The Guardian posted a great article (as usual!) in which poets were asked to list their most abhorred words.
One of the great quotes, in reference to the word pulchritude:

“it violates all the magical impulses of balanced onomatopoeic language – it of course means “beautiful”, but its meaning is nothing of the sort, being stuffed to the brim with a brutally latinate cudgel of barbaric consonants. If consonants represent riverbanks and vowels the river’s flow, this is the word equivalent of the bottomless abyss of dry bones, where demons gather to spit acid.”

I have to say I agree. It sounds like an infection that would set into a nasty cut on the bottom of one’s foot.

Among my most loathed (real) words:

moist
obfuscate
pucker
grunt
segue
pustule

Among my most loathed (not real but sadly, becoming real) words:

irregardless
orientate

I’m not going to touch on the internet words or lolspeak – most of that crap makes my skin crawl.

What about you? What words make you wince?