Absquatulate

Absquatulate (American, 19th c., to depart in a hurry) has it all: action, old-timey adventure, an inflated sense of its own importance, and the funniest sound in English smack dab in the middle of it. A note on Dictionary.com points out that pseudo-Latinate words like absquatulate, formed from an English verb with Latin affixes, “have an old-fashioned and rustic flavor curiously at odds with their elegance,” which perfectly describes absquatulate’s allure. It immediately brings to mind an itinerant ne’er-do-well extending his pinky while sipping birchbark tea from a tin can over a fire on the outskirts of a town he had to flee because he was caught cheating at dice, but who now, dignity regained, can infuse his narrative with romantic and high-falutin’ words like absquatulate to impress the next batch of yokels he meets. Picture him describing his “subsequent absquatulation” and you get the idea.

Bill Braine