Quote:
Originally Posted by Didace
How would a longer length calibrate how obscure a word is?
Obviously longer words tend to be more obscure (i.e. encountered less frequently in speech or writing) than shorter words, so when gauging the relative obscurity of a word it makes sense to weigh it on a scale of words of similar length. "Going" is more common than "circumlocutory", but that doesn't tell us much about the obscurity of the latter, relatively speaking.