Axios Finish Line

Jim’s daughter, Sophie, a college student, dropped a new word on us — "apricity," the sun's warmth in winter. That inspired a bigger conversation about cool, rare words we should make mainstream. 

The big picture: A linguist tells the BBC that 75% of our daily speech comes from as few as 800 words.

• We all fall into language patterns and ruts. So we asked Axios' staff to give us their favorite underused words to lengthen our lists.

Here are some fun ones worth elevating — and their Merriam-Webster definitions:

• protean: "displaying great diversity or variety," like an actor who can do both comedy and tragedy.
• doyen: a person considered to be uniquely skilled and experienced in a certain field.
• petrichor: the pleasant smell of the earth after a rainstorm following a long dry period.
• spindrift: sea spray.
• susurrus: "a whispering or rustling sound." (It sounds like what it means!)
• avuncular: "suggestive of an uncle especially in kindliness or geniality."
• frabjous: wonderful, extraordinary, joyous. (Fun fact: Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon once used frabjous in a story.)

The bottom line: We can always expand our vocabularies to communicate our ideas with more precision — or just find new words that make us smile.

• Share this story.

What are the coolest words you wish were used more?

• Send your candidates to [email protected]. We'll publish the most dazzling ones in a future edition.