costning means temptation. It carries an Arena rating of 1329, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, costning ranks #1,163 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #3,895 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #3,967 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #4,122 of 17,131 for Scariest Words.
Why “costning” is a great word
COSTNING — [Noun] A temptation viewed specifically as a trial or divine test of one's moral character. From Middle English costning, costnunge, from Old English costnung ("temptation, testing, trial"), from Old English costnian ("to tempt, try"), a variant of costian, from Proto-Germanic *kustōną ("to try, taste"), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵews- ("to taste, enjoy"). The word is attested from around 1275. Unlike "enticement," which suggests an external, honeyed lure toward sin, or the broad, secular hardship of a "trial," costning is an internal, permitted crucible—a probing of spiritual mettle. It is the desert whisper after forty days of fasting, the cool forbidden fruit held in the hand, the king's offer of power for a bent knee—the austere and ancient shape of a soul being weighed.
Etymology
From Middle English costning, costnunge, from Old English costnung (“temptation, testing, trial, tribulation”), from Old English costnian, variant of Old English costian (“to tempt, try, prove, examine”), from Proto-Germanic *kustōną (“to try, taste”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵews- (“to enjoy, taste”), equivalent to cost + -ing. Cognate with German kosten (“to taste”). Related to choose.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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