Seven Things You Didn’t Know Had Names

Mental_Floss blogger Adrienne Crezor recently came up with a list of “Ten Things You Didn’t Know Had Names.” Here’s a selection of the top seven … plus a little something extra.

1. Petrichor — You know how it smells after it rains … that clean, greenish smell when rain lands on dry ground? That’s petrichor, from the Greek petra (stone) and ichor (the blood of Greek gods and goddesses). The term was coined by two Australian researchers in 1964.

2. Zarf — Originally, a zarf was a metal chalice to keep the heat from your coffee from burning your fingers. The name for the fancy cup-holder has morphed into the modern-day cardboard sleeve that comes wrapped around your hot coffee.

3. Scroop is the rustling, swooshy sound ball gowns make. More specifically, it’s the sound produced by the movement of silk.

4. Armsayes — If you’ve put your shirt on backwards, you have your arms in the wrong armsayes, which are the armholes.

5. Glabella -- People with expressive faces often end up with wrinkles in their glabella—the space between the eyebrows

6. Feat — You know the words “lock” and “tendril,” but did you know the similar feat? Aside from being an act requiring great strength, it describes a dangling curl of hair.

7. Roorback — Libel is one thing, but a damaging lie made publicly known for political effect is a roorback.

For the record, there’s at least one common thing, says Crezor, that doesn’t have a name: there is no medical terminology for the back of the knee!