Absquatulate

A deliberately absurd coinage from 1830s American frontier humor, when inventing mock-Latin words was a popular sport. It was built to sound learned and Latinate — suggesting "squat" dressed up with grand-sounding prefixes and endings — while meaning nothing so dignified as its shape implies. It is a joke word that stuck, and that mock-pompous flavor is exactly its charm.

  1. verb · /ab-SKWOCH-uh-layt/

    To leave abruptly; to make off or decamp, often hastily.

    A grandiose, comic verb for slipping away — perfect when a plain "left" is too dull for a sudden, faintly suspicious exit.

    By the time the bill arrived, our most talkative guest had quietly absquatulated.

    To skedaddle is to flee quickly and a little frantically; to absquatulate is to depart with the same haste but far more comic pomp.