Confelicity, Cacklefart, Respair … we need these old words, now!

I just ran across this wonderful article by Susie Dent in the Guardian on words in English which have fallen into disuse but never should have.

Respair means “fresh hope”, kind of the opposite of “despair”.

Confelicity is the English language opposite of the borrowed German word Schadenfreude; “confelicity” means deriving joy from someone else’s happiness. Alas, German itself has no antonym for Schadenfreude — Beileid, Mitleid, and Empathie don’t quite make the cut.

Now, if people would only be more ept in their abusage of nonplussed, as if it meant plussed.

Right, I’m off to soft-boil a couple of cacklefarts for lunch.