Needless and useless English word a day: bunyon or bunion

JasonKim thought this was worth mentioning said Wed, Nov 19th 2014 at 12:23am ET

According to dictionary.com, bunyon, or bunion, means, "inflammation of the synovial bursa of the great toe, usually resulting in enlargement of the joint and lateral displacement of the toe."

This word comes from an old norse word, bunga, which means a bulge. About 6000 years to 12000 years ago, when proto-indo-european language was spoken, this word originally meant, "thick, dense, fat."

Examples:
A: I had a bunion, so I had to visit a doctor.
B: WTF is a bunion. Why are you using this weird terms that nobody uses?
A: You don't know what a bunion is? It is an infla....
B: Fxxx off

3 comments, 1 reply
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Starblind said Wed, Nov 19th 2014 at 12:36am ET:

WARNING WARNING WARNING
DO NOT do a Google Image Search for "bunion". Holy shit Zdzislaw Beksinski could not have come up with some of those feet. When feet get together and go camping, that shit is what they tell each other about around the fire late at night. Toes aren't meant to go that direction. It's wrong.

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- @Starblind Why does "WARNING WARNING WARNING" make me go directly there to take a look for myself? I so wish I hadn't.
  
  pitamuffin said Wed, Nov 19th 2014 at 9:58am ET
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kc5rbq said Wed, Nov 19th 2014 at 12:50am ET:

Paul Bunyon. :)

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jqubed said Thu, Nov 20th 2014 at 2:09am ET:

I've always heard people talk about bunions, but been scared to look them up for fear of the reason @Starblind discovered. Thanks for doing the hard work for me!

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