Love this list compiled from over 40 years of Radio 4’s quiz show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue by Harry Mount which reveals alternative meanings for everyday words with rib-tickling results. Here are Harry’s A-Z of the funniest entries… 

Aberdare — To challenge Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid

Acoustic — A Scottish cattle prod

Albino — Spanish kids’ comic

Allocate — How you greet the Duchess of Cambridge

Annex — Captain Mark Phillips

Autocue — Traffic jam

AWOL — A dyslexic owl

Baguette — A little bag

Baltimore — To ask for seconds in an Indian restaurant

Barrier — Even more like Barry than Barry is

Beaten — A posh school for bees

Bigamist — A larger than usual fog

Biology — The science of why women shop

Boutique — To heckle wood

Cabaret — A range of available taxis

Cage fighter — Angry hamster

Cardiac — Somebody who knows a hell of a lot about cardigans

Celery — A bit like a cellar

Cesspit — Brad’s unsavoury brother

Chipmunk — A friar

Claimant — An insect that’s had an accident at work

Claustrophobia — Irrational fear of being stuck in a lift with Father Christmas

Corridor — Entrance to the Rovers Return

Dace — What the Queen uses to play board games

Decaff — Where you get de coffee

Delaware — To have seen Only Fools And Horses

Disdain — To be rude to someone from Denmark

Docile — Where they keep the medications in a supermarket

Dogmatic — A dog without a clutch

Eclipse — Devices for holding electronic documents together

Egocentric — The yolk

Endorse — Loser in the Grand National

Enquire — A group of singing chickens from the East End

Evil — The opposite of ‘e von’t’

Falsetto — Fake ice cream

Five-a-side — To kill a boy band

Flirt — A vehicle driven by a Geordie milkman

Fondue — An affectionate sheep

Forebears — A really terrible night for Goldilocks

Foxglove — Basil Brush

Geriatric — Three goals scored by Germans

Giggle — Very small music event

Gladiator — An unrepentant cannibal

Grandstand — Granny’s been to the solarium

Harmony — Cash paid to comedians

Hurricane — A riding crop

Hydrangea — Warning from Tonto

Icon — Optical illusion

Income — Entrance

Integrate — Answer to the question: ‘Where’s t’coal?’

Intifada — A chain of West Bank florists

Ipswich — What you turn your hip on with

Jocular — Scots vampire

Juniper — Did you bite that woman?

Kimono — Yoko’s sister

Lamb shank — Sean Connery’s sheep has drowned

Laundress — Grass skirt

Leicestershire — Why shearers like small sheep

Lockjaw — The correct emergency procedure for disabling Brian Blessed

Londonderry air — Pippa Middleton

Mace — What the Queen puts traps down for

Malteser — Coming soon: a shopping centre!

Mangoes — He leaves

Marigold — Get rich quick 

Megawatt — PARDON? 


Merciful — Liverpool’s flooded  

Migraine — That corn doesn’t belong to you

Misty — To forgo the 4pm meal

Morbid — Unhealthily addicted to auctions

Mystical — Mr Tickle’s daughter

Negligent — Man in lingerie

Notable — You’ll have to have your dinner on the floor

Offset — The regulatory body that inspects badgers

Onesie — What the Queen calls a selfie

Orchid — Son of a Brummie

Oscillate — Dame Edna hasn’t turned up

Ovaltine — A fat adolescent

Paraffin — Flying fish

Parasites — Views from the Eiffel Tower

Parsley — A bit like a parcel

Pear tree — What posh poets like to write

Peckish — Like Gregory Peck

Permutation — The theory of how hairdos evolved

Perversion — Cat’s side of story

Petulance — A vehicle that takes dogs and cats to hospital

Piper — What Australians write on

Plaintiff — A row with a stewardess

Polyunsaturated — A dry parrot

Porpoise — Dolphin on a mission

Posthumous — The act of delivering Greek food by mail

Pretence — The days before camping

Quest — The Jonathan Ross family coat of arms

Quick — Noise made by a New Zealand duck

Quicksilver — A pirate on a motorbike

Rabid — A bunny with a cold

Rambling — Jewellery for sheep

Reading — To ring a bell again

Reincarnation — Born again as a tin of condensed milk

Relief — Trees in spring

Sandy — That’s convenient

Satsuma — Japanese wrestling while sitting down

Sedate — Meant nine

Selfish — A fishmonger’s work

Servile — A nasty knight

Shakespeare — Arab-owned seaside amusement arcade

Silicone — Madonna’s bra

Snuffbox — Coffin

Specimen — Italian astronauts

Spinach — Irritation caused by sitting next to Alastair Campbell

Suffocation — A weekend in Lowestoft

Taffeta — A cannibal with a preference for Welsh people

Tangent — Dale Winton

Template — The secretary hasn’t turned up

Tenure — How they describe a decade in the West Country

Thatcher — Used to be married to that Sonny Bono

Thinking — A young Elvis

Tombola — Man who throws cats

Tyrant — Angry reaction to having to wear a tie

Uganda — Go and have a look

Unfettered — Without Greek cheese

Unilever — A stick for getting students out of bed

Vaccinate — To administer drugs with a Hoover

Vigilante — An old relative who stays up all night

Wagtail — Coleen Rooney’s biography

Wallaby — Someone aspiring to be a kangaroo

Walnut — An obsessive bricklayer

Weight-machine — A Southern Rail train

Welfare — Blonde, innit

Witchcraft — Magazine for boat owners

X-ray — A former fish

Yeoman — Presidential greeting (after George W. Bush’s matey comment to Tony Blair)

Zucchini — An animal park enthusiast