Perhaps guest would explain the pertinance of his list- other than it contains unrelated words from the 1300s to the 1900s, some with several meanings, some from foreign languages, some from science. English is an agglomerative and changing language, perhaps that is his point.

Isinglass (not isenglass) is a corruption of Dutch huisenblas and has been used since the 16th c. for translucent gelatins, and since the 18th c. for mica. As a boy I remember it as the sheets of translcent mica used in coalstove doors and lamp housings. A piece was one of a boy's prize possessions.
In Canada, more people would know Quark as a soft cheese than would recognize it as a particle in subatomic physics. I don't know how widespread the food substance is.
Heyoka is a Sioux name for clown (not in our sense but that of a wise fool). Some "new age" and other peculiar people have given it different, incomprehensible meanings.
Mollycoddle was probably from dialect, but it received its current meaning from novels by Thackeray, Napier and others in the 19th c.
Obfuscation developed as a figurative term in the 16th c. but achieved literal meaning (dark) in the 17th c.
Smarmy appeared in popular writing early in the 20th c. but might have come from smalm, to smear.
Antihistamine was coined by medical researchers in 1933.
Constant velocity joint is known to all who work with front wheel drive cars, but the transfer of power at angles goes back a ways- at a guess 19th c.
Dribble has several meanings; the common one (to drop or flow very slowly) is 16th c. In Archery it is 16th c. and in ball games 19th c.
Poleaxed has a long history; soldiers were poleaxing people in the 14th c. or earlier. The other sense, felling animals, is early 18th c.
Thermal was coined by the French scientist Buffon from the Greek root. Applied not to everything from hot springs to thermal underwear.
Boondoggle has several meanings, which may or may not be related. A gadget (19th c), cowboy lingo for fiddling with or making things from small bits of leather (early 20th c.?), socially desirable make-work projects (Roosevelt-depression era projects), which became almost immediately the wasteful projects of governments. The last has prevailed.
Defunct meant dead in the 14th c. and in part still does but it picked up the meaning of no longer in existence in the 1700s.

Yep, a small sample of English.