Guy Portman's Blog

15 Curious Literary Terms

This week’s post is dedicated to curious literary terms that might be of interest to my fellow authors and readers. They are presented in alphabetical order.

Bibliognost a person who has a comprehensive knowledge of books and bibliography.

Bibliosmia a fetishism, which entails the compulsion to smell books, particularly old books.

Bibliotaph — people who hide their book collections. These obsessive types often fear their books being ‘borrowed’ by others and not returned.

Boghandler — Danish word for ‘bookseller’.

Bouquinist — a person who deals in old books of little value.

Fabliau — a humorous and course short story relayed in verse, usually entailing sexual intrigue and/or pranks. They are chiefly found in early French poetry.

Flyting — a contest consisting of the exchange of insults conducted in verse between two parties, usually poets.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia — the fear of long words.

Librocubicultarist — people who read in bed. This literary slang term is yet to be included in the dictionary, but it is surely only a matter of time.

Omnilegent — someone who has read extensively/is well acquainted with a great amount of literature.

Rhapsodomancy — is the practice of predicting the future by picking a passage of poetry at random.

Scripturient — this outdated term refers to someone who has a strong urge to write.

Sesquipedalian — a person who is prone to using overly long words. (e.g. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia).

Stichomancy — predicting the future from lines of verse chosen from random books.

Tsundoku — a Japanese word for the condition that is acquiring lots of books and then not getting round to reading them.

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