An alphabetized compendium of every word (so far) that has a dedicated blog entry on Verbomania, or that is mentioned in an entry.
aestival
adjective • English
Of, like, or pertaining to summer; occurring or appearing in, or typical of, the summer; summery. See estival.
aiteall
noun • Irish
The period of nice weather between two rain showers.
alexithymia
noun • English
The inability to identify and express or describe one’s feelings (primarily used in psychiatry).
anteayer/antier
noun, adverb • Spanish
The day before yesterday. See zeg.
antejentacular
adjective • English
Occurring before breakfast.
arrangiarsi
verb • Italian
To get by, to make do; refers to the skill, even the art, of resourcefulness and ingenuity.
Aufbruchstimmung
noun • German
The mood of getting ready to depart from a place and/or try new things; an atmosphere of departure or change; a spirit of optimism or enthusiasm.
besinnlich
adjective • German
Reflective, contemplative, tranquil.
brontide
noun • English
A sound like that of distant thunder.
curwhibble
noun • English
A thingamajig, a whatchamacallit.
ćutati (ћyтати)
verb • Serbo-Croatian
To not speak, to be silent.
decemnovenarian
noun, adjective • English
- A person of the 19th century.
- Characteristic of the 19th century.
-ism: 19th-century characteristics or behavior
-ize: to act like a person of the 19th century
dreich
adjective • Scottish English
(of the weather) Dull and depressing; dreary, bleak; cold, unpleasant, and often wet.
duende
noun • Spanish
The mysterious power a work of art can have over a person; the moment in art when something else takes over.
ereyesterday
noun, adverb • English (archaic)
The day before yesterday. See zeg.
estival
adjective • English
Of, like, or pertaining to summer; occurring or appearing in, or typical of, the summer; summery.
feuillemorte
adjective • English, French
Of or having the color of dead or dying leaves.
Frühjahrsmüdigkeit
noun • German
A sense of listlessness brought on by the coming of spring; literally, “spring fatigue”.
gluggaveður
noun • Icelandic
Weather that is nice to look at through a window, but not nice to be outside in; literally, “window-weather”.
hiraeth
noun • Welsh
A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; an intense yearning to be somewhere you are not; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.
hygge
noun, verb • Danish
A sense of warmth and coziness; creating an atmosphere of comfort, intimacy, and togetherness.
ikigai (生き甲斐)
noun • Japanese
A reason for being; the thing that you live for, the reason you get up in the morning.
incunabulum, incunable
noun • English
An early printed book, especially one printed before 1501.
incunabulist
noun • English
A person who collects early books. See incunabulum.
jī lèi (鸡肋, trad. 雞肋)
noun • Chinese
Literally, “chicken ribs”; something that has little value or use that you are nonetheless reluctant to get rid of. Can also refer to a situation when you have an amount of free time long enough that waiting it out feels wasteful, yet not long enough to be used in any meaningful way.
juoksentelisinkohan
expression • Finnish
“I wonder if I should run around aimlessly?”
koev halev (כואב לי הלב)
expression • Hebrew
Identifying with the suffering of others so closely that one hurts oneself, that one’s heart aches; a particular kind of empathy where watching the suffering of others causes physical pain; literally, “my heart hurts”.
koyaanisqatsi
noun • Hopi
Life or nature out of balance; a state of things that calls for another way of living.
lacuna
noun • English
The absence of a word for a particular thing or concept. Also known as a “lexical gap”. See curwhibble.
Mahlzeit
expression • German
A greeting, commonly said to or by someone heading off to or in the process of eating lunch; literally, “meal time!”
mazeg (მაზეგ)
noun, adverb • Georgian
The day after the day after tomorrow. See zeg.
mellandagarna
noun • Swedish
The days between Christmas and New Year’s; literally, “between days” or “middle days”. See Romjul.
merak (мерак)
noun • Serbian
- Enjoyment of the simple things in life; the feeling of bliss and sense of oneness with the universe that comes from the simplest of pleasures.
- The ultimate, irrepressible desire of an individual.
nesh
adjective • British English
(mildly derogatory) Unusually susceptible to cold weather.
nubivagant
adjective • English (archaic)
Moving or wandering through or among the clouds.
orenda
noun • Huron
The extraordinary, supernatural power that exists to varying degrees within every natural being, capable of being exerted at the will of its possessor; it is what empowers people to change the world in the face of powerful forces such as fate.
overmorrow
noun, adverb • English (archaic)
The day after tomorrow. See zeg.
parsõ (परसों)
noun, adverb • Hindi
- The day before yesterday.
- The day after tomorrow.
See zeg.
Romjul
noun • Norwegian
The days between Christmas and New Year’s, used as a time for cozy relaxation with family and friends.
saudade
noun • Portuguese
A deep emotional state of melancholic longing or nostalgia for an absent person or thing, perhaps with the knowledge that this person or thing might never return; a sense of loneliness and incompleteness. See toska.
shōgakkō (小確幸)
noun • Japanese
A small but certain happiness, such as tearing off and eating bits of a freshly baked loaf of bread, or wearing a new, clean-smelling shirt.
sisu
noun • Finnish
Strength of will, determination, grit, resilience; previously unknown strength, perseverance, and courage in the face of adversity or perceived impossible odds, and the ability to sustain that courage.
smultronställe
noun • Swedish
An undiscovered gem of a place with personal or sentimental value; a location that you love to return to but that is hard for others to find; a place for relaxation, refuge, and solace; literally, “place of wild strawberries”.
sohwakhaeng (소확행)
noun • Korean
A small but certain happiness. See shōgakkō.
soodraght
noun • Manx
The sound of waves hitting the shore, possibly a sound that can only be heard on the Isle of Man.
taivaanrannanmaalari
noun • Finnish
A person who constantly dreams of impossible things; literally, “horizon painter”.
tarab (طَرَب)
noun • Arabic
A musically induced state of ecstasy or enchantment.
toska (тоска)
noun • Russian
“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
— Vladimir Nabokov
trochilidine
adjective • English
Of, like, or pertaining to hummingbirds.
trolsk
adjective • Swedish
Enchanting, elvish, magical, or bewitching, usually in reference to forests or nature.
tsundoku (積ん読)
noun • Japanese
The act of acquiring books and letting them pile up without reading them; collecting more books than one can read; “book hoarding”.
tuko pamoja
noun • Swahili
“We are (in this) together”; literally, “one place”; a shared sense of purpose and motivation in a group or community that transcends mere agreement and implies empathetic understanding among the members of the group.
übermorgen
noun, adverb • German
The day after tomorrow. See zeg.
veiller
verb • French
To stay up late; to watch over.
vemod
noun • Swedish
Tender sadness, pensive melancholy; the resigned nostalgia of knowing that something positive or significant in one’s life has been lost or is over, and will never be back.
Verschlimmbesserung
noun • German
An attempted improvement that ends up making things worse.
wabi-sabi (侘寂)
noun • Japanese
Finding beauty in things that are imperfect, incomplete, or impermanent.
zeg (ზეგ)
noun, adverb • Georgian
The day after tomorrow.
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