Words: acheilous, adj.

William Hartston
Wednesday 02 September 1998 18:02 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

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.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in