs in classical mythology living in and giving life to lakes, rivers, springs, and fountains"
From Merriam-Webster: "Plural of coniine, or a poisonous alkaloid found in poison hemlock."
From Merriam-Webster: "A Russian stringed instrument of the lute class"
From Merriam-Webster: "A type of Inuit parka"