Ten-Dollar Word Machine

Nearly a thousand rare English words. Each one arrives attached to a short phrase that holds it in place, then gets tested in sentences and in scenes where you would actually use it.

The handle

Every word comes with a handle: one or two ordinary words it naturally keeps company with. The handle is always in gray italics, so you can tell it apart from the word you are learning.

Why bother? A rare word on its own slides out of memory, but a phrase gives it something to hang from, and phrases are what you meet when you read. People rarely write umbrage alone; they write that someone took umbrage.

Each handle belongs to exactly one word, so the handle can call up its word and the word can call up its handle. The quiz tests both directions.

Learn the pair together, but make sure you know the word by itself. In the last two stages the handle disappears, so you can see whether the word holds up in other company. The review flags any word you know with its handle but miss without it.

Saying the words

Every flashcard shows how to say the word, with the stressed syllable in capitals (tur-JIV-ur-sayt), and the back adds the IPA. The written guides are American. Press the speaker, or S, to hear a real speaker: an American one where a recording exists, otherwise a British or Australian one, marked UK or AU. Recordings come from Wikimedia Commons (many via Lingua Libre) and need an internet connection; the card back links each one's source.

A round, in six stages

1. Words. Check the words you want to study, or switch to marking the ones you already know. Pick how many words go into each round.
2. Flashcards. The front shows the word with its handle and how to say it. Flip for the meaning.
3. Origins. Where each word comes from, told as a picture or a story that makes the meaning stick. You won't be asked to remember the history, only its picture: shown the plain word, you pick which of the pictures you just read belongs to it. When you miss a word later on, its picture comes back to remind you.
4. Handles. Match each handle to its word, then answer questions that always show the handle: the meaning of the word, the word for a meaning, and the handle for a word.
5. Sentences. A speed tap, a fill-in-the-blank and a usage check, with no handles.
6. Scenes. You are dropped into a short scene and type the word you would say or write. A miss earns a hint: first two letters, then five. Type the wrong word and you see what happens.

The menu at the top jumps to any stage at any time, and each stage keeps your place. A green check marks a stage you have finished.

Good to know

Words come in twenty groups by subject or form, from praise and insult to figures of speech; pick one, or all. Words that mean nearly the same thing are spread across different rounds, so they don't blur together. A word marked * is easily confused with another; hover it in the list, or press P, to read the difference, and its partner will always turn up among your choices. Answer both meaning questions quickly and a word can skip some sentence questions, but only after it passes the speed tap. Your progress saves in this browser; Saved lists keeps named copies and can move them to another browser. Number keys answer questions and Enter moves you on.