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14 weird English words that sound made up, but aren’t

12 0
17.08.2026

Whether you are a native English speaker or trying to learn how to speak English for the first time, there is no denying that the English language is filled with tons of absurd-sounding words. With so many weird sounds and vowels, it is a unique language to master.

And the reason why English is filled with bizarre-sounding words is rooted in its history. English has continued to transform and evolve ever since its origins in the 5th and 6th centuries, according to the University of Texas Permian Basin. English has been influenced by a number of dialects and cultures ever since, including from German (via Anglo-Saxons), Latin, Old Norse, French, and more.

This amalgam led to English as we know it today, with many strange-sounding words remaining. These are 14 weird English words that sound totally made up, but are actually real:

Words that sound made up but aren’t

An apparatchik is “a blindly devoted official, follower, or member of an organization (such as a corporation or political party).”

Merriam Webster notes, “The apparat in apparatchik (a term English speakers borrowed from Russian) essentially means ‘party machine,’ with machine referring to a highly organized political group under the leadership of a boss or small group of individuals: apparatchik originally referred to someone functioning as a cog in the system of the Communist Party.”

A flibbertigibbet is “a silly flighty person.”

Collywobbles, “as in cramps; abdominal pain especially when focused in the digestive organs.”

Merriam Webster also notes that its “earliest print appearance dates........

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