Words You Never Hear

There is a group of words which you never hear (because no one ever uses them) but which must exist. Their need to exist is evidenced by their commonly-used negative counterparts. For example, if you can look unkempt, then apparently you could straighten your clothes and comb your hair, and come out of it looking kempt. (A linguist might call this back-formation with negative prefixes.)

So here, for your consideration, is a collection of such seldom-used words.

The classics:

   kempt
   couth       (Jenny and Steve claim that this is a word)
   combobulated

And a new one:

   capacitated

Another new one (this one from Allon):

   habilitated

(He points out that you must be habilitated in the first place before you can be rehabilitated.)

And this one is due to Stephen Strom, who first realized it on May 28, 1999:

   advertent

From Spam: 

   crepit                          (late 2001)
   whelmed                         (4 Dec 2001)
   mantled (as in “dismantled”)    (15 Jan 2002)
   delible                         (20 Feb 2003)
   plussed                         (11 May 2010)

‘Mantled’ is interesting. If you remove the catalyst element from a gas lantern, then you have dismantled the lamp, in at least two ways. If you keep it on the shelf over your fireplace...

Steve Jacobs has been using this one for a long time, but I first heard him use it on 15 Oct 2003:

   chalant         /shǝ lahnt’/

as in: “Too many people act far too chalant.”

Donna Engler used this word during a game of Apples to Apples on 31 Jan 2004:

   surd            /sǝrd/          (adj. completely rational; sensible)

Here’s one that has conflicting meanings:

   gruntled        /grǝn’ tǝld/    1. put in good humor - Merriam-Webster
   gruntled        /grǝn’ tǝld/    2. grumbling - Cecil Adams

Take a look at the conflicting etymologies. Cecil Adams cites the “old dialect word” gruntle, meaning “to grumble,” with the prefix dis- as an intesifier, so that disgruntled means “really grumbling.” Merriam-Webster, on the other hand, cites theirs as a back-formation from disgruntled. I wonder if Cecil is right on this one. And if so, what does that do to dismantled? (Thanks to Donna Ross for the Straight Dope reference.)

From “Diatribe of a mad housewife” (need to check this citation): Homer notices ‘distracted’ wonders if anyone ever gets ‘tracted’ (From HeiDeas: Beyond embiggens and cromulent).

From a conversation on Halloween, 2006 with Steve Jacobs and Jenny Igoe:

   membered
   corporated

Brought to my attention by Kris Trader, in her facebook status posting of 22 Dec 2009, which was a reference to the Flight of the Conchords song Hurt Feelings:

  vincible

In April 2012, Joshua Mindel suggested several new words, including:

  eptitude
  member

Other interesting words and non-words

James V. Blowers has come up with or otherwise documented some very interesting non-words. Check them out. Do you know of any others, or anyone who has documented others? Let me know!