Words: acheilous, adj.

William Hartston
Wednesday 02 September 1998 18:02 EDT
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Eric Garcia

Washington Bureau Chief

AS ALL collectors of useless information know, facetious and abstemious are the only common words that contain all five vowels in their correct order, and only one of each. But what about the uncommon words? I have trawled through the OED and found another 15 words sharing the same property.

Acheilous is the first and most pleasing of them (even if the dictionary suggests that achilous is a better way to spell it). It means "without a lip".

Adventious (the same as adventitious), aerious (airy), affectious and anemious are all rare, arsenious is chemical and arterious is archaic, but I could see myself working caesious into a conversation if I ever needed a word for bluish or greyish green. To neglect such a word would be tragedious.

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