Of course, this is kind of silly, but sometimes you just want to lay it on someone, knock their socks off, put 'em down cuz he/she's been giving you a hard time. Especially know-it-alls. And, anyway, it never hurts to increase your vocabulary, whatever the motives.

So here are some serious "kick-butt" words to add to your arsenal, but watch out! Don't, for heavensake, actually use them unless you're trying to be funny!  These are NOT the kinds of words you string together in ordinary speech.  If you do, you might wind up in a padded cell under heavy medication!  Or, much worse in my view, folks will consider you a moronic blowhard, trying in one of the most ridiculous ways, surely, to impress people.

(New phrase, maybe, for your vocab)--  That would be an instance of "hoisting yourself on your own petard."  Or tripping yourself up.  Or falling into the trap you thought you so cunningly laid for others.

One word (pardon the pun, it's inexcusable), of caution: Make certain you are pronouncing these words correctly, if indeed you are tempted to use them in speech, or the effort will backfire and you will wind up sounding like, er . .  . an idiot.  Hey, it's happened to me.

Again, yet another word, this time on the definitiions. The definitions below are not exhaustive or complete. Instead I zeroed in on the most common usage of the word in question and very briefly at that. For complete definitions of these words, with all their variants and nuances, please consult a good dictionary.

As for the pronunciations, I'm not, obviously, using the international phonemic alphabet to approximate how they should sound (which is what a good dictionary would do). Instead I'm rendering their sounds into ordinary American syllables. The accented syllables are given in caps.

When I started this fool's errand, I planned on listing just 30 drop-dead words, useful in many situations. But the project got a bit out of control, and there are a few more than 30 tongue twisters here. Once I got started, I just found it hard to stop (it was so much fun.). And the reason they're not in A-Z order is because they didn't occur to me that way. Nor, I might add, will you retrieve them that way from your memory.

Of all the words randomly listed above, my favorite is Pecksniffian. Why? Gads, it sounds so much worse (think about it) than it is! Actually, not that you care, but Seth Pecksniff is a character in Charles Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843), who is notorious for his hypocritically high-minded, ultra-moralistic pronouncements about events and people. Everybody who knew him loathed him and saw right through him.

Also, if you know the British, one of their national, almost genetic, responses of contempt for something is to "sniff." If something is distasteful, disgusting or beneath them, sniff-sniff is how it goes.

Come to think of it, maybe you shouldn't use that word any place where alcohol is being served. You may not have time to explain what Pecksniffian really means, along with its amusing origin, before things get out of hand.

At any rate, equipped with these mostly multisyllabic salvos, you will be able to defeat and deflate most everyone you meet on the street or in a bar. However, I would not try them out on your former English teacher or family doctor. You may get into trouble, if you do.

You may get soundly excoriated and defenestrated from the premises for pontificating about stuff you're only barely acquainted with. And then, vertiginous at having your disingenuousness so swiftly unsequestered, you may go to a bar and wake up with a stentorian katzenjammer.

Don't say I didn't warn you.