XYZ vocabulary encountered online

It's a small group of words. Nearly useless. Arcane and barred from conversational use even with professionals on pain of alienation based on putting on airs. Still, the Zimmerman Telegram is interesting and we already know zaftig from Heidi Klum using it on Project Runway to describe one of the designer's mother, but at some point this word was not widely recognized.

* Xhosa Prophetess Nongqawuse: Nongqawuse (c. 1840s – 1898) was the Xhosa prophetess whose prophecies led to a millennialist movement that culminated in the Xhosa cattle-killing crisis of 1856–1857, in what is now the KwaZulu Natal province of the Republic of South Africa.

* Yapok: The Water Opossum, Chironectes minimus, a marsupial of the family Didelphidae.  It is the only member of its genus, Chironectes. This creature is found in the freshwater streams and lakes in Mexico, Central and South America to Argentina, and is the only living aquatic marsupial. It is also the only living marsupial in which both sexes have a pouch. The Thylacine, commonly referred to as the Tasmanian Tiger, also exhibited this trait, but is now believed to be extinct.
The animal lives in bank side burrows, emerging after dusk to swim and search for fish, crustaceans and other aquatic animals, which it eats on the bank.

* yawp: To utter a sharp cry; yelp. To talk loudly, raucously, or coarsely. A bark; a yelp. Loud or coarse talk or utterance:

* Yggdrasil: an immense tree that that is central in Norse cosmology; the world tree, and around the tree exist nine worlds. It is generally considered to mean "Ygg's (Odin's) horse".

* you are cold: Prior to announcing his sentence, Burns told Balfour: "You have the heart of an arctic night. Your soul is as barren as dark space.

Which is unpervaded space. An unreality so unreal it's not even a word. Space unpervaded by forces and energies, objects, events, material, phenomena of pervaded space, that's how barren and dark your soul is. For I am judge and expert on these matters.

Let's see, you got your heart your soul. Spirit. Your spirit's so cold it has to be melted to be cryogenically frozen, and that's one cold ass soul.

And your hands like ice cubes that mostly float but only show at the surface something like, what?, 10% or something and the rest remains hidden in the cold water. Cold, that the theme here. And your feet are like those penguin feet that stay in sub zero cold without  wearing any penguin boots or any penguin foot protection at all and if you think those won't send a shock under the covers then think again.

And your eyeballs are like two frozen ice cubes  the round kind that are made in a speciality ice molds like novelty ice golf balls, that's what your eyes are like, totally lifeless and cold.

And your bum is as cold as that grueling frigid race they do, the Iditarod or something, a race so cold and hard some of the sled dogs die.

You have cold arms and legs too but they're not that bad.

* zaftig: chubby

* zek, zeks: A memory of the canal is also preserved in the Russian language, in the words "zeka", "zek, z/k" for "inmate". In Russian, "inmate", "incarcerated" is заключённый (zakliuchyonnyi), usually abbreviated to з/к in paperwork, and pronounced as зэка ("zeh-KA"), which gradually transformed into зэк and зек ("zek"). The word is still in colloquial use. Originally the abbreviation stood for zaklyuchyonny kanaloarmeyets (заключённый каналоармеец), literally "incarcerated canal-army-man". The latter term coined in an analogy with the words "krasnoarmeyets" meaning "member of the Red Army" or trudarmeyets (member of a labor army). The history of the term, attributed to Lazar Kogan, is described as follows. In 1932, when Anastas Mikoyan visited Belomorstroy (construction of the White Sea – Baltic Canal) Kogan told him "Comrade Mikoyan, how shall we call them? (…) I thought up the word: 'kanaloarmeyets'. What do you think?" Mikoyan approved it.

* zelig: a person, typically an ordinary, unimportant person, who seems to turn up with surprising or unaccountable frequency in a variety of settings, any highly adaptable, opportunistic person

* zentai: a common term for skin-tight garments that cover the entire body.[1] The word is a contraction of zenshin taitsu (全身タイツ) ("full-body tights"). Zentai is most commonly made using nylon/spandex blends, but other materials such as cotton and wool are used as well.

* Zimmermann Telegram: a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States. The proposal was intercepted by British intelligence. Revelation of the Telegram angered Americans and led in part to a United States declaration of war on Germany in April.
The message came as a coded telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on 16 January 1917, to the German ambassador in Washington, D.C., Johann von Bernstorff, at the height of World War I. On 19 January, Bernstorff, per Zimmermann's request, forwarded the telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt. Zimmermann sent the telegram in anticipation of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany on 1 February, an act which German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg feared would draw the neutral U.S. into war on the side of the Allies. The telegram instructed Ambassador Eckardt that if the U.S. appeared likely to enter the war, he was to approach the Mexican Government with a proposal for military alliance. He was to offer Mexico material aid in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican–American War (the Southeastern section of the area of the Mexican Cession of 1848) and the Gadsden Purchase, specifically of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Eckardt was also instructed to urge Mexico to help broker an alliance between Germany and the Japanese Empire.
The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British cryptographers of Room 40.[4] The portrayal of its contents in the American press on March 1 caused public outrage that contributed to the U.S.'s declaration of war against Germany and its allies on 6 April.

* zugspitze: 2,962 ft., the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany