TextyBack
CollectionsSaved words

Collections

Words grouped the way a curious mind keeps them

Start anywhere. Each collection gathers the obsolete, the dialect and the needlessly beautiful.

Weather & sky

12 words

Fog, drizzle and sudden sunlight, in words the shipping forecast forgot.

Step inside→

Archaic insults

10 words

Splendidly specific ways to be unkind, from the fifteenth century onwards.

Step inside→

Eating & drinking

4 words

Appetite, greed, and the delicate art of watching other people's plates.

Step inside→

Drink & drunkenness

17 words

For the courage of the night before and the misery of the morning after.

Step inside→

Sorrow & feeling

14 words

Melancholy, malaise and other moods that deserve better names.

Step inside→

Money & thrift

11 words

Coin, greed and the small change of everyday life.

Step inside→

TextyBack

A thesaurus of forgotten words — a home for those that fell out of favour and deserve a second hearing.

Collections

  • Weather & sky
  • Archaic insults
  • Eating & drinking
  • Drink & drunkenness

Where the words come from

Entries are researched against the Historical Thesaurus of English, the Oxford English Dictionary, Johnson's Dictionary (1755), Grose's Vulgar Tongue and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary. Every entry links to its sources.

Made for the etymologically curious.