Sounds wicked, and a bit kinky, but it really means the inability to concentrate. This perhaps could lead to abstinence if applied in the wrong situation. (Source: The Superior Person’s Book of Words)

Toss this word into your next email (always capitalized) when describing your company’s budget. The word means that something is of a tremendous size, and it sounds so much livelier than gargantuan or colossal. It hails from Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels. There, he met the Brobdingnag, giants 12 times the size of us normal folk. So anything that is unusually large, you can now label Brobdingnagian, and just let them wonder. Perfect to describe your Johnson. (Source: Merriam-Webster’s 365 New Words Calendar)

Yes, this is a word. We’ve heard of parallel and perpendicular, even diagonal, but what about slantindicular? The meaning is something that is somewhat oblique or lying at a slanting angle. The mathematician in me takes this as being between 0° and 45° from the parallel. (Source: Merriam-Webster’s 365 New Words Calendar)

This adjective means brought about by worry or anxiety (exactly the type of problem you have when calling in sick). Pair this with any other sickness to make it sound more extreme (kedogenous cardialgia). (Source: The Superior Person’s Book of Words)

“You never see that man without his Blackberry. It’s his vade mecum.” At least if you include the word Blackberry, your listener will have a clue as to what vade mecum means. It’s Latin for go with me. It used to refer to manuals or guidebooks carried in the pocket. But now, it can easily be a cell phone or an iPod. Anything that seems permanently attached to someone can be his or her vade mecum. (Source: Merriam-Webster’s 365 New Words Calendar)

“Don’t ever forget that your position at this firm is fungible.” This word is great for its association with fungus, to which, by the way, it has no relation. It derives from the Latin verb fungi, which means to perform. The present meaning is to make something replaceable, in other words, something that will perform just as well. Thus you could say that your friend’s twenty dollar bill is fungible. She’ll think that something is growing on the bill, but you really mean that you could substitute another bill to work just as well. (Source: Merriam-Webster’s 365 New Words Calendar)

“Where should we go to eat? I don’t know. Where would you like? Beats me.” If this discourse sounds familiar, then you and your friends have suffered from abulia: the abnormal lack of ability to make decisions. In the future you can compliment your boss on his or her exceptional abulia. (Source: Merriam-Webster’s 365 New Words Calendar)