my dictionary

Feb 16, 2025

This is a living document. Let me know in the comments what other uncommon or clever new words you appreciate.

altschmerz - exhaustion of the same old problems that you’ve always had

anemoia - nostalgia for a time you never experienced

angosis - malaise that results from having unlimited access to something, which only seems to drain away its value

Antichthon ( Greek: "Counter-Earth" - In modern times, a hypothetical planet always on the other side of the Sun from the Earth; a recurring theme in fiction, science fiction and UFO claims

aponemia - peculiar quality of never having chosen to be born, which is shared by everyone else around you

artism - from autism... Unexpected, unwelcome, or unnecessary art (as a verb)

astrophe - feeling of being stuck on Earth

ataraxia ( Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus ) - lucid state of robust tranquility, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry

atavistic - relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral

ahtazagoraphobia - fear of forgetting, being forgotten or ignored, or being replaced

apodyopsis - mentally undressing someone

aubadoir - atmosphere just before dawn, when an extremely late night becomes the fluorescence of a very early morning

austice - wistful omen of the first sign of autumn

backpfeifengesicht - face that deserves to be punched

badozen - a bunch

bareleveling - trying to improve yourself without anyone else knowing about it

bitgram - an amount, like a bit or a gram

blinkback - disillusionment of revisiting a pop-culture touchstone of your youth and finding that it hasn’t aged well at all

blithesome - lighthearted; merry; cheerful

bona fide - Latin bona fide (“in good faith”) which is the ablative case of bona fides ( “good faith” )

bricoleur - person who engages in bricolage ( mid 20th century: French, literally ‘handyman’ )

bricolage - ( in art or literature ) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things

bourgeoisie ( polysemous French term ) - originally and generally, "those who live in the borough", that is to say, the people of the city ( including merchants and craftsmen ), as opposed to those of rural areas; in this sense, the bourgeoisie began to grow in Europe from the 11th century and particularly during the Renaissance of the 12th century, with the first developments of rural exodus and urbanization. a legally defined class of the Middle Ages to the end of the "Ancien Régime" ( Old Regime ) in France, that of inhabitants having the rights of citizenship and political rights in a city ( comparable to the German term Bürgertum and Bürger ). a sociologically defined class, especially in contemporary times, referring to people with a certain cultural and financial capital belonging to the middle or upper stratum of the middle class: the upper ( haute ), middle ( moyenne ) and petty ( petite ) bourgeoisie ( which are collectively designated "the Bourgeoisie" ). An affluent and often opulent stratum of the middle class ( capitalist class ) who stood opposite the proletariat class

canorous - medoldious; musical

catten - cat who also counts as a kitten

ceraunophile - person who loves lightning, thunder

chrysalism - amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm

coddiwomple - to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination

connectome - comprehensive map of the connections in the brain; physical version of the metaphorical mind

consequent - being, person, or creature to whom the results of an act apply

craxis - unease of knowing how quickly your circumstances could change on you

la cuna - twinge of sadness that there’s no frontier left

cynefin ( Dutch ) - place where a person or an animal feels it ought to live and belong; it is where nature around you feels right and welcoming

deep gut - resurgent emotion that you hadn’t felt in years

dolonia - state of unease prompted by people who seem to like you too much

drachenfutter - gift presented to one's spouse by way of apology ( literally, dragon food )

drapetomania - overwhelming urge to run away

ecury - conversation that spans huge intervals of time

eidos - distinctive expression of the cognitive or intellectual character of a culture or social group

eisce - awareness of the infinitesimal role you play in shaping your own society

ellipsism - sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out

elsewise - struck by the poignant strangeness of the details of other people’s private living space

endzoned - hollow feeling of having gotten exactly what you thought you wanted, only to learn that it didn’t make you happy

entelechy - realization of potential

énouement - bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self

epistrix - disconcerting cluster of endings that all seem to happen at once

eremition - gradually fading from the lives of others, not out of malice but a desire for solitude or renewal

eudemonia or eudaemonia - ultimate fulfillment; well-being. ( Aristotelianism ) happiness as the result of an active life governed by reason

exulansis - give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate

fardle-din - long-overdue argument that shakes up a relationship

fellchaser - long-forgotten mistake from your past that could reappear at any time and rip your life apart

fernweh - longing for far off places

fingerspitzengenfühl - intuitive empathy with things and people ( literally, fingertip-feeling )

fremdschaemen - feeling of being ashamed on someone else's behalf

frisson - sudden strong feeling of excitement or fear; a thrill

frühjahrsmüdigkeit - sense of listlessness brought on by the coming of Spring

fuchsteufelswild - pure animal rage ( literally, fox-devil wild )

fugue ( psychiatry ) - pathological amnesiac condition during which one is apparently conscious of one's actions but has no recollection of them after returning to a normal state; usually resulting from severe mental stress, may persist for as long as several months

funkenzwangsvorstellung - the primal trance of watching a campfire in the dark

la gaudière - glint of goodness you notice in someone that you wouldn’t expect

geborgenheit - perfect mixture of cozy, safe, warm, and comfortable

ghough - hollow place in your psyche that can never be filled

giltwrights - imaginary committee of elders that keeps a running log of all your mistakes

halakha ( Hebrew: sephardic; also transliterated as halacha, halakhah, halachah or halocho ) - collective body of Jewish religious laws derived from the Written and Oral Torah

harmonoia - itchy sense of dread when life feels just a hint too peaceful

heartmoor - primal longing for a home village to return to, a place that no longer exists, if it ever did

heartspur - unexpected surge of emotion in response to a seemingly innocuous trigger

hubris - excessive pride or self-confidence

hygge - cozy and contented mood evoked by comfort and conviviality

idlewild - feeling grateful to be stranded in a place where you can’t do much of anything

ikigai - reason for being; thing that gets you up in the morning

immanent - existing or operating within; inherent. ( of God ) permanently pervading and sustaining the universe

inerrata - mistake you wouldn’t take back even if you could

innity - complicated solitude of hotel rooms late at night, spending time in a place that’s both yours and emphatically not yours

insoucism - inability to decide how much sympathy your situation really deserves

intelligentsia ( Latin: intellegentia, Polish: inteligencja ) - a social class of people engaged in complex mental labor aimed at guiding or critiquing, or otherwise playing a leadership role in shaping a society's culture and politics. this therefore might include everyone from artists to school teachers, as well as academics, writers, journalists, and other hommes de lettres (men of letters) more usually thought of as being the main constituents of the intelligentsia

jouska - hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head

kairosclerosis- moment you look around and realize that you’re currently happy

kakistocracy - government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power

kawaii ( Japanese ) - cute, appealing in an endearing way

keep - important part of your personality that others seldom or never see

kenaway - longing to see how other people live their lives when they’re not in public

kenopsia - eeriness of places left behind

keyframe - moment that felt innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life

the kick drop - the moment you wake up from an immersive dream and have to abruptly recalibrate to reality

kopfkino - playing out an entire scenario in your mind ( literally, head cinema )

kuddelmuddel - unstructured mess, "shamboozle"

kummerspek - weight gained by emotional overeating ( literally, grief bacon )

lachesism - longing for the clarity of disaster

l'appel du vide ( French )- the unexplainable desire to jump when on the edge of a cliff

lap year - age you become older than your parents were when you were born

latigo - dizzying sense of awe at the sheer scale of modern society

libertine - person who behaves without moral principles or a sense of responsibility, especially in sexual matters. a person who rejects accepted opinions in matters of religion; a freethinker. adjective: characterized by a disregard of morality, especially in sexual matters. freethinking in matters of religion

licotic - anxiously excited to introduce a friend to something you think is amazing

lisolia - satisfaction of things worn down by time

lookaback - shock of meeting back up with someone and learning that your mental image of them had fallen wildly out of date

looseleft - sense of loss upon finishing a good book

luftschloss - unrealistic dream ( literally, air castle )

makai ( Hawaiian ) - toward the sea ( see mauka )

malotype - person who embodies all the things you like the least about yourself

mauka ( Hawaiian ) - toward the mountains, inland ( see makai )

merrenness - lulling isolation of driving late at night

maru mori - recognition of the sublime simplicity in ordinary things

me-ist - someone who is desperately involved in themselves

meretricious - apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity. ( archaic ) of, relating to, or characteristic of a prostitute

midding - tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it

mithenness - unsettling awareness that the rest of the world happily carries on in your absence

mithridatism - protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts ( snake handlers from Burma are said to tattoo themselves with snake venom )

murr-ma - walk along in the water searching for something with your feet

neoteny - retention of juvenile features in the adult animal

nemotia - recognition that you’re utterly powerless to change the world around you

nepsis ( or nipsis; Greek ) - state of watchfulness or sobriety acquired following a long period of catharsis

ne’er-be-gone - person who has no idea where their home is, or was, or when they might have left it

noblesse oblige ( French, literally, nobility obligates ) - the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth

noetic - mental activity or the intellect

beings alive at a given time, a group that nudges slightly forward whenever a new baby is born or the world’s oldest person dies, and turns over completely every hundred years or so

null hypothesis ( statistical inference of observed data of a scientific experiment ) - a general or default position: that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena, or that a potential medical treatment has no effect. rejecting or disproving the null hypothesis – and thus concluding that there are grounds for believing that there is a relationship between two phenomena or that a potential treatment has a measurable effect – is a central task in the modern practice of science, and gives a precise sense in which a claim is capable of being proven false

nyctous - quietly overjoyed to be the only one awake in the middle of the night

nyctophile - person who loves the night, darkness

occhiolism - awareness of how fundamentally limited your senses are—noticing how little of your field of vision is ever in focus, how few colors you’re able to see, how few sounds you’re able to hear, and how intrusively your brain fills in the blanks with its own cartoonish extrapolations

onanism - withdrawal of the penis in sexual intercourse so that ejaculation takes place outside the vagina; coitus interruptus

oneirataxia - inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality

onism - awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience

ozurie - torn between the life you have and the life you want

paradigm - technical: a typical example or pattern of something; a model. a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject. a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles. ( in the traditional grammar of Latin, Greek, and other inflected languages ) a table of all the inflected forms of a particular verb, noun, or adjective, serving as a model for other words of the same conjugation or declension

parochial - limited or narrow outlook or scope. of or relating to a church parish

pithered - frustrated that you can’t force yourself to remember something, even though it’s right on the tip of your tongue

plata rasa - lulling sound of a running dishwasher

pluviophile - person who loves, takes comfort from rain

poggled - looking twice at something you see every day and catching an obvious detail you’d never noticed before

praxis - practice, as distinguished from theory. accepted practice or custom

proxemics - study of the nature, degree, and effect of the spatial separation individuals naturally maintain ( in social and interpersonal situations ) and how this separation relates to environment and culture

psithurism - sound of the wind in the trees

querencia - place from which ones strength is drawn, where one feels at home; the place where you are your most authentic self

quiddity - inherent nature or essence of someone or something ( spirit )

rasque - moment you instantly wish you could take back, feeling a pulse of dread right after crossing the point of no return

rialtoscuro - disorientation of stepping outside a movie theater into unexpected darkness

rubatosis - unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

Rubicon - limit that when passed or exceeded permits of no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment ( a short river of north-central Italy, the crossing of which by Julius Caesar and his army in 49 b.c. began a civil war )

saccade ( French for jerk ) - quick, simultaneous movement of both eyes between two or more phases of fixation in the same direction. The phenomenon can be associated with a shift in frequency of an emitted signal or a movement of a body part or device

savoir-faire - ability to say or do the right or graceful thing

schattenparker - wimp ( literally, one who parks his car in the shade )

schnapsidee - idea you had when you were drunk that you will probably regret ( literally, Schnapps idea )

scrough - mindlessly perform a tedious task that nobody will ever notice, required by a bureaucracy that nobody fully owns, in pursuit of outcomes that nobody really wants

sehnsucht - "inconsolable longing in the human heart, for we know not what"; intense yearning for something far-off and indefinable

selenophile - person who loves the moon

shamboozle - unstructured mess, kuddelmuddel

siso - solitary experience you wish you could have shared with someone else

slipfast - longing to disappear completely; to melt into a crowd and become invisible, to take in the world without having to take part in it

sonder - awareness that everyone has a story

sophrosyne ( Ancient Greek: s?f??s??? ) - healthy state of mind characterized by self-control, moderation, and a deep awareness of one's true self, and resulting in true happiness

sphallolalia - flirtatious talk that leads nowhere

strayden - sudden, salient awareness that you are not alone when you expected to be

sybaritic - fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent

syzygy - conjunction or opposition, especially of the moon with the sun. a pair of connected or corresponding things

tarrion - interval of blankness after something big happens to you

the Til - reservoir of all possible opportunities still available to you at this point in your life; all the countries you might still have the opportunity to explore, the careers you still have time to pursue, the skills you still have time to develop, the relationships you might still make

torschlusspanik - fear that time is running out to achieve life's goals ( literally, gate-shutting panic )

trueholding - furiously trying to keep an amazing discovery to yourself

treppenwitz - witty comeback you thought of too late ( literally, staircase joke )

trumspringa - longing to wander off your career track in pursuit of a simple life—tending a small farm in a forest clearing, keeping a lighthouse on a secluded atoll, or becoming a shepherd in the mountains

tsundoku ( Japanese ) - buying books and not reading them; letting books pile up unread on shelves

unregenerate - not reforming or showing repentance; obstinately wrong or bad

vellichor - strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time

vemödalen - fear that originality is no longer possible

verschlimmbessern - make something worse by the act of trying to improve it

vicarous - curious to know what someone else would do if they were in your shoes

volander - ethereal feeling of looking down at the world through an airplane window, able to catch a glimpse of far-flung places you’d never see in person, trying to imagine what they must feel like down on the ground

the Void - all those collected papers, images, ideas that you'll never interact with again despite your best intentions

walloway - sense memory you’ve mulled over so thoroughly that it’s become totally drained of emotion

wenbane - feeling small and alone while walking the streets of an unfamiliar city

the wends - frustration that you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you anticipated

wildred - haunting solitude of extremely remote places

winnewaw - unexpected burst of good news that leaves you waiting for the other shoe to drop

witherwill - longing to be free of responsibility

wollah - something you’ve misunderstood for years

weltschmerz - despair at the state of the world

wytai - feature of modern civilization that suddenly strikes you as absurd and grotesque

xeno - smallest measurable unit of human connection, typically exchanged between passing strangers—a warm smile, a sympathetic nod, a shared laugh about some odd coincidence

yeorie - certain scent that has the power to sweep you back to childhood

yu yi - longing to feel things intensely again

zeitgeist - defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time

zielschmerz - dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream

zugzwang - pressure to make a strategic move when you would rather do nothing

The Truth

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