One-use words

And is there a name for these types of words?

Archaic.

In most of those cases they’re archaic words that are only still used with those phrases. Petard was an explosive, we don’t have any type of wagon anymore, etc

Interesting question! I don't think "archaic" is right in this particular context, that would be more like using an outdated word in a normal sentence (for comic or whatever effect)

In most of those cases they’re archaic words that are only still used with those phrases.

"fossil word"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_word

@40mpg - be careful to ensure there are no mistakes in your list, otherwise other forum members will set you alight.

Parouge.
No, I can't spell it, but Boris did it (badly)

It's not just old/archaic words - eg. derailleur only has one use.

that is literally what the OP says 😃

No. It literally isn’t.

They’re archaic because they’re no longer in common usage. The exception is only in these phrases.

They’re “archaic words fossilised in idioms”

Tada!
https://theweek.com/articles/463188/12-old-words-that-survived-by-getting-fossilized-idioms?amp

eg. derailleur only has one use

Does it? Mine shifts up AND down.

But yes, most nouns only have one use. An elephant is an elephant.

we don’t have any type of wagon anymore, etc

bollocks

Golds, polos, lupos, UP! Tauregs

Jammie and original

A petard was a small bomb specifically for blowing up gates. And the quote from Hamlet is 'Hoist with his own petard' not 'Hoisted'. Hth.

And petard is from the Middle French for fart!

But yes, most nouns only have one use. An elephant is an elephant.

No they don't, trying to be smart and looking stupid there.
Elephant herd wandering across the plains.
Let's address the elephant in the room..

They’re “archaic words fossilised in idioms”

Excellent, you got there in the end 😉

Archaic? I'm pretty sure there are still plenty of bandwagons being jumped on and bits being champed on.

Girth.
People try to use it for other reasons but you and I both know what you first associated it with!

No they don’t, trying to be smart and looking stupid there.
Elephant herd wandering across the plains.
Let’s address the elephant in the room..

Sorry, you're correct in the context of the op, elephant doesn't fit, but nor does derailleur in any way.

The only way "derailleur only has one use" is if you mean it's only used to refer to a derailleur, and on that basis "elephant" is only ever used to refer to a large land mammal with a trunk. Eg a [large land mammals with trunks] herd wandering across the plain.
This is true of most nouns.

I can't agree on alight.
Birds alight on telphone wires, butterflies on leaves people alight off horses, tanks, buses, planes, boats, ladders, steps, may be public or private, it just means to step down or land. See it regular like.

alight
intransitive verb
To spring down, get down, or descend, as from on horseback or from a carriage; to dismount.
To descend and settle, lodge, rest, or stop

Girth.
People try to use it for other reasons but you and I both know what you first associated it with!

A big waist?

As the late, great Billy Connoly once said...
&*%$ off

(yes I know I can't count but you can &*%$ off)

I'll offer up " Apricity"

Chickenshit poltroon.

Girth.
People try to use it for other reasons but you and I both know what you first associated it with!

The circumference of a tree trunk 1m above ground level?

These humicubations, the nocturnal irrorations, and the dankishness of the atmosphere, generated by a want of apricity, were extremely febrifacient.”

@CheesybeanZ

I think your source material for dead words has several contenders. Apricity is a dead word though isn't it, eg not in use at all (outside of a vegan restaurant in that there London)?

I thought it meant the warmth of the sun on a winters day , I could well be wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_wordThat wikipedia article on fossil words seems to have a fundamental flaw in the first sentence:

[i]"A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase.[1][2] An example for a word sense is 'navy' in 'merchant navy', which means 'commercial fleet' (although that sense of navy is obsolete elsewhere). "[/i]

'Navy' gets used all the time.

‘Navy’ gets used all the time.

I understand 'merchant navy' to specifically describe using commercial ships for military/state purposes in times of conflict - i.e. an expansion of the existing navy. So theoretically still possible and not archaic.

Foist

Craw

Foible

I thought it meant the warmth of the sun on a winters day , I could well be wrong.

It does, though I'm not sure anyone uses it except as a crossword clue maybe, or Boris, he probably uses it in day to day conversation. It's a bit like pinguid, it's a real word but it's (I think) never used in any way, not in an idiom nor in general usage. It's essentially dead and only really used to confuse people. Like Latin or Welsh 😉

Craw

As in sticks in/gets under my craw.

Yep, that's a fosil.

I understand ‘merchant navy’ to specifically describe using commercial ships for military/state purposes in times of conflict

I know what you're referring to - like at Dunkirk - but I don't know that there's a particular special word/phrase to describe it (at least, I'm not aware of one). (Although, according to Wiki, the title "merchant navy" was originally bestowed on the ships [I]after[/I] their actions during WW1)

It’s just a collective noun for “All of the trading and commercial ships registered in a country (usually excluding fishing vessels), as opposed to those involved in military activity.” (that is the OED definition, by the way, not just something I’ve made up or randomly googled!!)

Well, you learn something every day 🙂 !

Tree girth is normally measured at 1.45m to give a dbh using a girthing tape that can be cross referenced with the forest mensuration book.

Debark a contender for singular use? Removing bark before processing.

Elephant herd wandering across the plains.
Let’s address the elephant in the room..

The second instance refers very specifically to an elephant. It's from a play in which the characters are constantly avoiding an issue which is represented by an elephant in the middle of the set that they have to squeeze around all the time to act but noone ever says 'why the hell is this elephant here? Can't we get rid of it?'

So the second usage is a metaphor but the word elephant clearly is used in its original meaning all the time unlike the fossil words which are the subject of this thread.

I can think of a few you'd only get to use once in certain situations 🙂

andrewh - Parouge? Are you thinking of Prorogue?

Kith, as in kith and kin.

Loggerheads. To be at...

Dint. By...of

Double post

Probably Frank, I said I couldn't spell it! TBF I've only ever heard it said, I don't think I've seen it written down anywhere.
.
I think there might be two conversations going on here? I think the OP was asking about words which only crop in a single context, in my example to prorouge parliament, I can't think of anything else which can be prorouged. Yes, elephant only means one thing, but it's never only used in one context (like petard, you are only ever hoisted by it, nothing else ever gets done with a petard)

clouds scudding across the sky

"No they don’t, trying to be smart and looking stupid there.
Elephant herd wandering across the plains.
Let’s address the elephant in the room.."

Looking Stoopider...

"No they don’t, trying to be smart and looking stupid there.
Elephant herd wandering across the plains.
Let’s address the elephant in the room.."

Looking Stoopider...

First you have to notice it.

Plenty of swear words are single use.

Pétard is alive and well in French. It's a hand gun, spliff, and a banger amongst other things. If you're en pétard you're angry and it's your arse rather than a fart, that's pet which gives us the verb péter and so on...

How about words that have no opposite version. vis

disconsolate, dejected, disgruntled. Incorrigible, disarray

one cannot be consolate, jected, or gruntled - although I'm not even sure that sounds better anyway. Nor can you be corridged although I guess you can array...

"I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled." 
P G Woodehouse

tenterhooks

The one thats gets me is flammable and inflammable mean the same.

I love archaic words

Champing can be used as a synonym for chewing vigorously. "He was champing on a mars bar"

incorrigible has an opposite, corrigible.

I was pondering 'luke' as in 'luke warm'. Peculiar in that it seems to only describe temperature and  liquids - you wouldn't describe air or a solid as luke warm - and you don't use 'luke' to quantify anything else - a lamp that is luke bright, an object that luke heavy.

Further more its a temperature of liquid that is typically undesirable - so luke warm can be both too hot and too cold - you wouldn't be happy if either your lager or your soup were served luke wam but you wouldn't expect luke warm lager and luke warm soup to be the same temperature - so its not a particular temperature - its a disappointing or underwhelming temperature.

The one thats gets me is flammable and inflammable mean the same.

They actually don't - the 'in' is an intensifier in many cases rather than 'opposite of'- such as in 'intense' so it means 'more flammable' not 'unflammable'

Flammable means something that can be set on fire - materials that are flammable are ones that  if you put a match to them they'd eventually burn

Inflammable is an unstable material with very low ingition temperature or that can catch fire very easily or even spontaneously. Inflammable material could be ingniteted by a spark, or by percussion - diesel vapour in an engine is ignited just by compressing it

So wood is flammable, petrol is inflammable.

Corrigendum.

A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase.[1][2] An example for a word sense is ‘navy’ in ‘merchant navy’, which means ‘commercial fleet’ (although that sense of navy is obsolete elsewhere). “

Is this why we end up with members of Parliament referred to as "honourable friend/member/gentleman" that somewhere in the distant past honourable had a wholly different meaning that it no longer does?

So wood is flammable, petrol is inflammable.

Beat me to it.

disconsolate, dejected, disgruntled. Incorrigible, disarray

one cannot be consolate, jected, or gruntled

Disgruntled is the same. Dis- is an intensifier, it means very gruntled.

I was pondering ‘luke’ as in ‘luke warm’.

Is lukewarm not one word?

(It's also the internal temperature of a Tauntaun.)

Dis- is an intensifier, it means very gruntled.

So is the "re" in refried beans. They are only fried once, but very intensely.

I did not know that.

Aside -

So wood is flammable, petrol is inflammable.

Technically, wood is combustible and petrol is flammable, considering the flash point of these substances.

My MIL refers to things being ‘couth’ or ‘not very couth.’

Double post

One use phrase 🙂

So is the “re” in refried beans. They are only fried once, but very intensely.

Refried in that context is a mistranslation of refrito which really means re-hash or re-do, When you cook refried beans you don't really fry them at all - theres oil in the recipe but the stuff is basically mash.The beans are being cooked for the second time as you start with beans that are already cooked.

while looking up some of those words I discovered the the reason you can't be 'jected' (as in dejected) is because the root word jacere is Latin for thrown and de means down, so down-thrown.

English is both weird and cool.

disarray

Items can be in perfect array. Array being order and disarray disorder.

Now that incandescent light bulbs are a thing of the past, 'incandescent with rage' could become one of your single use words.

Yeah ‘Compact Fluorescent with Rage’ describes a very different kind of anger 🙂

Items can be in perfect array. Array being order and disarray disorder.

Yes of course, I even said so.

Couth, kempt and shevelled.

mallemaroking: the drunken carousing of icebound sailors.

I don’t often get to use it much these days thanks to climate change.

One of my favourite words which always worth dropping into conversation is discombobulated. Helped I think by the fact that one is never combobulated.

clouds scudding across the sky

Planing dinghies scud across the waves.

scud1 /skud/
intransitive verb (scuddˈing; scuddˈed)
(esp of clouds) to sweep along easily and swiftly
(esp of sailing vessels) to drive before the wind
transitive verb
To cross swiftly
noun
An act or the action of scudding
Driving cloud, shower or spray
A gust
A swift runner (school sl)
ORIGIN: Perh alteration of scut rabbit's tail, hence meaning ‘to run like a rabbit’

I thought we got scudding done in desert storm?

Do you tribulations without trials?

tenterhooks

Well there is the saying and the device being used for its intended purpose so you could argue there are two uses for the word.

Morning ablutions

One of my favourite words which always worth dropping into conversation is discombobulated

May I wish you sir, my enthusiastic contrafibularities on the success of your work.

elephant only means one thing, but it’s never only used in one context

I remember in the 60s being disappointed when mom said we were going to the village fate to see the White Elephant Stall .

Kiley (bit in the end of the hammer)

Quirk (glove part)

Forges (glove part)

Extols the virtues of

Most of us own aglets.
How seldom we praise those lifestyle essentials.

Anyways I need to attach a hatband to my Tarphat, now where did I place my etui?

TBH I use aglet and etui more than I should but only because certain crossword compilers find them useful.