When you consider the number of words that constitute the English language, it’s rather astounding to discover how little of it most of us actually use, or even know about. Going only by the Oxford English Dictionary, we find that there are at least 250,000 words, but other sources claim there are over a million! The average person has about 50,000 words in their vocabulary, give or take a few thousand. While most of us seem content in our everyday lives with the words we already know, there are always the smarty-pants types that have to come up with words for obscure things that most people will never use. These words may be considered “useless” by some, but that is a subject that could become quite contentious, depending on who your are talking to. Like the people who make up silly words like these, for example.

1. Rowel

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We’ve all heard of spurs, right? The little round disks with spike-like protrusions on them that some people attach to the back of their boots when riding horses to convince them that it’s time to move. Now! Well, those little individual spikes have a name and that name is rowel. We’re not sure if this is one you’d ever have occasion to use,but we suppose it could come in handy at a ranch or rodeo or something. “Hey, Earl, from the way your horse was moving, I’d guess you might need to sharpen up them rowels a bit.”