Did it involve some 油 as well? 
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Nope, in this case it was actually a character just describing stuff as “なんとか醬” (though they did show up together later in the same book)
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And then there’s 嫐.
It’s almost like this language was written by men. I’m nearly surprised there isn’t a kanji with three 男 that means “great courage and virtue” or somesuch.
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蚕 from 蚕食(さんしょく) meaning “encroachment”. Surprised to see a kanji I don’t think I have ever seen, in a kanken 5 practice deck.
Now that I think about it, I must have seen it somewhere when visiting a Japanese silk factory… 
No recollection at all, though.
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Whoa, I read this post and then stumbled upon the word 邂逅 again just 5 minutes later or so on reddit
words I mined like 絨毯、邂逅、蹂躙、and 顰蹙! (Yes, I know these are quite common words
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If I remember correctly, silk was considered a ‘heavenly’ fabric in Ancient China, so using 蚕 to mean ‘silkworm’ makes perfect sense. I guess it was too rare to be on WK or in most books.
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Eh, I keep forgetting the reading of 蹂躙 (specifically the りん part, 蹂 is the same as 柔) and I didn’t know (or at least don’t remember seeing) 顰蹙.
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The guy on reddit wrote this:
顰蹙 is more common in kana anyway, as in ひんしゅくを買う, so that was my bad
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I just checked the link, and 顰蹙 was barred from the “frequent” list 
The formatting just didn’t carry over.
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蚕 is a jouyou kanji taught in grade 6 apparently. 
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Saw 褪, used in the word 褪せる (あせる, to fade, to get discolored, or in the lingo of the game, to be tarnished) in the Elden Ring trailer today. Probably have seen it before but couldn’t remember the reading at that moment.
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Was gonna say… youve probably seen 色褪せる, but maybe it didnt have kanji?
Honestly I see the kanji one way more. I checked 20 40+ of the books I have read (ive got them all in one big text file for shit like this) and 顰蹙 appeared twice as often as ひんしゅく. Small sample size, but mah.
Something similar happened to me. When I learned the word last year, I saw it in pretty soon after in the title of a youtube video. Havent seen it since lol.
And since I’m here, as always to add to the thread the most recent word I learned actually has two kanji that I don’t think I’ve seen in it before: 炮烙. Of course, the definition that was used was the one that has to do with torture/punishment.
Funny enough, I have actually specifically used this one in a conversation we had on forums 4 months ago. What are the odds!
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That feels like the story of my “I’ve never seen word before” life.
I had the same experience with 邂逅. I don’t remember anymore which book, but I was just looking for something in one of my ebooks a few days after posting, and sure enough it was there.
I did note at the time that I had probably seen it before. I guess 顰蹙 is the same…
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Yeah, I imagine in your situation you have probabbbbly seen a majority of words in this thread (and in general) at one point in your life and its just a matter of if you remember. Meanwhile I’m kinda the opposite in the sense that a lot of the “obscure” words are relatively new to me in my studies and I srs like all of them so while I haven’t seen a whole bunch, I remember the ones I’ve seen. Like mentioning 色褪せる earlier to leebo reminded me of 褪色 because it feels obscure and memorable and funny enough its one I know you’ve come across and now I’m curious if you remember it/where you would have seen it. If you don’t, then its from the beginning of the mental masturbation chronicles known as shinsekai yori.
As always while I’m here, my contribution is 濾 from 濾過. Apparently can also be used for こす rather than 漉. ｎｅａｔ
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Haha yes I remembered. I also thought about it when I saw Leebo’s post.
I wouldn’t go as far as that. Still, I guess I did see a bunch of things overall, especially thanks to books like 新世界より or 図書館の魔女. I remember thinking “yeah I don’t care about that” when reading weird words in the latter and now I don’t remember what they were.
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Really? With living and working in japan and the amount of books you’ve read, you don’t think you have heard at least 51% of the words/kanji in here in passing? Remembering them aside, it seems like you would have encountered quite a lot.
Eyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Also looking it up it seems like 褪色 does show up in some stuff about hair dying so maybe its not entirely obscure if you regularly are around that sort of content.
Searching this topic I did not find an entry for 罵 (on: バ、kun: ののし、meaning: abuse/insult). The kanji appears in the word 罵倒 Noun, Suru verb: (verbal) abuse; denunciation; disparagement; vilification; scathing criticism (from Jisho.org) which is used in the last sentence of the dialogue below from the manga 恋と呼ぶには気持ち悪い、vol 1.
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罵る is a fairly common word too. Good kanji to learn.
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罵声 is also not too uncommon~
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I have no sense of what 100% is, so it’s hard to say. When I look at stuff like the kanken 1, I feel like I know nothing.
At the same time, I have seen words like 鼎, so 51%? Maybe? 
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