Yo Momma Vocabulary
Builder
Vocab through Jokes!
UBIQUITOUS
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Yo momma’s so ubiquitous, when she sits
around the house, she sits around the house!
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U-biq-ui-tous (yoo BIK wi tuhs): adj. being or seeming
to be everywhere at the same time

Ubiquitous does not mean fat or huge, but rather “seemingly
everywhere.” Paris Hilton is ubiquitous. Jerry Bruckheimer is
ubiquitous: it seems like his name is attached to every movie or TV
show that comes out. Ubiquitous advertising helped turn the iPod
into a phenomenon. Nothing is more ubiquitous than Starbucks:
you can’t walk ten feet without hitting one. Starbucks is so
ubiquitous that one day, you might see a Starbucks in the Lincoln
Memorial, or in your home, or even in another Starbucks. Ubiquity
or ubiquitousness is the noun, though both are anything but
ubiquitous: you rarely see the noun form.
EMACIATED
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Yo momma’s so emaciated, she can hula hoop
in a Fruit Loop.
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E-ma-ci-a-ted (i MAY shee ay tid): adj. very thin,
especially from disease, hunger, or cold

Emaciated isn’t just skinny. It’s too skinny, unhealthy-looking,
skeletal. Think Olsen twins, supermodels, Gollum from Lord of the
Rings, and Ally McBeal. Gandhi’s hunger strike left him emaciated.
In Hollywood, there are a lot of “hunger strikes without the causes,”
so to speak, spurring some social critics to declare that we live in an
“Emaciation Nation.” The dying, withering-away look has become in
vogue, a trend that could make you conclude that America’s soul is
currently emaciated.
PALLID
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Yo momma’s skin is so pallid, snowflakes leave
stain marks.
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Pal-lid (PAL id): adj. pale, usually as a result of poor
health; lacking vitality

The good thing about the word pallid is that it resembles the word
“pale,” and it actually means “pale.” Normally, a question like that
on the SAT tries to trick you by offering a multiple choice answer
that sounds like the word, but actually isn’t the right definition. You
get so fed up, you start filling in the answer sheet “DC CAB, DC
CAB” and so on. But pallid is pale and, as such, can mean “lacking
in radiance or vitality; dull” (pallid prose, for example).
HIRSUTE
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Yo momma’s so hirsute, she bathes with a Rug
Doctor!
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Hir-sute (hur SUIT or HUR suit): adj. hairy; covered
with hairs

The easiest way to remember what hirsute means is to
think of “hair suit.” It means hairy. Very hairy. King
Kong is hirsute. Austin Powers got a lot of comic
mileage with an overly hirsute chest. Since he was a
character unfrozen from the 1960’s, he was convinced
that women loved his hirsuteness, but alas, it’s a new
millennium. The character Borat has hirsute thighs, two
words you seldom want to see together.
VORACIOUS

Yo momma’s so voracious, her blood type’s
Ragu.
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Vo-ra-cious (vuh RAY shus): adj. wanting vast
quanities of food; having a huge appetite for anything

If your momma has a voracious appetite, she is always hungry. She
looks at the menu and says, “Yes.” She eats Wheat Thicks. In a
more general sense, voracious can mean having a rampant appetite
for any pursuit or activity. Yo momma could devour crossword
puzzles voraciously. Cereal mascots have insanely voracious
appetites for their product, almost to the point of addiction. You
often hear the term “voracious reader” to describe someone who
devours books – figuratively speaking, of course. You seldom hear
the term “voracious television watcher,” though, in truth, there are
far more of those.
CORPULENT

Yo momma’s so corpulent, when her beeper
goes off, people think she’s backing up.

Cor-pu-lent (CORE pyoo luhnt): adj. excessively fat,
portly, stout

Corpulence is a growing problem with today’s youth, according to
many recent studies. Here’s a quick test: if the sports you play
involve hand controls and looking at a TV screen, you might be at
risk of becoming corpulent. Many sitcoms feature corpulent men
orbited by beautiful, emaciated women. Just like in real life.
Despite its meaning, there is something polite-sounding about the
word corpulent, making this insult sound almost dignified. It just
goes to show you that the sound of a word, as well as its meaning,
can create effect.
MALAPROPISM

Yo-Yo Ma is so fat, he has to hold his breath to play his
cello—wait a second. That’s not right. These are “yo
momma” jokes, not “Yo-Yo Ma” jokes. Shoot, we always
get those confused! Some of you may know that Yo-Yo
Ma is a renowned classical cellist. We just made a
particular kind of mistake. It’s called a malapropism.

Mal-a-prop-ism (MAL uh prop iz uhm): n. ridiculous misuse of a
word, especially by confusing it with one that sounds similar

A malapropism is so called after Mrs. Malaprop, a character noted for her
amusing misuse of words in a play you’ll never see by a person you don’t
need to know about. Examples of malapropisms can be found in the
character Ali G’s request, “Let’s talk about a very tattoo subject” (ie: taboo)
or, proving fact is funnier than fiction, in Mike Tyson’s genius idiocy: “I
might just fade into Bolivian, you know what I mean?” (ie: oblivion).
LARGESSE
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Yo momma possesses such largesse, she’d give
me the hair off her back.
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Lar-gesse (lar JESS): n. generosity in giving

No, this word is not related to hirsute. Someone who displays largesse is
always giving stuff to people or to causes. (It can also be spelled without
the last E, good news if your hand gets tired toward the end.) Although it
doesn’t have to be used this way, there’s often an implied degree of
showiness handcuffed to largesse, something Trumpian and flamboyant
about the generosity. As in, nobody disputes the value of your gift, buddy,
but somehow this gift seems to be more about you than the recipient.
Consider the largesse of political lobbyists, who give billions of dollars to
political honchos in hopes of cultivating favorable legislation for their many
causes. Or take Sean Penn giving his time to help Hurricane Katrina
victims, while his publicist just happened to be around to record his noble
largesse. Here is a way to remember largesse:

Sometimes Shady Selflessness
EGREGIOUS
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Yo momma is so egregiously stupid, she told me to meet her on
the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk.
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E-gre-gious (i GREE juhs): adj. horrifically terrible, shockingly bad

Egregious means the worst of the worst. If you’re an egregious liar, you
are the worst kind of liar. New Coke was an egregious marketing mistake.
Janet Jackson had an egregious wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super
Bowl. Michael Jackson showed an egregious lapse in judgment when he
dangled his baby over a hotel balcony in Paris. (We could go through the
whole Jackson family and effectively demonstrate uses of the word
egregious, but let’s move on.) Authur James Frey tangled himself in a web
of egregious deceit by claiming his work of fiction, A Million Little Pieces,
was a memoir. Mel Gibson’s drunk comments about Judaism were
egregiously offensive. And speaking of…

Five egregiously misspellings of Hanukkah: Chanukaha, Ghananka, Chunkyka, Honkeykah,
Donkykong
PROSTRATE

Yo momma’s so ugly, her psychiatrist makes her
lie prostrate!

Pros-trate (PRAHS trayt): adj. lying face-down and flat;
helpless; exhausted; v. to fling oneself down as if in
submission; to make helpless; to exhaust physically

Picture COPS on TV. Sometimes when they catch shirtless bad
guys, they force them face-down on the ground before handcuffing
them. That position, pre-cuffing, is a prostrate one, or one of
prostration. Sometimes, the criminal will prostrate himself since he
knows the cops have guns and pepper spray. There can also be a
more figurative meaning to signify that a certain person, group, or
situation has been crippled or exhausted: “Legend has it that Led
Zeppelin prostrated the staff of pretty much every hotel they stayed
in.”