A special Christmas-flavoured word of the month this time.

FARCTATE – The state of being stuffed with food (overeating)

So enjoy your festive break, but don’t become too farctated.

The long commute to Wordsworks' Bali office...

August is upon us, so what better word than:

aestival (adj.) – it means of or belonging to summer.

For example:

1. In the far north of Norway, the aestival white nights seem to last an eternity.

2. Glastonbury is just the best aestival festival ever!

Here’s hoping we have plenty of aestival sunshine this month!

Mellifluous (adj.) – smooth, honeyed, sweet; often use to describe something that is pleasing to the ear or smooth sounding.

It’s one of those words that feels like it takes your whole mouth to pronounce. In fact, it could be onomatopoeic (perhaps a word for another month?). Derived from the Latin mel (honey) plus fluere (to flow), mellifluous literally means ‘flowing with honey’.

“The young poet wrote about the first day of spring in a delightfully mellifluous manner.”

Or

“I don’t mind my daughter listening to Jay-Z, but his music is hardly mellifluous.”

Huckle-my-buff (noun)

One too many huckle-my-buffs...

With the weather set to take a chilly turn over the next few days, you could do far worse thany stay inside with a warm huckle-my-buff or two.

Huckle-my-buff is an old Sussex drink, a rather delicious sounding combination of beer, brandy and eggs.

If you fancy a spot of home-brewing (we do!), here’s how:

• 2 pints of beer
• six eggs, beaten
• brandy to taste
• 2 oz sugar
• 2 teaspoons of ground/grated nutmeg

Heat 1 pint of the beer with the eggs and sugar, but do not boil. Remove from the heat and add the remaining beer, a generous amount of nutmeg and brandy to taste. Serve in heatproof glasses – and relax…

Our mission at Wordworks is to help businesses get straight to the point. To write brochures, newsletters, websites and many other forms of communication that are simple, effective and – who knows – even enjoyable to read.

We also want to, wherever possible, use the more wondrous words of the English language – and not just when we’re playing scrabble.

Pulchritudinous is one of them. A word that sounds like an insult, but is actually the opposite. It describes something or someone of great beauty or appeal.

“The guys were excited to meet Bob’s new girlfriend. They’d heard great things about how pulchritudinous she was.”

“The Christmas display in Selfridges was one of the most pulchritudinous ever seen in Manchester”

Also fact fans, it’s the longest word in the dictionary for the meaning of ‘cute’.