Growlery

(Dickens: Bleak House 1852)

A place to growl in; jocularly applied to a person’s private sitting room.

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Ra’ora’oa

(Cook Islands Maori)

To have swollen testicles.

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Handbags At Ten Paces

(US Slang 1991)

A verbal spat, usually between athletes on the field of play.

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Areodjarekput

(Inuit)

To exchange wives for a few days only, allowing a man sexual rights to his woman during that period.

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Exhibition Meal

(Hobo Slang)

A handout eaten on the doorstep: the madam wants the neighbors to witness her generosity.

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Shahbash

(Anglo-Indian)

Well done! (or – Well bowled! – as said in cricket by a wicket-keeper to his bowler)

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Gulch

(Newfoundland English 1895)

To frequent a sheltered hollow for sexual intimacy.

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Nakhur

(Persian)

A camel that will not give milk until her nostrils are tickled.

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My first book The Meaning of Tingo began as my interest in the quirkiness of foreign words was triggered when one day, working as a researcher for the BBC, I picked up a weighty Albanian dictionary to discover that they have no less than 27 words for eyebrow and the same number for different types of moustache.

My curiosity soon became a passion. I was unable to go near a bookshop or library without sniffing out the often dusty shelf where the foreign language dictionaries were kept.