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Words you thought had a different meaning

36 replies

longtompot · 20/06/2020 16:42

I heard the word Turgid on Gardeners World recently. I always thought it meant stagnant, but it means full of water!
Are there any words you thought meant one thing but found out it was something else?

OP posts:
angelcakebananabrain · 20/06/2020 23:33

*different!

haba · 21/06/2020 00:12

Turgid means swollen, distended...so it could easily apply to a penis!

haba · 21/06/2020 00:13

Turbid is cloudy/opaque, maybe that's why you thought stagnant water?

haba · 21/06/2020 00:14

And I think bucolic has a negative sound because it's like bubonic!

notapizzaeater · 21/06/2020 00:16

My aunty (then about 9) went to USA 40 odd years ago and was telling the class all about her pussy and everyone started sniggering. It wasn't a 'rude' word back then here.

DelurkingAJ · 21/06/2020 00:17

Erstwhile...I thought it meant brave. I think because I’d only read it in stories ‘his erstwhile companions...’. Rather than meaning former. I only realised when someone used it on the news and brave simply didn’t fit.

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 21/06/2020 00:19

Is it choleric you're confusing with bucolic Codename? I think of that as applying to red faced older men.

IlanaWexler · 21/06/2020 09:57

I once listened to someone talk about the negative impact of the male gays, and was shocked by how homophobic they sounded... turned out they were saying "male gaze" hahaha

MsTSwift · 21/06/2020 10:01

On here so often people confuse “wary” and “weary” and I find it unreasonably annoying .

Wary - suspicious of something, watchful

Weary - tired

angelcakebananabrain · 21/06/2020 11:19

@MsTSwift

On here so often people confuse “wary” and “weary” and I find it unreasonably annoying .

Wary - suspicious of something, watchful

Weary - tired

Yes that really annoys me! My old boss used to actually say weary instead of wary out loud and that used to irritate me but of course I couldn’t say anything. Was amazing how often it got said once I’d noticed!
Zaphodsotherhead · 21/06/2020 11:26

When I was very young, watching TV adverts for dogfood, and they used to advertise Kennomeat as 'packed full of stamina' - obviously meaning that it would give your dog lots of energy.

For an unreasonable number of years afterwards, I thought that 'stamina' was the word for that jelly kind of stuff around the meat in dogfood....

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