18 words for things you never knew had a name

Who knew that the corner of your eye actually had a specific name? Or that a word exists to describe doctors’ illegible handwriting? You will, after reading this!

The plastic covering on the end of a shoelace is an aglet. They make it easy for laces to wave through your shoes without unravelling. In ancient Rome, wealthy people made their aglets out of metal, not the plastic of today. (Of course, for fans of the 1980s Tom Cruise film Cocktail, they will always be known as “flugelbinders”!)

While you’ll sound very knowledgeable if you use the word aglet, these 10 words will just make you sound old. 

Your columella is the bottom part of your nose that separates your nostrils. Some people have more of a hanging columella that you could change with plastic surgery.

Think you’re a bit of a wordsmith? Test your knowledge with our obscure words quiz. 

The bumps on raspberries or blackberries have their own name – drupelets. Raspberries and blueberries are technically “aggregate fruits” because their flowers form drupelets instead of whole fruit, per dictionary.com.

Meanwhile, here are 15 of the hardest words to spell in the English language.

Pips are the little bumps on the surface of a ping pong paddle. Paddles could have long or short pips, depending on the type of table tennis. Short pips are the more common style.

Purlicue refers to the space between the extended thumb and index finger. But it actually has more than one odd meaning. In Scottish, the word means a flourish at the end of a pen stroke, or the end of a discourse.

The tragus is the little lump of flesh in front of the ear canal. When you want to cover your ears from noise, it’s the little nub that you press down.

The empty space between the bottle top and the liquid is an ullage. This leaves enough space, so bottles don’t leak.

Discover the 10 online dating terms you need to know right now!

Vibrissae is another word for a cat’s whiskers. The word was originally meant to refer to human nostril hairs, according to Merriam-Webster.

The opening in a violin is an F-hole. The violin previously had half-moon, flame, S-shape, and other designs before the standard F-hole.