@kazarnowicz I am a native speaker, and I suspect that I have an unusually large vocabulary, but I got that from reading a lot, and these days if you read on any kind of e-reader device you can long-press on a word to define it. I suspect that most people won't know the word but in most contexts I can imagine using it the meaning should be clear enough.

Unlike, for example, the words "bemused", "quizzical", "nonplussed" or "easterly", where you get sentences like, "Harold gave Jane a bemused look", and you don't know if the author is in the group of people who know the "correct" meaning or the group of people who thinks it means the thing it sounds like it means.

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@kazarnowicz FTR, the "official" meanings are:

bemused = confused
quizzical = mildly amused
nonplussed = frazzled / shocked / confused
easterly = going from east to west (there may be contexts where the official meaning is the opposite of this)

Probably at least half of all people think that they mean:

bemused = mildly amused
quizzical = confused
nonplussed = nonchalant
easterly = going west to east

It's basically never clear from context which meaning an author intends, so practically speaking these words are useless now 😛

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