Mausolea. neoplasm and pleonasm

[Morbius]

These were the three words I missed in yesterday's MENOPAUSAL game.  They're certainly not common to me, and judging by the tiny number of players who got them, they're not common to very many people.  All three should be reclassified in my view.

[TRex]

Agreed

[guyd]

Ditto

[Jacki]

I certainly agree that neoplasm and pleonasm (wonderful anagrams though they are) should be reclassified however I think mausolea is common enough, to me anyway.

[Morbius]

Whilst I'd concede that most people would know the word mausoleum, I'd suggest that mausoleums is by far the more common plural form.

[TRex]

Whilst I'd concede that most people would know the word mausoleum, I'd suggest that mausoleums is by far the more common plural form.

Ngram VIewer confirms this (I expected the difference to be greater).

[Matilda]

HAving a medical background neoplasm is much more familiar to me, but I agree all three should be classified rare.

[pat]

Pleonasm is the best known to me but, like others have said, all three words should probably be classified as rare.

[Alan W]

I agree these three words should all be treated as rare.

The predominance of mausoleums over mausolea as the plural is much more pronounced in the iWeb corpus: 1377 to 97; and the News on the Web corpus: 1671 to 50. Admittedly, just after this suggestion was posted I saw mausolea in a quote from Mary Beard's latest book: "the ashes of most emperors and their families ended up in one of two huge mausolea". But as a famed scholar specializing in ancient Rome, it would be a surprise if she didn't use the Latin plural. It seems the vast majority of writers use mausoleums in preference to mausolea, and it's plausible that quite a few players might be unaware of the latter word.

In future these three words will be classed as rare.