Words that sound like they should have a different meaning

[ShesTheAlbatross]

Does anyone else have words that they just think do not sound like their meaning?

I was just reading something that had the word “chartreuse” in it. Does anyone else think that this sounds like it should be red? “Puce” is also the wrong colour for the word.

Similarly, I cannot accept that “bucolic” is a word for anything good. A combination of colic and bubonic, and it means the pleasant English countryside? No.

I am totally with you on bucolic. I always thought it meant angry and was really shocked relatively recently to discover that it doesn't.

I clicked the thread to say bucolic!

Sanguine

Colour ‘petrol’. Why is it blueish?

Saltburn sounds like it should be in Lancashire instead of Yorkshire.

<dons tin hat and runs a mile>

Nonplussed

I just don’t use the word because it means the opposite of what I feel it means.

Because petrol has that blue sheen to it

Wait til you find out where Leeds Castle is!

Why do flammable and inflammable mean the same thing instead of the opposite?

No idea why, but my initial thought when I see the description opaque is that it’s see-through. I know it isn’t, but that is what my brain immediately thinks before I correct myself.

Naturist
Sounds like it should mean someone who loves nature, which is actually naturalist, not nakedness!

Enervating. It sounds like a combination of energising and invigorating, but in fact means the exact opposite.

Summit. I feel like it’s a word about reaching the bottom, not the top.

Pusillanimous

(This came up on a Year 6 SATs paper a while ago - totally ridiculous).

But how can it mean ‘timid’ when it sounds as if it’s from the ‘pugilist’ family?

My husband thought Pontefract was in Wales!

Me too!

They don’t mean the same thing though.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/flammable-or-inflammable

Condone

Means to accept/overlook/forgive potentially poor behaviour. It sounds like it should condemn/censure that behaviour.

I thought Pontefract should be in Wales, and Erith in Scotland.

But spendthrift? Means the opposite of what it should!

I also thought ‘pusillanimous’ meant ‘up for a fight’.

Fecund looks like it should be rancid - like fetid.

The only time I've seen it used is in "Look Back in Anger".

Pulchritudinous

It means beautiful.
It makes me think of pustules and scabs and oozing blood.

I feel the same about crepuscular which is about twilight. It sounds warty.