London - Ian Brookes is trying to rescue the zoozoo from extinction.
Brookes is not an environmentalist partial to the wood pigeon, but instead editor of the Chambers Dictionary, and is seeking to keep words from disappearing in the publisher's next edition which is slated for release in August.
"We've resisted the temptation for tossing words out," he said on Monday at the London Book Fair.
Also on the save list are jobernowl (blockhead), logodaedalus (someone skilled in the manipulative use of words), incompossible (incapable of co-existing) and supernaculum (to the last drop), the kinds of words typically omitted by one-volume dictionaries once they fall out of usage.
The Chambers Dictionary, published in Scotland, is favoured by puzzlers, writers and language-lovers for its pithy approach, such as defining "eclair" as a cake long in shape but short in duration.