Sorry, but teh intarwebz is melting ma brainz

I learned 'abstruse' in high school from "who's afraid of virginia woolf?"

hmm. in terms of the most complex word I know. I dunno? I don't really know a lot of complex words. I was reading Lolita the other day and it f'ed my head how many unknown words I ran across in the first few pages.

The rotary configuration on a phone is a skiamorphae, a once functional design that is now kept as as a decorative element.

Paradiastole is a kind of euphemism where a bad thing is referred to as a good thing, like in this exchange from the Simpsons episode where Marge becomes a realtor:

Marge: It's awfully small...
Lionel: I'd say it's awfully.. cozy!
Marge: That's dilapidated...
Lionel: Rustic!
Marge: That house is on fire!
Lionel: Motivated seller!

I could tell by her slumping posture and defeated scowl that Lisa was just Lenny's gunsel.

One may conduct an equine quadruped to an aqueous reservoir, but inciting said equinus to imbibe may be problematic.

A sobriquet is a nickname whose identifying power rivals or exceeds that of the name itself.

For example: Genghis Khan - who is rarely recognized now by his original name, Temüjin.

Or another kind of royalty: The Sultan of Swat

So, in a sentence:

I'm sure Charles III would have preferred a more dignified royal sobriquet than Charles The Fat.

And to get meta: a conspicuously ornate writing style can be said to be damascened - after the art of inlaying different metals into one another.

The colonel's toasts grew more damascened with each successive mint julep.

adventitious

OED, 3. Natural Hist. Appearing casually, or out of the normal or usual place...

This unique plant's adventitious eyes, being effectively useless, are difficult to explain.

Love all these!

I give you honorificabilitudinatibus. It is a Shakespearean hapax legomenon, and translates as "the state of being able to achieve honors".

Also, preantepenultimate: three before the last. The word "necessary" is stressed on the preantepenultimate syllable.

P.S. The Whelk, I think the word you're referring to is "skeuomorph". And while you're right that it's "once functional design that is now kept as as a decorative element", you are wrong in that a rotary dial on a phone fits the definition. If your cell phone had a display of a rotary dial that you "dialed", that would be a skeuomorph. Like the way a digital camera makes a shutter noise. Or the way you can "erase" things with the little pink eraser icon in Photoshop.

Also, the word ending "ae" is a traditional Latin plural used when a word ends in "a", like amoeba/amoebae.
/pedantic