General Knowledge
Real or Fake Word Quiz
Is 'petrichor' a real word? What about 'flummoxicate'? Time to find out.
Is 'petrichor' a real word? What about 'flummoxicate'? Time to find out.
Shakespeare invented over 1,700 English words still in use today, including 'assassination,' 'bedroom,' and 'lonely.' The English language is a sprawling, ever-evolving beast with over 170,000 words currently in use according to the Oxford English Dictionary — plus another 47,000 obsolete entries. With that many real words, it's no wonder some of them sound completely made up.
Each round presents 10 randomized multiple-choice questions drawn from a pool of 50, so every playthrough is different. You'll encounter real obscure words, convincing fakes, and tricky etymology challenges. Instant feedback with explanations after each answer, plus a shareable score at the end.
This quiz covers genuinely obscure English words like petrichor and borborygmus, words that sound fake but are real like flibbertigibbet and cattywampus, how new words enter the dictionary through portmanteau, brand-to-verb shifts, and cultural coinage, plus the fascinating etymologies behind words with Latin, Greek, German, and Dutch origins.
The longest word in a major English dictionary is 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' at 45 letters, referring to a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine silica dust. It was coined in 1935 by Everett M. Smith, president of the National Puzzlers' League, partly as a stunt to create the longest English word.
The Oxford English Dictionary contains over 170,000 words currently in use, plus around 47,000 obsolete entries and 9,500 derivative words. The OED adds roughly 1,000 new entries per year. The total count depends on how you define a 'word' — including technical, scientific, and slang terms, estimates range from 250,000 to over a million.
Many real English words sound completely made up. 'Flibbertigibbet' means a frivolous, chatty person. 'Borborygmus' is the scientific term for stomach rumbling. 'Cattywampus' means crooked or askew. 'Snickersnee' is a large knife (from Dutch). 'Widdershins' means counterclockwise. These are all legitimate dictionary entries with centuries of documented use.
Last updated: April 2026