neat little test.

Supposedly, this short test will estimate, based on the number of words you know "at least one meaning" for, how large your vocabulary supposedly is.

I admit with some pride that mine is supposedly 39,500 words. Which is greater than 95% percentile for English speakers.

I suspect that's for several reasons: First, I know a fair number of Latin and Greek roots, both from being in the sciences and having been a Spelling Bee Geek back in the day. Also, I read a lot as a child, and still read a fair amount as an adult, and I read things outside of my area of work. Also, as a child, I used to actually read the dictionary (And no, not to look up just the "bad" words, like everyone does in school!). (I've found as an adult that reading the dictionary as a kid isn't as weird as I thought it was: I know several people who admit to having done it.)

Also, as a kid in school, the teachers pushed us to read with a dictionary at our side and look up any words we didn't know (Though I admit at times I was lazy and just guessed the meanings from context). Or they had us write down words we didn't know and look them up later (which I think is better because it doesn't interrupt the flow of reading so much). I was also pushed a lot in school to read "difficult" stuff; I went to school in an era when "tracking" or "grouping" students was not anathema, so I always wound up in the fast-paced or advanced reading group. And my teachers let me read ahead (I have heard some stories from parents now that their kid isn't allowed to forge ahead even if he or she wants to) and if I finished the work early, I could move on to some other book.

(And before you ask: I always had good reading comprehension, I always did well on those tests, and to this day am pretty good at remembering what I've read. Not quite exact quotations but close, and certainly I remember the MEANING and facts of what I read, and I can often remember where in a book, story, or play a particular quotation was, in case I want to find it again)

We also did a LOT with vocabulary work, we had spelling lists that were generally pretty advanced words. And I enjoyed the vocabulary and spelling stuff, because very often the "learn this word" assignments involved making up a sentence or paragraph where the word fit, and I really enjoyed that kind of thing - I often actually had little stories for the entire assignment, where every sentence was part of the story.

So I think I just learned a lot of words, and fortunately my brain hung on to them over the years.

I will say on the second "tougher" list on the test, there were a number of words I didn't know: I could GUESS at oneiromancy and fuddle, but chose not to, because while I could probably get a close meaning by guessing (oneiromancy must have to do with some kind of diviniation or sorcery), it doesn't mean I actually KNOW the word. (And now I'm going to look up the ones I didn't know).

"estivation" (which I would be more likely to spell "aestivation," which is, I guess, the British spelling) was on the second list. Not only is that a word I know, it's something I wish I could be doing. (It's the summer version of hibernation. Hibernus = winter, aestas = summer)

I also ran across a word I didn't know in my reading recently - enfeoffment. (This was from the Barbara Tuchman book). Apparently it has something to do with a person pledging to serve a lord, and being given a "pledge" of land (which I take as not being the same thing as having the land deeded to them right away) in return.

It's actually fairly rare these days I run across a word I don't already know, so I tend to remember it and then look it up.

Thanks for the link to the site, Tat