Strange Words That Have Vanished From English

With over a billion people, who speak English at least at a basic level, English is a dynamic and continuously evolving language.

Compared to other languages like French, there is no Academy in English that defines officially accepted spellings and usage. New words, spellings, meanings, and usage appear spontaneously. Even the voluminous Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, which includes over 600,000 words, does not claim to contain all the current words in English.

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

Over the decades, many terms have appeared in English but never caught on. Here is a collection of words from the beginning of the 1900s, which never became popular.

• Aerial bus - (1910) a passenger aircraft
• Bubble - a car. US humorous slang originated from automobubble (1902).
• Buppie - (1984) A young Black city or suburban resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent lifestyle
• Cerealist - (1905) is a person who advocates a cereal diet
• Dormobile - (1952) comes from blending dormitory with automobile
• Drunkometer - (1934) a device for measuring the alcoholic content of a person’s breath. The term Breathalyser took over.
• Electrobus - (1906) a bus powered by electricity
• Escapist - (1930) a person seeking escape from reality
• Farmarette - (1918) a woman who farms land
• Fascistization - (1925) the process of making something or someone fascist
• Garagiste - (1992) the owner of a garage or filling station in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. In French the garagistes refers to a group of innovative winemakers in the Bordeaux region, producing “Vins de garage”, “Garage wine”.
• Helicopterist - (1923) a helicopter pilot
• Himbo - (1988) an attractive but unintelligent young man, the male version of Bimbo.
• Homosexualist - (1931) a homosexual
• Hooverize - (1917) to economize, especially about food. The term originated from Herbert C. Hoover, US food commissioner 1917-1919, and later president.
• Inhalatorium - (1906) a room or building where vaporized medicines were supposed to heal respiratory complaints. The term faded as the establishments disappeared.
• Internaut - (1992) a combination of Internet and astronaut used to mean an expert or habitual user of the Internet.
• Kinema - (1914) alternate form of Cinema.
• Mazuma - (1904) money, cash. US slang from Hebrew.
• Milliardaire - (1924) a billionaire or a person who owns a milliard (a thousand million) of a particular currency
• Nutarian - (1914) a vegetarian who lives mainly on nuts
• Phonofilm - (1921) a cinema film with soundtrack
• Psychiatrize - (1929) to treat psychiatrically
• Railophone - (1911) a telephone in a train
• Tankodrome - (1909) a place where military tanks are kept
• Televiewer - (1935) a person who watches television
• Washing-up machine – (1930) an electrical device for washing dishes. The term Dishwasher originally from the 1860s caught on.

Do you know any other English words which have disappeared?