As Good As Your Word: A Vocabulary Quiz

Which of the following sentences uses "nixie" correctly?

That pink hair dye makes you look really nixie!

The printer uses an old T30 nixie driver, so we can't replace it.

It's a long opera about a nixie who lives in a river and can't find love.

Which of the following sentences uses "oolong" correctly?

I really oolong for a nice cup of tea.

Oolong as you're up, would you get me some tea?

I wouldn't have asked for tea if I'd known you were going to make oolong.

Which of the following sentences uses "phthisis" correctly?

Despite her ongoing battle with phthisis, the opera diva can still sing wonderfully.

Raphael's Cupid and Phthisis sold for $13.5 million today.

Phthisis the nicest restaurant we've ever been in.

Which of the following sentences uses "pipit" correctly?

The mark of a great golf player is skill with the pipit.

The song of the pipit convinced him that spring had arrived at last.

If you pipit the engine valves, you'll get better gas mileage.

Which of the following sentences uses "queue" correctly?

Once found in rivers throughout Patagonia, the wild queue is now endangered.

Guidebooks warn that Buckingham Palace has the longest queue in London.

To succeed as a model, you need to look queue and to act queue.

Which of the following sentences uses "rigmarole" correctly?

Why should I go through all that rigmarole to buy a concert ticket?

And for dessert, a chocolate rigmarole!

An expert sailor can rigmarole even in a high wind.

Which of the following sentences uses "syzygy" correctly?

They used to be a reggae band, but now they play mostly syzygy.

I don't want to hear any syzygy excuses; I want action!

The eclipse that was visible over most of Connecticut occurred by syzygy.

Which of the following sentences uses "teosinte" correctly?

The field of teosinte swayed gracefully in the warm breeze.

Teosinte, the Aztec ritual ball game, could involve teams of 200 players.

Madame Curie isolated teosinte from radium, thereby creating the modern electric battery.

Which of the following sentences uses "vug" correctly?

The Albanian vug, once worth three lira, is now barely equal to the piastre.

I feel totally vug today, so maybe I'm getting a cold.

This rock has so many vugs, it looks like Swiss cheese.

Which of the following sentences uses "wadi" correctly?

Built entirely of volcanic wadi, the house is a classic of modern architecture.

The wadi may seem dry as a bone now, but in the rainy season it can become a torrent.

This melody for wadi and oud has become the anthem of the Moroccan labor movement.