

1Wonderful Words!

## An Abecedarium for Fun, Intrigue, Knowledge, Serendipity, Spiritual Uplift, and Much More

### Dan Brook, PhD

Uncopyright 2019-2020 Dan Brook

Written, edited, and published by Dan Brook in San Francisco at Smashwords

### Cover Design by Levon Topalakian in Aleppo, Syria

### Digital Alphabet Illustrations by Monique Ching in Quezon City, The Philippines

### "There is no material with which human beings work which has so much potential energy as words."

  * ### Earnest Calkins

### Dedicated, as always, to my polyglot son, a dedicated logophile and bibliophile in multiple languages.

### Preface

### "Words are a window into a world."

  * ### Steven Pinker

Human beings are a storytelling species and the primary way we tell stories and convey culture is with words. Besides being the building blocks of thought, communication, and civilization, words can be fun, intriguing, informative, and so much more. They can teach us about language, linguistics, culture, history, emotions, people, places, concepts — and ourselves. When we have a word for something, we can better understand, think, feel, and express that something, thus revealing that reality to ourselves and others. Words are windows to the world, whether real or imagined, and there are an infinite number of windows.

### "I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."

  * ### Emily Dickinson

In this abecedarium, I am happy to include words from English and words from various other languages, old words and neologisms, standard and slang, regional and transnational, serious and whimsical, poetic and prosaic, quotidian and selcouth, real and otherwise. There are many wondereful words here for your browsing pleasure. With words, we are all always welcome here!

### "All words have power."

— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

### a bi gezunt (Yiddish)

### so long as you're healthy

### a priori

### knowledge or justification independent of experience (literally, from the earlier)

### aa

### lava having a rough surface; a form of lava flow associated with Hawaiian-type volcanoes, consisting of basaltic rock, usually dark-colored with a jagged and loose, clinkery surface (cf. pahoehoe)

### aay'han (Mandalorian)

### a bittersweet moment of mourning and joy

### abaft

### to the rear of; aft of

### abase

### to degrade, humiliate, cheapen and demean; debase

### abattoir

### slaughterhouse

### abbiocco (Italian)

### the drowsiness felt after eating a large meal

### abderian

### given to laughter, especially excessive or incessant laughter

### abecedarium

### a text that has all the letters of the alphabet in order; abecedary; an ABC book; an alphabet book

### abendrot (German)

### the red color of the western sky around the time of sunset

### abeyance

### temporary inactivity, cessation, or suspension

### abhisar (Bengali)

### a meeting, often secret, between lovers; tryst; literally, going towards

### abience

### a strong urge to avoid someone or something; withdrawal from, or avoidance of, an external stimulus

### abiogenesis (also biopoiesis)

### the natural process by which life arose from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds

### abject

### utterly hopeless, miserable, humiliating, or wretched; contemptible; despicable

### abjure

### to renounce under oath; to renounce or reject solemnly; to recant; to reject; repudiate; to abstain from; to shun

### ablate

### to remove by melting, vaporizing, erosion, etc.

### ablectick

### set out or adorned for sale

### ablutomania

### morbid preoccupation with thoughts about cleanliness

### abnegate

### to refuse or deny oneself (some rights, conveniences, etc.); reject; renounce; to relinquish; give up; to self-deny

### aboil

### boiling; in a state of excited activity

### abreaction

### the expression and emotional discharge of unconscious material (as a repressed idea or emotion) by verbalization

### abrogate

### to abolish by formal or official means; annul by an authoritative act; repeal; to put aside; put an end to; cancel, revoke; rescind; nullify; void; invalidate

### abseil

### rappel

### absquatulate

### to leave quickly; to leave without saying goodbye; flee; depart; die

### abstemious

### sparing or moderate in eating and drinking; temperate in diet; characterized by abstinence or moderation

### abstentious

### self-restraining, especially in eating or drinking

### abstruse

### hard to understand; recondite; arcane; esoteric; secret; hidden

### abulia

### abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions

### aby

### to pay the penalty of; to endure; continue; to undergo suffering

### abyssopelagic

### of or pertaining to the depths of the ocean

### acatalepsy

### an ancient Skeptic doctrine that human knowledge amounts only to probability and never to certainty; real or apparent impossibility of arriving at certain knowledge or full comprehension; incomprehensibility of things

### accede

### to give consent, approval, or adherence; agree; assent

### accidence

### the fundamentals of any subject; the branch of grammar dealing with inflections of words; a book of fundamentals of a subject

### accinge

### to apply oneself

### accismus

### feigning disinterest in something while actually desiring it

### accolade

### any award, honor, or laudatory notice; a light touch on the shoulder with the flat side of the sword or formerly by an embrace, done in the ceremony of conferring knighthood

### accountrement

### additional items of dress or equipment, or other items carried or worn by a person or used for a particular activity

### accrete

### to grow gradually by accumulation

### accretion

### an increase by natural growth or by gradual external addition; growth in size or extent; the result of this process; an added part; addition; the growing together of separate parts into a single whole; increase of property by gradual natural additions, as of land by alluvion

### acedia

apathy; boredom; sloth; spiritual or mental sloth; a state of listlessness or torpor; laziness or indifference in religious matters; not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world; accidie

### acerate

### needlelike

### acerbate

### to irritate or to aggravate

### acerbic

### harsh or severe, as of temper or expression

### acerote

### having the nature of brown bread

### acersecomic

### someone whose hair has never been cut

### acharya (Sanskrit)

### a guide or instructor in religious matters; the founder or leader of a sect; a highly learned person or a title affixed to the names of learned people; one who teaches by his or her own example

### achromic

### colorless; without coloring matter

### acicular

### needle-shaped or resembling a needle

### aciniform

### shaped like a cluster of grapes

### acnestis

### part(s) of the body where one cannot reach to scratch

### acolyte

### a priest's helper; an altar attendant in public worship; any attendant, assistant, or follower

### acrimonious

### angry and bitter

### acrophobia

### an abnormal fear of heights

### acrostic

### a series of lines or verses in which the first, last, or other particular letters when taken in order spell out a word, phrase, alphabet, etc.; a composition in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or message

### actor–observer bias

### the tendency for people to overemphasize the role of a situation in their own behaviors and underemphasize the role of their own personalities, yet do the reverse for others; actor–observer asymmetry (cf. ultimate attribution error)

### actuate

### to put into motion or action; to activate; to motivate

### acyrologia

### inexact, inappropriate or improper use of a word

### acyrological

### exhibiting improper speech

### ad hominem

### appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one's intellect or reason; attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument (literally, to the man)

### að jenna (Icelandic)

### the ability to persevere through hard or boring tasks

### ad litem

### a person appointed by a court to represent someone, such as a child, who is considered incapable of representing themselves in a lawsuit

### adact

### to drive by force

### adage

### a traditional saying expressing a common experience or observation; proverb

### adamantine

### utterly unyielding or firm in attitude or opinion; too hard to cut, break, or pierce; unbreakable; like a diamond in luster

### adda (Bengali)

### a discussion with a point, but not a pointless discussion, amongst intellectual friends, often going on for hours and accompanied by food and/or drink; the place where this happens; salon

### addecimate

### to take as a tithe

### additament

### something added; an addition

### addlepated

### confused; eccentric; flustered

### adduce

### to bring forward in argument or as evidence; cite as pertinent or conclusive

### adiaphorism

### tolerance or indifference, especially in the matters of religion

### adipose

### fatty; consisting of, resembling, or relating to fat

### adit

### an entrance or a passage; entry; a nearly-horizontal passage leading into a mine; an approach or access

### adjunct

### something added to another thing but not essential to it; a person associated with lesser status, rank, authority, etc., in some duty or service; assistant; a person working at an institution, as a college or university, without having full or permanent status; a modifying form, word, or phrase depending on some other form, word, or phrase, especially an element of clause structure with adverbial function; joined or associated, especially in an auxiliary or subordinate relationship; attached or belonging without full or permanent status

### adjure

### to command solemnly; to request earnestly

### adlubescence

### pleasure; delight

### admix

### to mix or blend

### admixt

### mixed

### adonize

### to make more attractive; to spruce up

### adoxography

### good writing on a bad, base, or trivial subject

### adret

### a side of a mountain receiving direct sunlight

### adscititious

### added or derived from an external source; additional

### aduantas (Irish)

### a strange feeling of fear, loneliness, or unease caused by unfamiliar people, things, or surroundings

### adumbrate

### to outline; to shade; to foreshadow; to disclose partially; to overshadow or obscure

### adventious (or adventitious)

### coming from outside: not inherent or native; happening by chance; appearing in an unusual or abnormal place

### adventive

### not native and usually not yet well established

### adz (adze)

### an ax-like tool with a curved blade at a right angle to the handle, used for shaping wood (cf. zax)

### aegis

### protection; support; guidance; sponsorship

### aeipathy

### a continued passion; an unyielding disease

### aeolian (or eolian)

### relating to or caused by the wind; scattered by the wind

### aeolist

### a pompous person pretending to have inspiration or spiritual insight

### aerious

### of or like air; airy

### aerumnous

### full of trouble

### aesopian

### conveying meaning by hint, euphemism, innuendo, or the like; pertaining to, or characteristic of Aesop or his fables

### aesthete

### someone who has or affects high sensitivity to beauty, especially in art

### aesthetics (or æsthetics and esthetics)

### a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty; the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste

### affable

### pleasantly easy to approach and to talk to; friendly; cordial; warmly polite; showing warmth and friendliness; benign; pleasant

### affective forecasting (also hedonic forecasting or the hedonic forecasting mechanism)

### the prediction of one's affect (emotional state) in the future, with a tendency to overestimate the role of both good and bad phenomena in terms of affecting our emotional state (impact bias); the process by which people look into their future and make predictions about what they'll like and what they won't like

### afferent

### bringing to or leading toward an organ or part, as a nerve or arteriole (opposed to efferent); a nerve carrying a message toward the central nervous system

### affinity space

### a place – virtual or physical – where informal learning takes place

### afflated

### having inspiration; inspired

### afflatus

### a sudden rush of divine artistic inspiration; a divine imparting of knowledge

### affranchise

### to make or set free

### afterglobe

### the warm, fuzzy feeling one gets after a long, immensely satisfying trip out of the country

### afterness

### the state or quality of being or coming after

### agape

### with the mouth wide open, as in wonder, surprise, or eagerness; wide open; love for humankind; unselfish love of one person for another; brotherly love; love feast; cf. chesed (Hebrew); metta (Sanskrit); jampa (Tibetan)

### agamalu (Samoan)

### to be kind and humble

### agathism

### the doctrine that all things tend towards ultimate good (as distinguished from optimism, which holds that all things are now for the best), although the means by which this comes about may be evil, unpleasant, unfortunate, etc.; seeing the world as essentially good, but a place in which bad things can and do happen to good people

### agathokakological

### composed of both good and evil

### age-otori (Japanese)

### to look worse after a haircut

### agee

### to one side; awry

### agelast

### someone who never laughs

### aggiornamento

### the act of bringing something up to date to meet current needs

### agglutinate

### to form words by combining words or word elements; to join or become joined as if by glue; to clump or cause to clump, as red blood cells; joined or tending to join; relating to a language that makes complex words by joining words or word elements extensively

### aggrate

### to please or gratify

### agita

### heartburn; indigestion; agitation; anxiety

### agitrons

### wiggly lines drawn around an object to indicate shaking

### aglet

### a metal tag or sheath at the end of a lace used for tying, as of a shoelace; an ornament at the end of a point or other ribbon used to secure a garment; aiguillette

### agnate

### a relative whose connection is traceable exclusively through males; any male relation on the father's side

### agnize

### to recognize; acknowledge; own

### agnomen

### a nickname; an additional, fourth name given to a person by the ancient Romans in allusion to some achievement or other circumstance

### agnosia

### loss of ability to recognize objects, people, sounds, etc., usually caused by brain injury

### agraffe

### a clasp consisting of a hook which fastens onto a ring; a hook, eyelet, or other device by which a piano wire is held so as to limit the vibration; the metal cage surrounding the cork of an unopened champaign bottle

### agraphia

### a cerebral disorder characterized by total or partial inability to write

### agroecology

### the principle and practice of working with nature in a farming system that protects fertility of soil and the surrounding environment, while managing weeds, pests, disease, fungi, etc. (cf. permaculture)

### ah-un (Japanese)

### unspoken communication between close friends

### ahimsa (Sanskrit)

### the principle of refraining from harming any living being; non-harming; non-violence; in its positive form, love and charity

### ahorita (Spanish)

### at this very moment

### aibohphobia

### an irrational fear of palindromes

### ailler (French)

### to garnish with garlic; to put garlic on something

### ailurophilia

### a liking for cats; cat fancier; a fondness or love for cats or other felines

### airpiknesch (German)

### the state of being epic; achieving epic proportions; epicness

### akashinga (northern Zimbabwe)

### the brave ones

### akbayan (Tagalog)

### the gesture of putting ones arm over another's shoulder; embracing in friendship from the side; symbolizing togetherness and friendship

### akimbo

### with hand on hip and elbow bent outward; bent outward with the joint away from the body; being in a bent, bowed, or arched position

### akkautua (Finnish)

### to grow older (only used when referring to a woman)

### alacrity

### a cheerful or eager readiness or willingness, often manifested by brisk, lively action or promptness in response

### albatross

### any of several large, web-footed sea birds of the family Diomedeidae that have the ability to remain aloft for long periods; a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility; something burdensome that impedes action or progress; a score of three strokes under par for a hole in golf

### albedo

### the fraction of light reflected from something

### albeit

### although; even if

### alchemy

### power to transform something common into something precious

### alembic

### anything that transforms, purifies, or refines; a vessel with a beaked cap or head, formerly used in distilling

### aletheia (Greek)

### unclosedness; unconcealedness; disclosure; truth

### alexia

### a neurologic disorder marked by loss of the ability to understand written or printed language, usually resulting from a brain lesion or a congenital defect; word blindness

### alexin

### complement

### alexiteric

### counteracting poisonous effects

### alexithymia

### difficulty in experiencing, expressing, and describing emotional responses; inability to describe emotions in a verbal manner

### alfresco

### outdoors; in the open air

### algedonic

### pertaining to both pleasure and pain; characterized by or relating to pain especially as associated with pleasure (anagram: genocidal)

### algorithm

### an unambiguous specification of how to solve a class of problems; an effective method that can be expressed within a finite amount of space and time and in a well-defined formal language for calculating a function; a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps

### aliferous

### having wings; winged

### aliquant

### contained in a number or quantity but not dividing equally into it

### allegiant

### loyal; faithful; a faithful follower; adherent

### allemansrätten (Swedish)

### freedom to roam

### Allen's rule

### endotherms from colder climates usually have shorter limbs (or appendages) than the equivalent animals from warmer climates

### alley-oop

### used as an exhortation or to signal the start of an activity, as when coordinating efforts to lift something heavy; a basketball move in which a player throws the ball to a teammate near the basket who leaps to catch it in mid-air and then puts it in the basket before returning to the floor

### allicient

### having the power to attract; appealing

### allision

### a moving object striking against a stationary object

### alliteration

### the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same sound (cf. assonance and consonance)

### allocentrism

### a collectivistic personality attribute whereby people center their attention and actions on other people rather than themselvesth

### allochthonous

### originating in a region other than where it is found

### allocution

### a formal speech, especially one which is regarded as authoritative and forceful; the question put to a convicted defendant by a judge after the rendering of the verdict in a trial, in which the defendant is asked whether he or she wishes to make a statement to the court before sentencing; the statement made by a defendant in response to such a question; the legal right of a defendant to make such a statement; the legal right of a victim, in some jurisdictions, to make a statement to a court prior to sentencing of a defendant convicted of a crime causing injury to that victim; the actual statement made to a court by a victim; a pronouncement by a pope to an assembly of church officials concerning a matter of church policy; the mode of information dissemination in which media broadcasts are transmitted to multiple receivers with no or very limited capability of a two-way exchange of information

### allokataplixis

### a heightened and delighted attention to the ordinary, which manifests in someone new to a place; the feeling of traveling to a place for the first time; amazement and fascination in a new place; awareness of the newness of a place

### allometry

### the relation between the size of an organism and the size of any of its parts

### allophilia

### love of the other

### alluvion

### a gradual increase of land on a shore or a river bank by the action of water, whether from natural or artificial causes; overflow; flood; the wash of the sea or of a river; matter deposited as sediment; the gradual formation of new land, as by the recession of the sea or deposit of sediment on a riverbed

### alma mater

### the college from which one has graduated

### almifluent

### beneficent; bounteous; generous; abounding in alms

### aloha (Hawaiian)

### affection, love, peace, compassion, and mercy, often used as a greeting (aroha in Maori)

### alpas (Tagalog)

### to become free, loose, or untied; to be able to break loose

### alphitomancy

### the use of barley meal or barley cakes as a means of divination, especially to determine guilt or innocence; crithomancy; corsned

### altiloquent

### high flown or pretentious (of language)

### amae (Japanese)

### behaving like a spoiled child; a return to the indulgences and unconditional nurturing of infancy

### amaeru (Japanese)

### to presume on the love or kindness of someone

### amanuensis

### a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another; secretary

### Amara's law

### people tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run

### amain

### with full force; at full speed; suddenly; hastily

### amanuensis

### a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another; secretary

### amaranthine

### unfading; everlasting; eternally beautiful; of or like the amaranth flower; of purplish-red color

### amative

### relating to or inclined toward love, especially sexual love; amorous

### amatorculist

### a pretend or insignificant lover

### amatory

### of or pertaining to lovers or lovemaking; expressive of love

### ambedo

### a melancholic trance involving absorption in vivid sensory details

### ambergris

### sperm whale vomit, often used in perfumery

### ambigram

### a word or phrase written in a manner that it reads the same (or sometimes, a different word or phrase) when oriented in a different way, for example, when reflected or rotated

### ambisinister

### clumsy or unskillful with both hands

### ambit

### circumference; circuit; boundary; limit; a sphere of operation or influence; range; scope

### ambivert

### one having characteristics of both extrovert and introvert

### ambsace

### the smallest amount or distance; the lowest throw at dice, the double ace (two ones); bad luck; misfortune

### amderma (Nenets)

### a colony or rookery of walruses; a herd; a huddle; an ugly

### ameliorate

### to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory; to improve

### amensalism

### an interaction where an organism inflicts harm to another organism, often unknowingly and unintentially, without any costs or benefits received by the actor

### amerce

### to ban or punish, often arbitrarily

### amfilade

### a series of French doors opening one to another

### amity

### friendship; peaceful harmony; mutual understanding and a peaceful relationship, especially between nations; peace; accord

### amorist

### someone who is in love; someone who writes about love

### amortize

### to liquidate or extinguish (a mortgage, debt, or other obligation), especially by periodic payments to the creditor or to a sinking fund; to write off a cost of an asset gradually

### amphigory

### a meaningless or nonsensical piece of writing, especially one intended as a parody

### ample

### fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or needs; plentiful; fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or needs; plentiful; enough

### amygdala

### an almond-shaped part of the brain involved in emotions of fear and aggression

### anabiosis

### a return to life after death, apparent death, or hibernation

### anacoluthon

### abrupt grammatical shift

### anagapesis

### the feeling of not loving someone or something once loved; falling out of love

### anagnorisis

### the critical moment of recognition or discovery; aha moment

### anagogic

### deriving from, pertaining to, or reflecting the moral or idealistic striving of the unconscious; allegorical or spiritual interpretation; a mystical interpretation of a word, passage or text especially scriptural exegesis that detects allusions to heaven or the afterlife

### analgesic

### a remedy that relieves or allays pain; reducing or eliminating pain; something that reduces or relieves pain; anodyne

### analphabet

### an illiterate person who does not know the letters of the alphabet

### analphabetic

### not alphabetic; representing sounds by composite signs rather than by single letters or symbols; illiterate, unable to read or write

### analysand

### a person undergoing psychoanalysis

### anamnesis

### the recollection or remembrance of the past; reminiscence; recollection of the (Platonic) Ideas, which the soul had known in a previous existence, especially by means of reasoning; the medical history of a patient; a prompt immune response to a previously encountered antigen

### ananda (Sanskrit)

### pure bliss; extreme happiness; one of the highest states of being

### anaphora (also epanaphora)

### the repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences; the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of phrases, sentences, or verses, used for emphasis; the use of a word as a regular grammatical substitute for a preceding word or group of words; an expression that can refer to virtually any referent, the specific referent being defined by context; An expression that refers to a preceding expression (cf. epistrophe, symploce, cataphora)

### anastrophe

### unusual word order, often involving an inversion of the usual pattern of the sentence

### anatta (Pali)

### the Buddhist doctrine of "non-self" or "no-soul"; the belief that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul, or essence in living beings; the belief that there is no self that exists separate from everything else, no core soul, but rather that we are constantly in flux, changing, and connected to everything; anātman (Sanskrit)

### anatine

### resembling a duck; of or pertaining to the family Anatidae, comprising the swans, geese, and ducks

### anathema

### anything or anyone detested or loathed; an imprecation; a curse; a malediction

### ancillary

### subordinate; subsidiary; auxiliary; assisting

### anecdoche

### a conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening

### anemious

### growing in windy conditions

### anemoia

### nostalgia for a time never known or experienced

### anchorite (also anchoret)

### one who lives in seclusion; a hermit

### angel

### messenger

### angenga (Old English)

### lone traveler

### angle of repose

### the steepest angle of descent or dip relative to the horizontal plane to which a material can be piled without slumping, implying that at this angle, the material on the slope face is on the verge of sliding

### angune

### pertaining to or resembling a snake

### anhedonia

### lack of pleasure or of the capacity to experience it; an inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable

### aniconic

### not employing or permitting images, idols, etc.; not forming an image

### animadversion

### an unfavorable or censorious comment; the act of criticizing

### animadversiveness

### the state or quality of being

### animadvert

### to comment unfavorably or critically

### animus

### strong dislike or enmity; hostile attitude; animosity; purpose; intention; animating spirit

### aninut (Hebrew)

### the period between death and the funeral

### anneal

### to toughen or temper; to fuse colors onto (a vitreous or metallic) surface by heating

### annotate

### to supply with critical or explanatory notes; comment upon in notes

### anode

### the electrode or terminal by which current enters an electrolytic cell, voltaic cell, battery, etc. (cf. cathode)

### anodyne

### soothing to the mind or feelings; anything that relieves pain, discomfort, or distress; bland or insipid: not likely to provoke or offend

### anoesis

### a state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without cognitive content

### anomia

### the inability to recall names of people or objects

### anomie

### social instability and alienation caused by the erosion of norms and values

### anopsology

### a raw food diet based on the sensory pleasure instinct

### anosmia

### a reduced ability to smell; the loss of the sense of smell, either total or partial

### ansate

### having a handle or handle-like part

### anserine

### of or relating to a goose or geese; stupid; silly; foolish

### antagonym (also autantonym)

### a word with opposing meanings; Janus word

### antalgic

### holding oneself away from pain; analgesic

### ante-jentacular

### done before breakfast

### anteloquy

### an actor's cue; a preface

### antepenultimate

### coming before the next to the last, or penultimate, in a series; third from the end

### anthesis

### the period or act of expansion in flowers, especially the maturing of the stamens

### anthimeria (antimeria)

### the use of a word as if it were a member of a different word class (part of speech); typically, the use of a noun as if it were a verb

### anthropic principle

### the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it

### Anthropocene

### a term used to describe the current geological period, starting from the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century when human activities began to impact global climate and ecosystems

### anthroposophy

### human wisdom; knowledge or understanding of human nature; a spiritual movement postulating the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development

### antidisestablishmentarianism

### opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church

### antifragile

### something that benefits from shocks; something that thrives and grows when exposed to volatility, randomness, uncertainty, opacity, adventure, disorder and stressors; resilient; growth mindset (antonym: fragile) (cf. wabi-sabi)

### antinomy

### contradiction between two authorities

### antiphlogistic

### the capacity to prevent or relieve inflammation; an agent that reduces inflammation; allaying excitement

### antipode

### a direct or exact opposite

### antipodes

### places diametrically opposite each other on the globe

### antistalking

### knowing a person's movements to avoid them

### antitussive

### suppressing or relieving coughing; something that suppresses or relieves coughing

### antojo (Spanish)

### a sudden craving

### antonomasia

### the generalization of a proper noun; the use of an epithet or title for a proper name; the use of the name of a person known for a particular quality to describe others

### anzi (Italian)

### on the contrary; au contraire; rather, better yet

### aoristic

### indefinite; indeterminate; a tense of a verb indicating past action without reference to whether the action involved was momentary or continuous

### apanthropinization

### the broadening of the ambit of one's preoccupations and concerns away from a narrow focus on those things most palpably human and most closely pertinent to humanity; a resignation of human concerns; withdrawal from the world and its problems

### aparjgraha (Sanskrit)

### accepting only what is appropriate

### apatetic

### assuming colors and forms that effect deceptive camouflage

### apatheism

### a position of apathy toward the existence of God or gods

### apenrots (Dutch)

### a hierarchy-dominated subculture that seems silly to outsiders; literally, a monkey rock

### aperient

### having a laxative effect; stimulating evacuation of the bowels; something that relieves constipation

### aperçu (French)

### a glimpse; hasty glance; insight; hint; rough estimate; sketch; outline; summary; preview

### apericena (Italian)

### a pre-dinner drink that comes with free food

### aphantasia

### an inability to mentally visualize things

### aphasia

### lack or impairment of language ability

### aphotic

### lightless; dark

### aplomb

### assurance of manner or of action; self-possession; confidence; coolness

### apocryphal

### of doubtful authorship or authenticity

### apocopate

### to omit the final sound or sounds of a word; to cut off

### apodictic

### necessarily true or logically certain; incontestable because of having been demonstrated or proved to be demonstrable

### apodyopsis

### the act of mentally undressing someone; the erotic fantasizing of someone undressing; to imagine a person nude

### apologia

### a written defense of a position or belief

### apopemptic

### pertaining to leave-taking or departing; valedictory; farewell address

### apophasis

### allusion to something by denying it will be said; mentioning without saying; reference by implication; paralipsis

### apophatic

### pertaining to knowledge of god obtained through negation rather than positive assertions (cataphatic)

### apothegm (or apophthegm)

a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism; an anecdote, usually concerning historical persons and often set in antiquity, that may or may not have an aphorism as its punchline (cf. opossum with a lisp)

### apoplectic

### extremely angry; relating to or affected by apoplexy (stroke); intense enough to threaten or cause a stroke; having a sudden, usually marked loss of bodily function due to rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel; a hemorrhage into an organ cavity or tissue

### apoplexy

### sudden loss of consciousness, often followed by paralysis, caused by rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel in the brain

### apoptosis

### the process of programmed cell death

### aporia

### patently insincere statements; the expression of a simulated or real doubt, as about where to begin or what to do or say; a difficulty encountered in establishing the theoretical truth of a proposition, created by the presence of evidence both for and against it

### aposiopesis

### breaking off in the middle of ... a story

### apostasy

### an abandoning or renunciation of a belief, whether it is religion, faith, philosophy, a cause, or principles

### apostrophe

### a punctionation mark to mark possession in some circumstances or the omission of letters; a sudden exclamatory piece of dialogue addressed to someone or something, especially absent

### apothegm

### a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism

### apotheosis

### elevation to a preeminent or transcendent position; the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god; glorification; the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax; deification; model of excellence or perfection of a kind; ideal example; epitome; quintessence

### apotropaic

### intended to ward off evil

### appertain

### to belong as a part, right, possession or attribute

### apposite

appropriate; relevant; apt in the circumstances or in relation to something

### approbate

### to approve officially

### appropinquate

### to approach; to come near to

### apricate

### to bask in the sun; to expose to the sun

### apricity

### warmth of the sun, especially on a cold or winter day; basking in the sun; sun bathing (cf. lézarder)

### aquafaba

### the water that beans are cooked in; the water from a can of beans; bean water, especially garbanzo water

### arable

### capable of producing crops; suitable for farming; suited to the plow and for tillage; land that can be or is cultivated

### arbejdsglæde (Danish)

### satisfaction or pleasure derived from work

### arbitrage

### the nearly simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency, or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset; the purchase and sale of an asset to profit from a difference in the asset's price between markets

### arboresce

### to become a tree or like a tree

### arcadian

### idyllically pastoral; simple, peaceful, and rustic; one leading a simple rural life

### archaism

### something archaic, as a word or expression; the use of what is archaic, as in literature or art; the survival or presence of something from the past

### ardent

### warm or intense in feeling; passionate; zealous, radiant, or burning

### archetype

### the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype; a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches in Jungian psychology

### ardor

### great warmth of feeling; fervor; passion; intense devotion, eagerness, or enthusiasm; zeal

### areca

### betel palm

### arenaceous

### coming from or relating to sand

### arenicolous

### living, growing, or burrowing in sand

### aretaloger

### one who brags of his own virtue

### areté (Greek)

### excellence

### argentanginy

### being bribed to hold one's tongue

### argosy

### a large ship, or a fleet of ships, especially one carrying valuable cargo; a rich source or supply

### argy-bargy

### a vigorous discussion or dispute; a lively disagreement or debate; a disputatious discussion; argle-bargle

### arhat (Sanskrit) (arahant in Pali)

### one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved nirvana; one who is far advanced along the path of Enlightenment, but who may not have reached full Buddhahood; someone who has attained the goal of the religious life; the pinnacle of spiritual achievement; one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved nirvana

### aria

### an air or melody; an elaborate melody sung solo with accompaniment, as in an opera or oratorio

### árkon-bokron (Hungarian)

### over hedge and ditch; frantically, wildly, through everything and anything, not caring about dangers and obstacles; far away to a great distance, passing through all obstacles; fleeing

### armamentarium

### a fruitful source of devices or materials available or used for an undertaking; the aggregate of equipment, methods, and techniques available to one for carrying out one's duties

### armature

### armor; the protective covering of an animal or plant, or any part serving for defense or offense; the part of an electric machine that includes the main current-carrying winding and in which the electromotive force is induced; the pivoted part of an electric device, as a buzzer or relay, that is activated by a magnetic field; the iron or steel applied across the poles of a permanent magnet to close it, or across the poles of an electromagnet to transmit a mechanical force; a skeletal framework built as a support on which a clay, wax, or plaster figure is constructed

### armillary

### related to rings or circles

### armscye (also armseye)

### an opening in a garment for attaching a sleeve; an armhole

### arrant

### downright; thorough; unmitigated; notorious; wandering; errant

### arriviste

### a person who has recently acquired unaccustomed status, wealth, or success, especially by dubious means and without earning concomitant esteem

### arrogate

### to claim as a right for oneself presumptuously; to claim on behalf of another; to attribute or assign; to ascribe

### arroyo

### a small, narrow, steep-sided watercourse, usually dry except after rain

### arruginated

### rusty

### arsle

### to loaf around restlessly; to fidget; to back out of a place or situation

### arsy-varsy

### wrong end foremost; completely backward; in a backward or thoroughly mixed-up fashion

### arterious

### of or relating to the arteries or a main road or channel

### artesian

### pertaining to a well that has water rising to the surface under natural pressure, without the need of a pump; something that rises on its own power and accord

### artifice

### a clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile; trickery; guile; craftiness; cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness; a skillful or artful contrivance or expedient

### artolatry

### the worship of breads

### asana (Sanskrit)

### any of the postures in a yoga exercise

### asasamu (Japanese)

### morning chill or morning cold

### ascesis

### the practice of severe self-discipline or self-control; askesis

### asemic

### having no specific semantic content; without the smallest unit of meaning

### ashlar

### a large square stone

### asimbonanga (Zulu)

### we have not seen him

### Asimov's axiom

### a statement that equates two errors is wronger than wrong when one of the errors is clearly more wrong than the other

### askance

### with suspicion, mistrust, or disapproval; with a side glance; sidewise; obliquely

### askew

### to one side; out of line; in a crooked position; with disapproval, scorn, contempt, etc.; disdainfully; crooked; awry

### asolare (Italian)

### to pass time in a meaningless but delightful way

### asp

### any of several venomous snakes

### asperity

### harshness or roughness

### asperse

### to sprinkle; bespatter; to attack with false, malicious, and damaging charges or insinuations; slander

### aspersion

### a damaging or derogatory remark or criticism; slander; vilification; defamation; calumniation; derogation

### assay

### to examine or analyze; to judge the quality of; assess; evaluate; to try or test; put to trial; a substance undergoing analysis or trial

### assent

### to agree or concur; subscribe: to give in; yield; concede

### asseverate

### to declare or affirm earnestly or solemnly; affirm positively; aver

### assiduous

### constant, especially in application or effort; persistent; industrious; unremitting; sedulous

### assonance

### the use of words with same or similar vowel sounds but with different end consonants (cf, alliteration)

### assuage

### to soften; to ease, or lessen

### -aster

### a diminutive or pejorative suffix denoting something that imperfectly resembles or mimics the true thing

### asterism

### a group of stars; a constellation; a property of some crystallized minerals of showing a star-like luminous figure in transmitted light or, in a cabochon-cut stone, by reflected light; three asterisks printed to draw attention to a passage it precedes

### astony

### to stun, paralyse, or astound

### astral

### being, related to, resembling, or emanating from stars; stellar

### astronomical unit

### a unit of length that is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers

### asyndeton

### the omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence (cf. polysyndeton)

### ataoso (Central American Spanish)

### one who sees problems with everything

### ataraxia

### a state of freedom from disturbance of mind; the state of blissful and serene calmness; a lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry; absolute calm and tranquility; peace of mind; calmness; calmness of mind and emotion; equanimity; lojong

### atari (Finnish)

### a professional and habitual criminal

### atavism

### the reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some remote ancestor that have been absent in intervening generations; reversion to an earlier type; throwback; reversion

### ataxy

### disturbance of bodily functions

### atelic

### presenting an action or event as being incomplete

### atelophobia

### the fear of not doing something right; the fear of not being good enough; a fear of imperfection

### atemporal

### free from limitations of time; not bound by the constraints of time

### athazagoraphobia

### the fear of being forgotten or ignored; the fear of being replaced; the fear of forgetting

### atheophobia

### fear, distrust, and/or hatred of atheists or atheism

### athwart

### from side to side of; across; against

### atolondrado (Spanish)

### to be so overwhelmed by something that one gets scatter-brained and does something careless

### atonic

### unaccented

### attaccabottoni (Italian)

### someone who keeps you a little too close for a little too long; a person who talks to you at length without letting you get away; button holing

### attenuate

### reduce the force, effect, or value of; reduced in force, effect, or physical thickness

### atticism

### concise and elegant expression, diction, or the like; a well-turned phrase; a concise manner of speech or expression; the style or idiom of Attic Greek occurring in another dialect or language; attachment to Athens or to the style, customs, etc., of the Athenians

### attraversiamo (Italian)

### let's cross over

### attunement

### the equanimitous state of being in sync, at one, or resonant with oneself, another, or the universe

### au contraire

### on the contrary; on the opposite or adverse side

### au courant

### up-to-date; fully aware or familiar; cognizant

### aubade

### a musical piece sung or played outdoors at dawn, usually as a compliment to someone or something; a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning; a morning song, poem, or music

### augean

### extremely difficult, unpleasant, or filthy

### augur

### to divine or predict, as from omens; prognosticate; to serve as an omen or promise of; foreshadow; betoken

### august

### inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur; majestic; venerable; eminent

### auld lang syne

### old times, especially times fondly remembered; old or long friendship

### auriferous

### yielding or containing gold; golden

### aureation

### the 'heightening' of diction in one language by using terms borrowed from another language held in higher regard

### aureole

### a radiance surrounding the head or the whole figure in the representation of a sacred personage; any encircling ring of light or color; halo; corona; a zone of altered country rock around an igneous intrusion

### auroral

### of or like the dawn; pertaining to the aurora borealis or aurora australis

### aurorean

### of or belonging to the dawn

### auscultation

### the act of listening to sounds within the body as a method of diagnosis

### auspicate

### to initiate with ceremonies calculated to ensure good luck; inaugurate

### auspicious

### propitious; presenting favorable conditions

### austral

### southern

### autodidact

### one who is self-taught; a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education

### autochthon

### a native; aborigine; something, as a rock, formed or originating in the place where found

### autochthonous

### aboriginal; indigenous; formed or originating in the place where found

### autologous

### involving a situation in which the donor and the recipient (of blood, skin, bone, etc.) are the same person

### autolycan

### characterized by thievery or trickery

### auwe (Hawaiian)

### an exclamation of wonder, of surprise, of fear, of pity or affection, as oh!

### auxochrome

### a group of atoms attached to a chromophore which modifies the ability of that chromophore to absorb light and show color

### ava (Samoan)

### to be respectful or having respect

### availability cascade

### a self-sustaining chain of events that may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic

### avant-garde

### the advance group in any field, especially in the visual, literary, or musical arts, whose works are characterized chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods; of or pertaining to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material; belonging to the avant-garde; unorthodox; daring; radical

### avarice

### insatiable greed for riches; inordinate, miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth; cupidity

### avast

### used as a command to stop or cease

### avenaceous

### relating to or like oats; oaty

### aver

### to affirm with confidence; to declare in a positive manner; to assert as true; to assert, claim, or declare as a fact

### avidity

### eagerness; greediness; enthusiasm or dedication

### avodah (Hebrew)

### sacred work that helps others; service for society

### avulse

### to pull off or tear away

### avuncular

### of, relating to, or characteristic of an uncle

### awaré (Japanese)

### the bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty; an intense emotion felt in response to beauty

### awe

### an overwhelming feeling of wonder, reverence, or admiration

### awunbuk (Baining)

### the feeling of emptiness after visitors leave

### axenic

### free from contamination

### axiology

### the philosophical study of value; meta-ethics

### axon (or axone)

### the appendage of the neuron that transmits impulses away from the cell body

### ayenbite (or agenbite)

### remorse

### ayurnamat (Inuit)

### the philosophy that there is no reason to worry about the things that cannot be changed

### azimuth

### an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system; the arc of the horizon

### azote

### an obsolete name for nitrogen

### azoth

the universal remedy of Paracelsus, a Swiss German Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist, who founded the field of toxicology, named zinc, and the first to note that some diseases are rooted in psychological illness; mercury, regarded by alchemists as the assumed first principle of all metals

### "Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction."

  * ### Toni Morrison

### ba (Egyptian)

### an aspect of the soul, represented as a human-headed bird

### Baader-Meinhof

### officially known as the Red Army Faction, a German communist urban guerrilla group active from 1970-1998; the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information – often an unfamiliar word or name – and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again; diegogarcity; synchronicity

### badinage

### light, playful talk

### badhan (Hebrew)

### someone with a spiritual vocation to cheer up sad people through comedy

### bafflegab

### confusing or generally unintelligible jargon; gobbledegook

### baffona (Italian)

### a woman with a moustache

### bahuvrihi

### a type of nominal compound in which the first part modifies the second and neither part alone conveys the intended meaning; literally, possessing much rice (Sanskrit)

### bailiwick

### a person's area of interest or expertise; wheelhouse

### baksheesh

### a payment, such as a tip or bribe

### baku (Japanese)

### an imaginary animal fond of eating dreams

### balaclava

### a warm cap shielding the neck and head; a ski mask with holes for the eyes and, sometimes, the nose and mouth, which may be rolled up and worn like a toque or pulled over the face for greater protection

### baldric

### a belt, sometimes richly ornamented, worn diagonally from shoulder to hip, supporting a sword, horn, etc.

### baleful

### full of menacing or malign influences; pernicious

### bålkos (Norwegian)

### the nice feeling one has while gathered around a fire, cooking food, drinking with friends and family, and talking and perhaps listening to music

### ballistics

### the science or study of the motion of projectiles, as bullets, shells, or bombs; the art or science of designing projectiles for maximum flight performance

### ballon

### the lightness and grace of movement that make a dancer appear buoyant

### balter

### to dance or tread clumsily; to dance without particular skill or grace, but with extreme joy

### baluster

### any of a number of closely spaced supports for a railing; any of various symmetrical supports, as furniture legs or spindles, tending to swell toward the bottom or top; balusters; a balustrade

### banal

### devoid of freshness, force, or originality; hackneyed; trite; commonplace

### banality of evil

### how cruelty, when repeated, becomes so mundane that we no longer balk or sometimes even notice; evil as unexceptional and accepted

### banausic

### serving utilitarian purposes only; mechanical; practical

### bandh (Nepali)

### a general strike that shuts down markets, schools, factories, and offices

### bap

### a soft, flattish bread roll

### baqa (Arabic)

### endurance of difficulties to obtain another chance

### baraka (Arabic)

### spiritual energy; sanctifying power

### baray

### an artificial body of water which is a common element of the architectural style of the Khmer Empire

### barm

### the froth on the beer

### barmecidal

### giving only an illusion of something; illusory; unreal

### barmecide (Persian eponym)

### an insincere benefactor

### barrack

### to shout in support; to cheer; to shout against; to jeer; a building used to house soldiers; to provide with accommodation

### barycenter

### the center of mass of two or more bodies that are orbiting each other; the point around which they both orbit (cf. centroid)

### basilisk

### one of a race of monsters having the head, trunk, and arms of a man, and the body and legs of a horse; a dog, usually represented as having three heads, that guarded the entrance of the infernal regions; a mythological, fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail; a creature, variously described as a serpent, lizard, or dragon, said to kill by its breath or look; a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king who can cause death with a single glance

### basorexia

### a strong urge to kiss someone; a strong craving or hunger for kissing; an overwhelming desire to kiss

### baste

### to sew with long, loose stitches, as in temporarily tacking together pieces of a garment while it is being made; to moisten food while cooking, with drippings, butter, etc.; liquid used to moisten and flavor food during cooking; to beat with a stick; thrash; cudgel; to denounce or scold vigorously

### bathetic

### characterized by bathos

### bathos

### a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax; insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness; triteness or triviality in style

### bathykolpian (or bathycolpian)

### deep-bosomed; big-breasted; mammose

### batten

### to fatten or to grow fat; to thrive and prosper at another's expense

### battology

### the continual and wearisome repetition of the same words or phrases, the very same words or phrases, those words and phrases

### bavardage

### foolish or empty chatter

### bayanihan (Tagalog)

being part of a community; a group of people working together to hold up a house; a traditional system of mutual assistance in which the members of a community work together to accomplish a difficult task; a spirit of civic unity and cooperation

### bayml (Yiddish)

### little tree; an affectionate term for a tree

### bazodee (Creole)

### euphoric confusion; dizzy or dazed happiness

### beamish

### bright, cheerful, and optimistic

### beatitude

### supreme blessedness; exalted happiness

### beaucoup

### many; much; a lot

### Bechdel test

### whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man

### bedash

### to dash or spatter something all over; to dash or strike against; to demolish or ruin; obliterate:

### bedaub

### to smudge over; to besmear or soil with anything thick and dirty; to overdecorate; to ornament showily or excessively

### bedizen

### to dress or adorn in a showy, gaudy, or tasteless manner

### bee

### a community social gathering to perform some task, engage in a contest, etc.

### befrielseskrig (Swedish)

### war of liberation

### beggar thy neighbor

### a policy that seeks benefits for one country at the expense of others

### beguile

### to charm or enchant, sometimes in a deceptive way

### behoove

### to be necessary, worthwhile, or appropriate

### bēi xî jiāo jí (Mandarin)

### intermingled feelings of sadness and joy

### belabor

### to explain, worry about, or work more than is necessary; to assail persistently, as with scorn or ridicule; to beat vigorously; ply with heavy blows

### belay

### to fasten (a rope) by winding around a pin or short rod inserted in a holder so that both ends of the rod are clear; to secure (a person) by attaching to one end of a rope; to secure (a rope) by attaching to a person or to an object offering stable support; to cease (an action); stop; to ignore (an announcement, order, etc.)

### bel-esprit (French, plural beauxesprits)

### a finer spirit; an intellectually gifted person; a person of great wit or intellect

### belief persistence

### the use of reasoning to defend preexisting beliefs, especially when one has previously defended those beliefs

### bellibone

### a woman excelling in both beauty and goodness

### bellicose

### inclined or eager to fight; aggressively hostile; belligerent; pugnacious; warlike

### bemuse

### to bewilder or confuse

### ben

### the inner or back room of a two-room cottage, especially when used as a combined parlor and bedroom; within; inside; the seed of a tropical tree, Moringa pterygosperma, that yields an oil (ben oil) used in manufacturing cosmetics and lubricating delicate machinery; a mountain peak; high hill; son of (Hebrew and Arabic)

### beneficence

### the doing of good; active goodness or kindness; doing no harm; maximizing possible benefits while minimizing possible harms

### Benford's law

### in any collection of statistics, a given statistic has roughly a 30% chance of starting with the digit 1

### benignant

### favorable; beneficial; kind and gracious; benign

### Benjamin Franklin effect

### people are more apt to like someone they do favors for

### benthic

### of or relating to the bottom of a sea or lake

### berdreymin (Icelandic)

### someone who sees the future in dreams

### beribboned

### decorated with many ribbons

### beslobber

### to smear with spittle or anything running from the mouth

### besot

### to infatuate; obsess; to intoxicate or stupefy with drink; to make stupid or foolish

### bespeak

### to ask for in advance; to reserve beforehand; engage in advance; make arrangements for; to speak to or address; to show; indicate

### besa (Albanian)

### an inviolable promise; a word of honour; to keep an oath

### besamim (Hebrew)

### Havdalah spices; spices or other aromatic plants or fruits used during the Havdalah ceremony marking the close of Shabbat and holidays

### bespoke

### custom-made; dealing in or producing custom-made articles

### best practices

### a form of program creation or evaluation in public policy, determined by reviewing policy analogues or alternatives that have been effective in addressing the same or similar issues in the past and could be applied to a current or future problem

### betabel (Spanish)

### beet

### bête noire

### a person or thing that one particularly dislikes

### betide

### to happen; befall

### betimes

### sometimes; on occasion; in good time; early; quickly; soon

### bêtise

### lack of understanding, perception, or the like; stupidity; a stupid or foolish act or remark; something inconsequential or without merit; absurdity; trifle

### betoken

### to give evidence of; indicate; augur

### beveled

### oblique; sloping; slanted

### bewhiskered

### ancient, as a witticism, expression, etc.; passé; hoary; having whiskers; bearded

### b'haalotechah (Hebrew)

### when you raise yourself up

### biblioclasm

### the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media

### bibiolater

### one with extreme devotion to books; one having excessive devotion to the Bible, especially to its literal interpretation

### bibliomancy

### deriving meaning, ascertaining wisdom, or making decisions based upon random selection of words or (sections of) books

### bibliomania

### an excessive fondness for books

### bibliophage

### one who loves to read books; a bookworm

### bibliophile

### a lover of books

### bibliotaph (or bibliotaphe)

### a person who caches or hoards books

### bibliotherapy

### reading specific texts in response to particular situations or conditions as a method of healing or rejuvenation

### bice (formerly bize)

either of two colors, bice blue (a medium or deep sky-blue color, duller than aquamarine or azure) or bice green (a yellowish-green color; malachite)

### bidentate

### having two teeth or tooth-like parts; (being on the attack in the style of Joe Biden)

### bier

### a movable frame on which a coffin or a corpse is placed before burial or cremation or on which it is carried to the grave

### biff

### to hit; punch; a blow; punch

### Big Data

### a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications

### bikurim (Hebrew)

### an offering of the first fruits

### bildungsroman

### a genre of writing which tells about the growing up or coming of age of a sensitive (typically young) person who is looking for answers and experience; a coming-of-age tale

### bile

### a bitter, alkaline, yellow or greenish liquid, secreted by the liver, that aids in absorption and digestion, especially of fats; ill temper; peevishness; either of two humors in old physiology associated with anger and gloominess

### bilge

### either of the rounded areas that form the transition between the bottom and the sides on the exterior of a hull; the widest circumference or belly of a cask; to bulge or swell out

### billet-doux (French)

### a love letter

### bilious

### pertaining to bile or to an excess secretion of bile; suffering from, caused by, or attended by trouble with the bile or liver; peevish; irritable; cranky; extremely unpleasant or distasteful

### billet

### to provide or obtain lodging; to direct (a soldier) by ticket, note, or verbal order, where to lodge; lodging for a soldier, student, etc., as in a private home or nonmilitary public building; a small chunk of wood; a short section of a log, especially one cut for fuel

### billow

### to rise or roll in or like a great wave; surge; to swell out, puff up, etc., as by the action of wind; to make rise, surge, swell; a great wave or surge of the sea; any surging mass

### binate

### double; growing in pairs or couples

### binaural

### having two ears; of, with, or for both ears; recorded through two separate microphones and transmitted through two separate channels to produce a stereophonic effect

### bine

### a twining plant stem, as of the hop; any bindweed; woodbine; the climbing or twining stem of any of various plants

### binnacle

### a container for housing instruments on a ship's deck, in a car dashboard, etc.

### binnenpretje (Dutch)

### a private joke; amusement that is secret, or enjoyed by you alone; literally, inside fun

### biocoenosis (also biocoenose and biocenose)

### the interacting organisms living together in a habitat or biotope; biotic community; biological community; ecological community

### bionic

### utilizing electronic devices and mechanical parts to assist humans in performing difficult, dangerous, or intricate tasks, as by supplementing or duplicating parts of the body; having superhuman strength or capacity; of or pertaining to bionics

### bionics

### the study of how humans and animals perform certain tasks and solve certain problems, and of the application of the findings to the design of electronic devices and mechanical parts; the study of certain biological functions, especially those relating to the brain, that are applicable to the development of electronic equipment, such as computer hardware, designed to operate in a similar manner; the technique of replacing a limb or body part by an artificial limb or part that is electronically or mechanically powered

### biophilia

### love of life

### biopic

### a biographical movie or TV show

### biosphere

### the global sum of all ecosystems

### biota

### the animals, plants, fungi, etc., of a region or period

### biotic

### pertaining to or consisting of life or living organisms

### birl

### to rotate a floating log by running on it in place; to spin or rotate

### birr

### a whirring sound; emphasis in statement, speech, etc.

### bissextus (or bissext)

### the day that is added to the Gregorian calendar every fourth year (except those evenly divisible by 100, unless they are divisible by 400) to compensate for the six-hour difference in length between the common 365-day year and the actual length of the solar year; intercalary day; leap day; February 29

### bivouac

### a military encampment made with tents or improvised shelters, usually without protection from enemy fire; the place used for such an encampment; an encampment for the night or a temporary period

### bizarrerie

### the quality of being bizarre; a bizarre act

### Black Fraude (Portuguese)

### fraudulent deals on Black Friday

### black swan

### the uncertainty and risk posed by unpredictable events (cf. grey swan)

### Black Swan problem

### the impossibility of measuring the risks of rare events and predicting their occurrence

### blag

### to obtain something by guile; to cheat, rob, snatch, steal, scam, or beg; a robbery, con, or theft

### blandiloquence

### complimentary speech; flattery

### blandish

### to coax with flattery

### blandishment(s)

### something, as an action or speech, that tends to flatter, coax, entice, etc.

### blate

### to babble or to cry; timid

### blather

### foolish, voluble talk

### blatherskite

### a person given to voluble, empty talk; a person who speaks at great length without making much sense; nonsense; blather

### bleb

### a small blister or swelling; a bubble

### bletting

### the ripening of fruit, especially of fruit stored until the desired degree of softness is attained

### blithe

### joyous; cheerful

### blitzpost (Yiddish)

### email

### blockchain

### a distributed database that allows direct peer-to-peer transactions without a central authority

### bloviate

### to speak pompously

### bludge

### to shirk responsibility; to obtain something through the generosity of others; to scrounge; an easy task

### Blue Zone

### a region of the world where people live significantly longer and healthier

### bodhisattva

### an awakened or enlightened being who seeks to help awaken or enlighten others

### boffin (British)

### a scientist or technical expert

### Bohemian

### someone from the former Kingdom of Bohemia, now known as the Czech Republic; a socially unconventional person, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, especially one who is involved in the arts; leading a wandering life

### bokeh

### the blurred effect in a photograph, typically as a soft out-of-focus background, that results in a pleasing effect and helps to draw attention to the subject of the photograph

### boketto (Japanese)

### the act of staring vacantly without doing anything; gazing into nothingness; cf. daydreaming

### bole

### the stem or trunk of a tree; any of a variety of soft, unctuous clays of various colors, used as pigments; a medium red-brown color made from such clay; bolus

### bolus

### a round mass of medicinal material, larger than an ordinary pill; a soft, roundish mass or lump, especially of chewed food; bole

### bombinate

### to make a humming or buzzing noise; to drone

### bon vivant

### one who enjoys good things in life, especially good food and drink; bon viveur

### bona fide(s)

### good faith; the state of being exactly as claims or appearances indicate; the official papers, documents, or other items that prove authenticity, legitimacy, etc., as of a person or enterprise; credentials

### Bonfire of the Vanities

### a burning of objects condemned by authorities as occasions of sin

### Bonini's Paradox

### as a model of a complex system becomes more complete, it becomes less understandable; alternatively, as a model grows more realistic, it also becomes just as difficult to understand as the real-world processes it represents

### bonny

### pleasing to the eye

### boodle

### an illegal payment, as in graft; a crowd of people; to take money dishonestly, especially from graft

### book hangover

### the inability to start a new book because one is still living in the old book's world; the inability to function at work or school because one was up all night binge-reading; when one finishes a book and then suddenly returns to the real world, but the real world feels incomplete, less exciting, or surreal because one is still living in the world of the book; the headache one gets after staying up late into the night staring at the small print of a good book

### bookkeeper (word with three consecutive doubled letters)

### one who records financial transactions

### boon

### something to be thankful for; blessing; benefit; something that is asked; a favor sought; jolly; jovial; convivial; the ligneous waste product obtained by braking and scutching flax

### boondoggle

### work of little or no value done merely to keep or look busy; to deceive or attempt to deceive: to boondoggle investors into a low-interest scheme; to do work of little or no practical value merely to keep or look busy; a product of simple manual skill, as a plaited leather cord for the neck or a knife sheath, made typically by a camper or a scout

### borborygmus

### a rumbling sound made by the movement of gas in the intestines heard from a distance

### bordereau

### a detailed memorandum, especially one in which documents are listed

### Borgesian conundrum

### the ontological question of whether the writer writes the story or the story writes the author

### bosh

### absurd or foolish talk; nonsense

### bosk

### a small wood or thicket, especially of bushes; a small wooded area

### botryoidal

### having the form of a bunch of grapes

### boulevardier

### a socially active person who likes to visit fashionable places

### bouquinist (or bouqiniste)

### a dealer in old and used books

### bourn

### destination or goal; boundary or limit; small stream or brook

### bowdlerize

### to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable

### bower

### a leafy shelter or recess; arbor; a rustic dwelling; cottage; a lady's boudoir in a medieval castle; to enclose in; an anchor carried at a ship's bow

### boychik

### a Jewish term of endearment for a young boy, a young man, or any special male with whom you are familiar; yingele

### brachyology

### a condensed expression that results from omitting implied words

### bracken

### a large fern or brake; a cluster or thicket of such ferns; an area overgrown with ferns and shrubs

### braggadocio

### a person who excessively boasts; a braggart; empty and/or pretentious boasting; fanfaron; rodomont

### braird

### to sprout; appear above the ground; the first sprouts or shoots of grass, corn, or other crops; new growth

### Brannock device

### a hand tool of a particular kind, used to measure a foot's length and width

### bravura

### a display of spirit or daring

### braza

### a breaststroke; a fathom; about 1.67 meters; twice a vara

### breaking the fourth wall

### when a character in a performance acknowledges the audience's existence

### breve

### a mark (˘) over a vowel to show that it is short, or to indicate a specific pronunciation; an initial writ; a writ, as one issued by a court of law; the longest modern note, equivalent to two semibreves or whole notes; a mark (˘) over a syllable to show that it is not stressed

### breviloquence

### a brief and pertinent mode of speaking; speaking briefly and concisely

### bricolage

### something created using a mix of whatever happens to be available; something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things (cf. jury rig, kludge, MacGyver)

### Briffault's Law

### the female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family; where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place

### briffits

### clouds of dust that hang in the spot where a swiftly departing character or object was previously standing

### brigadoon

### an idyllic place that is out of touch with reality or one that makes its appearance for only a brief period in a long time; a temporary autonomous zone

### brindled

### gray or tawny with darker streaks or spots

### brio

### vigor; vivacity

### brisance

### the shattering effect of a high explosive

### Brobdingnagian

### something of colossal size (cf. antonym: Lilliputian)

### bromide

### a platitude or trite saying; a tired or meaningless remark; a tiresome or boring person

### brontide

### the low rumble of distant thunder; a sound like that of distant thunder

### brook

### a small, natural stream of fresh water; to bear; to suffer; to endure; to tolerate

### Brook's Law

### The stronger the argument, the weaker the response. (With a very strong argument, sometimes the response is so weak that it entails name calling and personal attacks; many times it is so weak that the "response" is simply silence.)

### Brooks' law

### adding people to a late software project makes it later

### Brownian Motion

### the seemingly random movement of particles; particle theory; pedesis

### brumal

### wintry; of winter

### brummagem

### cheap and showy; something that is counterfeit or of inferior quality

### brumous

### foggy; misty; wintry; of grey skies and winter days; filled with heavy clouds or fog; relating to winter or cold; sunless weather

### brusque

### abrupt in manner; blunt; rough

### bryology

### the branch of botany that deals with mosses, liverworts, and hornworts

### bucolic

### of or pertaining to herders or shepherds; suggesting an idyllic rural life; pastoral; rustic; a pastoral poem

### buddha (Sanskrit)

### awakened one; enlightened one

### buen saber (Spanish)

### good knowledge

### buen vivir (Spanish)

### good living

### bugbear

### any source, real or imaginary, of needless fright or fear

### buka

### a roadside restaurant or street stall that sells local fare at low prices; bukateria; mama put

### bulswangari

### a word I made up without any meaning, used when one wants to use a word without any meaning; a nonce word (cf. pompatus)

### bulwark

### a wall of earth or other material built for defense; rampart; any protection against external danger, injury, or annoyance

### bumf

### unwanted or uninteresting printed matter, such as forms, legal documents, memos, junk mail, promotional pamphlets, advertisements, etc.; toilet paper

### bumfuzzle

### to confuse

### bumptious

### crudely presumptuous; loudly self-assertive; offensively self-assertive

### bung

### a stopper for the opening of a cask; to close with or as if with a bung; cork; plug (often followed by up); out of order; broken; unusable; bankrupt; dead; to beat; bruise; maul (often followed by up); to throw or shove carelessly or violently; sling; a gratuity; tip; a bribe; useless

### bunkum

### insincere speechmaking by a politician intended merely to please local constituents; insincere talk; claptrap; humbug; buncombe

### buñaba (Yidiny)

### a group of people with only one woman

### bupkes (Yiddish) (also bupkis and other spellings)

### a ridiculously small amount, nothing, or less than nothing when something was expected or appropriate (cf. gornisht)

### Buridan's Ass

a situation demonstrating the impracticality of decision-making using pure reason, especially a situation involving two equal choices (cf. Catch-22, Hobson's Choice, Morton's Fork, Sophie's Choice, zugzwang, false dilemma)

### burke

### to suppress or get rid of by some indirect maneuver; to murder, as by suffocation, so as to leave no or few marks of violence; to silence or suppress; to avoid or bypass

### bursiform

### shaped like a pouch or a sac

### bushido (Japanese)

### literally, way of the warrior-knight or samurai, it is a code of conduct stressing frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor unto death; chivalry

### bushwa (or bushwah)

### rubbishy nonsense (euphemism for bullshit)

### busk

### to entertain by dancing, singing, or reciting on the street or in a public place

### buss

### kiss

### busticate

### to break into pieces

### butyraceous

### of the nature of, resembling, or containing butter

### Byronic

### one who is melancholic, passionate, and melodramatic, and disregards societal norms

### "The word was born

### in the blood,

### it grew in the dark body, pulsing,

### and took flight with the lips and mouth....

### I drink to the word, raising

### a word or crystalline cup,

### in it I drink

### the wine of language."

— Pablo Neruda

### cabotage

### the transport of goods or passengers between two points in the same country by a vessel or an aircraft registered in another country

### cachinnate

### to laugh very loudly

### cacoethes

### an irresistible urge; compulsion; mania; an urge to do something inadvisable; a bad quality or disposition in a disease; a malignant tumour or ulcer

### cacoethics

### bad ethics or morals; bad habits

### cacology

### poor choice of words

### cacophemism

### a term used to sound harsher than the original (antonym euphemism)

### cacophobia

### fear of ugliness

### cadge

### to beg or obtain by begging; to borrow without intent to repay; to obtain by imposing on someone's generosity; to ask, expect, or encourage another person to pay for or provide one's drinks, meals, etc.

### caesura

### a usually rhetorical break or audible pause in the flow of sound in the middle of a line of verse; a pause or breathing at a point of rhythmic division in a melody; a pause or interruption, as in conversation

### cacography

### the misuse of words, bad spelling or grammar, and the like

### cacuminous

### having a pyramidal top

### cadenza

### an elaborate flourish or showy solo passage, sometimes improvised, introduced near the end of an aria or a movement of a concerto

### caduceus

### the staff carried by Mercury as messenger of the gods; a representation of this staff used as an emblem of the Medical profession and as the insignia of the U.S. Army Medical Corps

### caeli interruptus (Latin)

### climate change policy interrupted by pulling one's country out of a global agreement

### cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese)

### to run one's fingers through a lover's hair; the act of fondling someone's hair

### cagnomen

### any name, especially a nickname; surname; a nickname or epithet by which someone is identified; a byname; a moniker or sobriquet

### caitiff

### a cowardly and despicable person; cowardly and despicable

### cairn

a heap of stones set up as a landmark, monument, tombstone, etc. (cf. cirque, cwm, hoodoo, inselberg, inuksuk, karst, pingo, pisolite, scree, talus, yarding)

### caldera

### a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption

### calefacient

### something that produces warmth, especially when applied to the body

### calends

### the day of the new moon

### calescent

### growing warm; increasing in heat

### caliginous

### misty; gloomy; dim; dark; obscure

### caliphate

### a single, transnational Islamic state based on sharia law and led by a caliph, or successor, to Muhammad

### calligram

### a word, phrase, or piece of text arranged to form a picture of the subject described; a drawing made partly or entirely from calligraphic script

### calliopean

### piercingly loud

### callipygian (also callipygous)

### having well-shaped buttocks; looking good from behind

### callithump

### a noisy, boisterous celebration or parade; a mock serenade with pots, pans, kettles, etc., given for a newly married couple (also charivari or shivaree)

### callow

### immature; inexperienced; lacking sophistication

### calque

### loan translation; a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation

### calumny

### a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something; the act of uttering calumnies; slander; defamation

### calvous

### lacking all or most of the hair on the head; bald

### calyx

### the sepals of a flower considered as a group; a cup-like structure or organ, such as one of the cup-like divisions of the pelvis or of the kidney

### camarilla

### a group of confidential scheming advisers

### camber

### to arch slightly; bend or curve upward in the middle

### campanology

### the art or study of bell-ringing or making bells

### campanilismo (Italian)

### a deep pride and affection for one's local area and its qualities, far stronger than any sense of national identity; an adherence to the traditions, customs, and dialects of one's own region

### Campbell's law

### the more any quantitative social indicator (or even some qualitative indicator) is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor

### canard

### a false or unfounded report or story

### canescent

### hoary; gray or white with age; ancient or venerable; tedious from familiarity; stale

### canker

### a source of corruption or decay; ulcerous sores in the mouth; also any of various diseases affecting animals and plants; to corrupt or to become corrupted; to infect with or be infected with canker

### canoodle

### to caress, fondle, or pet amorously

### canorous

### richly melodious; pleasant sounding; musical

### cant

### hypocritically pious talk; insincere, especially conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness, or piety; the private language of the underworld; the phraseology peculiar to a particular class, party, profession, etc.; a slope or tilt; a motion that tilts something; an outer corner; whining or singsong speech, especially of beggars; oblique; capacious

### canticle

### a song, poem, or hymn especially of praise and often from or based on the Bible

### capitare a fagiolo (Italian)

### to happen at the bean; to happen just in time or at the perfect time

### capitulate

### to cease resisting; surrender

### capriccio

### a caper; prank; a musical composition in a free, irregular style; a whim; caprice

### caprice

### a sudden and unpredictable change of mind or behavior; erratic

### capricious

### whimsical; impulsive; unpredictable

### capriole

### a playful leap: caper; a leap made by a trained horse involving a backward kick of the hind legs at the top of the leap

### captcha

### a test, typically involving distorted text, used to make sure that a human, not a computer program, is using a system; an acronym of Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

### captious

### having an inclination to find faults, especially of a trivial nature

### carapace

### a bony or chitinous shield, test, or shell covering some or all of the dorsal part of an animal, as of a turtle

### carbuncle

### a painful circumscribed inflammation of the subcutaneous tissue, caused by staphylococcal infection, resulting in suppuration and sloughing, and having a tendency to spread somewhat like a boil, but more serious in its effects; a gemstone, especially a garnet, cut with a convex back and a cabochon surface

### cardinal

### of prime importance; chief; principal; a high ecclesiastic appointed by the pope to the College of Cardinals and ranking above every other ecclesiastic except the pope; a crested grosbeak, Cardinalis cardinalis, of North America, the male of which is bright red; any of various similar birds; a deep, rich red color; a woman's short cloak with a hood, originally made of scarlet cloth and popularly worn in the 18th century

### caremongering

### the spreading of kindness to help others, in opposition to scaremongering and fearmongering

### cark

### care or worry; to worry

### carnism

### the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat (certain) animals by thinking it normal, natural, and necessary (cf. meat paradox); essentially the opposite of vegetarianism or veganism

### carpe diem

### seize the day; live life to the fullest

### carte blanche

### having unconditional authority

### caseifaction

### the act of turning into cheese

### cashier

### to dismiss from service, especially with disgrace; an employee who handles payments and receipts in a business

### Cassandra

### one who prophesies disaster and whose warnings are unheeded

### castigate

### to severely criticize or chastise

### catachresis

### the change of meaning, over time, of a word; misuse or strained use of words, as in a mixed metaphor, occurring either in error or for rhetorical effect; incorrect usage of a word

### catalyst

### something that causes or speeds up activity between two or more other things without itself being affected

### cataphatic

### pertaining to the expression of God in terms of what God is, rather than in terms of what God is not (apophatic)

### cataphora

the use of a word or phrase to refer to a following word or group of words, as the use of the phrase as follows

### cataplexy

### a sudden and transient episode of loss of muscle tone

### cataract

### a descent of water over a steep surface; a waterfall, especially one of considerable size; any furious rush or downpour of water; deluge; an abnormality of the eye, characterized by opacity of the lens; an eye's opaque area

### catarrh

### inflammation of a mucous membrane, especially of the respiratory tract, accompanied by excessive secretions

### catatonic

### of or in an immobile or unresponsive stupor

### catawampus (also cattwampus)

### askew; awry; positioned diagonally; cater-cornered; obliquely

### Catch-22

### a frustrating situation in which one is trapped by contradictory regulations or conditions; any illogical or paradoxical problem or situation; unsolvable dilemma; a condition, regulation, etc., preventing the resolution of a problem or situation

### catchphrase

### a phrase that attracts or is meant to attract attention; a phrase, as a slogan, that comes to be widely and repeatedly used, often with little of the original meaning remaining.

### catechize

### to question closely; to instruct orally by means of questions and answers; to question with reference to belief; use of the Socratic method

### categorical imperative

### an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an end in itself; according to Immanuel Kant, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

### catenate

### to link together; form into a connected series; to arrange or be arranged in a series of chains or rings; concatenate; catenulate

### caterwaul

### to utter long wailing cries, as cats in rutting time; to utter a similar sound; howl or screech; yowl

### catharsis

### the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong, or repressed emotions

### cathect

### to invest emotion or feeling in an idea, object, place, or another person

### cathexis

### the investment of emotional significance in an activity, object, or idea; the charge of psychic energy so invested; the concentration of mental energy on one particular person, idea, or object (especially to an unhealthy degree)

### cathode

### the electrode from which a conventional current leaves a polarized electrical device (cf. anode)

### catholic

### broad or wide-ranging in tastes, interests, or the like; having sympathies with all; broad-minded; liberal; universal in extent; involving all; of interest to all

### caul

### a part of the amnion sometimes covering the head of a child at birth; greater omentum; a net lining in the back of a woman's cap or hat; a cap or hat of net formerly worn by women

### causal convergence

### the result of the conjunction of weak causal factors that synergistically lead to a change; causal pluralism

### causal invariance

### no matter which evolution is chosen for a system, the history is the same in the sense that the same events occur and they have the same causal relationships

### causerie

### an informal talk or chat; a short, informal essay, article, etc.

### cautelous

### cautious; crafty

### cavalcade

### a procession of riders on horses, vehicles, etc.; a noteworthy series of events

### cavil

### to raise irritating and trivial objections; find fault with unnecessarily (usually followed by at or about); to oppose by inconsequential, frivolous, or sham objections; a trivial and annoying objection; the raising of such objections

### cavolo riscaldato (Italian)

### something old, outdated, or obsolete displayed as if it were new; a (doomed) attempt to reignite a failed relationship; literally, warmed up cabbage

### cavort

### to prance or caper about; to behave in a high-spirited, festive manner; make merry

### cazcan (Cazcan)

### there isn't any; no hay (Spanish)

### cecum

### a cul-de-sac, especially that in which the large intestine begins

### ceilidh

### a social gathering, typically involving folk music, dancing, and storytelling

### celadon

### a pale green color; a type of ceramics having a pale green glaze, originally made in China; a shepherd who wears green clothes (cf. viridescent)

### celerity

### swiftness; speed

### Celine's First Law

### National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity

### Celine's Second Law

### accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation

### cellotaph

### a cenotaph composed of flowers in cellophane wrappers and other tokens of the public's regard for a dead individual who they have never met

### cenobite

### a member of a religious order living in a monastic community

### cenote

### a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath

### censer

### a container in which incense is burned, typically during a religious ceremony

### censorious

### severely critical; faultfinding; carping

### centrifugal

### moving or directed outward from the center

### centripetal

### moving or directed toward the center

### centroid

### the geometric center of a two-dimensional region; the arithmetic mean ("average") position of all the points in the shape; barycenter

### cepivorous

### eating onions; onion eater

### ceraunophile

### one who lives lightning and thunder

### cerebrate

### to use the mind; to think or reason

### cernuous

### drooping, nodding, or bending forward

### cerulean

### deep blue; sky blue; azure; ultramarine

### cete

### a group of badgers

### ceteris paribus (Latin)

### other things being equal

### -chá (Quechua)

### this statement is probably true (usually used with statements of what seemed real in a dream or while intoxicated) (attached to the end of the statement's last word) (cf. -mi)

### chaekgeori (Korean)

### a genre of still-life painting from the Joseon period of Korea that features books as the dominant subject (literally, "books and things")

### chaff

### the husks of grains and grasses that are separated during threshing; worthless matter; refuse

### chagal

### a bag, usually made of canvas or leather, used for carrying water

### chagrin

### a feeling of vexation, marked by disappointment or humiliation; to vex by disappointment or humiliation; a feeling of annoyance or mortification; to embarrass and annoy; mortify

### chalant

### passionately concerned

### chanson

### song

### chaord

### any self-organizing, self-governing, adaptive non-linear, complex organism, organization, community, or system, whether physical, biological, or social, the behavior of which harmoniously blends characteristics of both chaos and order.

### chapbook

### a small book or pamphlet containing stories, poems, or religious tracts

### chaptalize

### to increase the alcohol in a wine by adding sugar

### charientism

### an elegantly veiled insult

### charmolypi (Greek)

### joyful sorrow; a mixed feeling of happness while being sad; cf. hiraeth (Welsh), saudade (Portuguese), sehnsucht (German), natsukashi (Japanese)

### charnel

### a repository for dead bodies

### chartreuse

### light, yellowish green

### chary

### cautious or careful; wary; shy; timid; fastidious; choosy; sparing; circumspect; frugal

### chatoyant

### having a changeable luster like that of a cat's eye at night

### chauvinism

### an exaggerated patriotism and a belligerent belief in national superiority and glory; fanatical devotion and undue partiality to any group or cause to which one belongs, especially when such partisanship includes prejudice against or hostility toward outsiders or rival groups and persists even in the face of overwhelming opposition (cf. xenophobia; jingoism; ethnocentrism)

### chavayah (Hebrew)

### finding enjoyment in what could be a typically bad or unpleasant experience

### chaw

### the act of chewing something, especially something not intended to be swallowed

### chazarai (Yiddish)

### food that is awful; junk; trash; slop; filth; rubbish; piggery; anything bad, unpalatable, rotten, disgusting, even loathsome (literally, pig's stuff)

### cheechako (Chinook)

### a newcomer in a variety of settings; tenderfoot; greenhorn

### cheerful robot

### according to C. Wright Mills, in an era of ascendant rationalization, a person who gears their aspirations and their work to the situation they are in, from which they can find no way out and no longer seek a way out; a person who adapts and lives to play, consume, and "have fun"

### cheiro no cangote (Portuguese)

### to gently nuzzle your lover's neck with the tip of your nose

### chelate

### to combine with something (or someone) else to form a ring or circle

### chelonian

### belonging or pertaining to the order Chelonia, comprising the turtles; a turtle

### chesed (Hebrew)

### lovingkindness; active benevolence; metta (Sanskrit); agape; jampa (Tibetan)

### chevalier

### a chivalrous man, one having qualities of courtesy, honor, bravery, gallantry, etc.

### chevron

### a pattern in the shape of a V or an inverted V; a badge consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the sleeve by noncommissioned officers, police officers, etc., as an indication of rank, service, or the like; a badge or insignia consisting of one or more V-shaped stripes to indicate a noncommissioned rank or length of service; an ornament in this form, as on a molding

### chevy

### to chase or annoy; chase, hunt, or a hunting cry

### chi (or qi)

### the vital force believed in Taoism and other Chinese thought to be inherent in all things; the unimpeded circulation of chi and a balance of its negative and positive forms in the body are held to be essential to good health in traditional Chinese medicine

### chiaroscuro

### the distribution of light and darkness

### chiasmus

### a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second; the rhetorical device of repeating some of the words you've used in reverse order

### chicanery

### the use of trickery or sophistry to deceive; a trick; a subterfuge

### chikuichi (Japanese)

### one by one

### chiliad

### a group of 1000; a period of 1000 years

### chimakhai (Farsi)

### what do you want?

### chimera (Greek mythology)

### a horrible creature of the imagination - part goat, part lion, part dragon; fanciful fabrication; illusion

### chimurenga (Shona)

### revolutionary struggle or a fight for liberation

### chinja maitiro (Shona)

### change the way you are doing things

### chirocracy

### government that rules by physical force

### chiral

### not superimposable on its mirror image; handedness

### chirk

### to cheer up; to make a shrill, chirping noise

### chirm

### the chirping of birds; to chirp

### chiron (Greek mythology)

### a wise and learned tutor

### chirrup

### make repeated short high-pitched sounds; twitter; to say something in a high-pitched voice; a short, high-pitched sound; chirp

### chivvy

### to chase; run after; to harass; nag; torment; a hunt, chase, or pursuit; a hunting cry (also chivy and chevy)

### chofetz chayim (Hebrew)

### a desirer, seeker, and lover of life

### choice overload

### the phenomenon of people tending to freeze up when given too many choices

### chok chok (Korean)

### plump and moist

### cholent

### a traditional Jewish meal usually consisting of a stew prepared before the Sabbath on Friday and left to cook over low heat until eaten for Sabbath lunch

### chorister

### a singer in a choir or chorus; a choir member; a choir or chorus leader

### chork

### to make a squelching sound, especially due to water-logged footwear when walking; a utensil that combines chopsticks with a fork

### chouette (French)

### term uttered upon learning something pleasing

### chreia (Greek)

### a brief, useful anecdote about a particular character

### chrestomathy

### a collection of selected literary passages

### chromophore

### an atom or group whose presence is responsible for the color of a compound

### chronobiology

### a field of biology that examines periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms and their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms

### chrysalis

### the hard-shelled pupa of a moth or butterfly; a protected stage of development

### chrysalism

### the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm

### chthonic

### related to deities of the underworld; anything of or related to the underworld or underground

### chuff

### a rustic; a boor; churl; a miserly fellow; chubby; fat; swollen with pride; proud; elated; a sound of or like the exhaust of a steam engine; to produce or move with noisy puffing or explosive sounds

### chuffed

### proud; satisfied; pleased; delighted

### chundle

### wasting time; not producing anything of value

### churlish

### crude; rude; uncouth; vulgar; surly

### chutzpah

### unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall; audacity; nerve

### chyron

### an electronically generated caption superimposed on a television or movie screen; television graphics that occupy the lower area of the screen or any predominantly text-based video graphic as used mainly by television news broadcasts; a caption superimposed over usually the lower part of a video image; a set of graphics or words at the bottom of a television screen, sometimes unrelated to the current viewing content

### cibarious

### related to food; edible

### cicatrix

### new tissue that forms over a wound

### cicatrize

### to heal or become healed by forming a scar

### cicerone

### a person who conducts sightseers; a tour guide; guide

### cimicine

### a substance which emits a very disagreeable odor used as a means of defense

### cingulomania

### the strong desire to hold someone in your arms

### circadian rhythm

### any biological process that displays an endogenous, entrainable oscillation of about 24 hours

### circumvallate

### to surround by a defensive structure

### circumvolve

### to revolve or wind about

### cirque

### circle; ring; a bowl-shaped, steep-walled mountain basin carved by glaciation, often containing a small, round lake or pool called a tarn

### cis-

### on this side of; on the near side of

### cisgender

a gender identity of which an individual's self-perception of their gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth; a label for individuals who have a match between the gender they were assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal identity (antonym: transgender)

### cladistics

### an approach to biological classification in which organisms are grouped together based on whether or not they have one or more shared unique characteristics that come from the group's last common ancestor and are not present in more distant ancestors

### clairaudience

### the power to hear sounds said to exist beyond the reach of ordinary experience or capacity, as the voices of the dead; the supposed ability to hear what is inaudible

### clamorous

### noisy; loud and continued shouting or exclamation

### clangorous

### loud, resonant sounds; clanging; clamorous noise

### claque

### a group of persons hired to applaud an act or performer; a group of sycophants

### clarigation

### a demand for restitution for some wrong, as a precursor to declaring war

### clarion

### loud and clear; an ancient trumpet used as a signal in war

### Clarke's First Law

### when a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong

### Clarke's Second Law

### the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible

### Clarke's Third Law

### any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

### claver

### idle talk; gossip

### cleave

### to adhere closely, to stick or cling to; to split or divide by or as if by a cutting blow

### clerihew

### a humorous, pseudo-biographical verse of four lines of uneven length, with the rhyming scheme AABB, and the first line containing the name of the subject

### clerisy

### the well-educated class; the literati; the intelligentsia

### clew

### a ball or skein of thread, yarn, etc.; either lower corner of a square sail or the after lower corner of a fore-and-aft sail; a metal device holding scenery lines controlled by one weighted line; the thread by which Theseus found his way out of the labyrinth

cli‐fi

### the genre of fiction exploring issues around climate change and global warming, and is modelled after its hypernym sci-fi

### clickbait

### something designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink, especially when the link leads to content of dubious value or interest

### cline

### a scale of continuous gradation; continuum; the gradual change in certain characteristics exhibited by members of a series of adjacent populations of organisms of the same species

### clinquant

### glittering with gold or silver; tinseled; imitation gold leaf

### cloaca

### an outhouse; a sewer; the common duct into which intestinal, urinary, and genital tracts open in birds, reptiles, most fishes, and some mammals

### cloche

### a woman's close-fitting hat with a deep, bell-shaped crown and often a narrow, turned-down brim; a bell-shaped glass cover placed over a plant to protect it from frost and to force its growth; a bell-shaped metal or glass cover placed over a plate to keep food warm or fresh

### cloister

### to confine in retirement; seclude; to confine in a monastery or convent; to furnish with a cloister or covered walk; to convert into a monastery or convent; a covered walk, especially in a religious institution, having an open arcade or colonnade usually opening onto a courtyard; a place of religious seclusion, as a monastery or convent; any quiet, secluded place

### clowder

### a group or cluster of cats

### cloze

### pertaining to or being a procedure used to measure comprehension or text difficulty, in which a person is called upon to supply elements that have been systematically deleted from a text

### cluefulness

### the state of being knowledgeable

### clusterfuck

### a bungled, confused, or otherwise messed up undertaking or situation; a debacle and disaster caused by a combination of illusion, impatience, and incompetence (cf. fuck-up, snafu, fubar, shitshow, dumpster fire)

### cockaigne (or cockayne)

### a land of plenty in medieval myth; an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist

### cockamamy

### crazy; false; ersatz; artificial; jury-rigged; screwed up; messed up; confused

### cockwomble

### a person, usually male, prone to making outrageously stupid statements and/or inappropriate behaviour while generally having a very high opinion of their own wisdom and importance; a foolish or obnoxious person; patriarchal or patronising discourse, particularly between men; the results of any patriarchal or patronising discourse or behavior

### coddiwomple

### to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination; to travel purposely toward an as-yet-unknown destination

### coenesthesis (also coenesthesia)

### general sense or feeling of existence arising from the sum of bodily impressions; the vital sense

### coeval

### happening at the same time

### cockaigne

### an imaginary land of luxury and idleness

### cockalorum

### a self-important little man

### cocktail party effect

### the phenomenon of being able to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus (especially one voice), while filtering out a range of other stimuli (all other voices)

### codec

### a set of equipment that encodes an analogue speech or video signal into digital form for transmission purposes and at the receiving end decodes the digital signal into a form close to its original

### codex

### a quire of manuscript pages held together by stitching: the earliest form of book, replacing the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times; a manuscript volume, usually of an ancient classic; a code; book of statutes

### coeval

### of the same age, date, or duration; equally old; of or belonging to the same age or generation; coincident; a contemporary

### cognate

### related by birth; of the same parentage, descent, etc.; descended from the same language or form; allied or similar in nature or quality; akin

### cognitive bias

a systematic pattern of distorted thinking or judgment, which creates subjective social reality; a systematic error in thinking that affects the decisions and judgments that people make; a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment; annoying habits of the mind that distort our perception and thinking

### cognitive dissonance

### a conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistencies between one's beliefs and one's actions or other beliefs or phenomena

### cognitive triage

### an intensity of the situational demands placed upon one, which necessitates attending only to the most immediate and concrete concerns, pushing out all other considerations that might lead to one reflecting upon one's wider circumstances

### cognomen

### any name, especially a nickname; a surname; the third and commonly the last name of a citizen of ancient Rome, indicating the person's house or family

### cognoscenti

### someone who is knowledgeable about a subject; an expert; maven; connoisseur

### col

### a mountain pass; the lowest point of a ridge or saddle between two peaks, typically affording a pass from one side of a mountain range to another

### colligate

### to bind or group together

### collogue

### to confer secretly; to plot mischief; conspire

### collop

### a small slice

### collywobbles

### a feeling of fear, apprehension, or nervousness; intestinal cramps or other intestinal disturbances

### colo (Portuguese)

### the area of body formed by chest and arms, referring to embracing and comforting someone; cf. famn (Swedish)

### colporteur

### a peddler of religious books

### columella

### any of various small structures in plants or animals that are columnar in shape; the skin at the end of the septum which separates the nostrils

### comely

### pleasing in appearance; attractive; fair; proper; seemly

### comestible

### an item of food; edible

### comfit

### a candy containing a nut or piece of fruit

### confusticate

### to confuse, confound, or perplex; to make something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible

### comity

### mutual courtesy; civility

### commensalism

### a class of relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits without affecting the other

### comminate

### to threaten with divine punishment; to curse; anathematize

### commodity festishism

### the perception of the social relationships involved in production, not as relationships among people, but as economic relationships among the money and commodities exchanged in market trade

### common sense

### sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence; plain ordinary good judgment; sound practical sense; knowledge and experience which most people already have; folklore

### commuovere (Italian)

### to move; to affect; to touch; to stir; to move someone to tears

### compathy

### feelings, as happiness or grief, shared with another or others

### compeer

### close friend; comrade; an equal in rank, ability, accomplishment, etc.; peer; colleague

### compendium

### a short, complete summary; an abstract; a list or collection of various items; a collection in a single box; a collected body of information

### compersion

### the feeling of joy one has experiencing another's joy; a feeling of joy associated with someone else entering or otherwise enjoying a relationship with another; cf. firgun (Hebrew) and mudita (Sanskrit) (antonym: jealousy)

### complaisant

### inclined or disposed to please; obliging; agreeable or gracious; compliant

### comport

### to behave (oneself) in a particular manner; to be fitting; to accord; to agree; to be in agreement, harmony, or conformity

### compunction

### anxiety or deep unease proceeding from a sense of guilt or consciousness of causing pain; a qualm; a scruple; a feeling of uneasiness or anxiety of the conscience caused by regret for doing wrong or causing pain; contrition; remorse; any uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action

### compunctious

### feeling remorse or guilt

### concatenate

### to link together; unite in a series or chain; linked together, as in a chain

### concinnity

### a harmonious arrangement of various parts

### concordant

### agreeing; harmonious

### concordance

### agreement; concord; harmony; an alphabetical index of subjects or topics

### concrescence

### a growing together; coalescence

### concupiscence

### sexual desire; lust; libidinal; ardent, usually sensuous, longing; strong desire; yearning

### concupiscible

### worthy of being desired

### concuss

### to injure by concussion; to suffer an injury to the brain or spinal cord due to jarring from a blow, fall, or the like

### condign

### suitable to the fault or crime; adequate; fitting; well-deserved; appropriate

### confabulate

### to converse informally; to chat; to fill in gaps in one's memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts

### confute

### to prove to be false, invalid, or defective; disprove; refute

### conge (or congee)

### leave-taking; farewell; permission to depart; sudden dismissal; a bow or obeisance; a rice porridge

### congeries

### a collection of miscellaneous things; a collection of items or parts in one mass; assemblage; aggregation; heap

### conglobate

### to form into a ball

### conn

### responsibility for the steering of a ship

### conniption

### a fit of hysterical excitement or anger

### connubial

### pertaining to marriage or the married state

### consanguinity

### close relationship or connection; relationship by descent from a common ancestor; kinship

### consilience

### the act of concurring (literally, to leap together); convergence of evidence from independent, unrelated sources

### consomniate

### to dream

### consonance

### accord or agreement; correspondence of sounds; harmony of sounds; a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of repose; the correspondence of consonants, especially those at the end of a word, in a passage of prose or verse; the use of the repetition of consonants or consonant patterns as a rhyming device; the property of two sounds the frequencies of which have a ratio equal to a small whole number

### conspectus

### a general survey, synopsis, outline, or digest of something

### conspicuous consumption

### a public display of acquisition and use of possessions with the intention of gaining social prestige; excessive consumerism to flaunt one's purchasing power; buying or otherwise acquiring things for their show value as much or more than for their use value

### conspiracy

### privately and collectively planning (literally, to breathe together)

### constative

### a statement that can be judged as true or false; capable of being true or false

### consternate

### to dismay, confuse, or terrify

### consternation

### a sudden, alarming amazement or dread that results in utter confusion; dismay

### consummate

### to bring to a state of perfection; fulfill; to complete (an arrangement, agreement, or the like) by a pledge or the signing of a contract; to complete (the union of a marriage) by the first marital sexual intercourse; complete or perfect; supremely skilled; superb; being of the highest or most extreme degree

### contango

### a situation when the futures price is above the expected future spot price; inverted market; a fee paid by a buyer of securities to the seller for the privilege of deferring payment

### contemporaneous

### living or occurring during the same period of time; contemporary

### contingent

### dependent for existence, occurrence, character, etc., on something not yet certain; conditional; liable to happen or not; uncertain; possible; happening by chance or without known cause; fortuitous; accidental; neither logically necessary nor logically impossible, so that its truth or falsity can be established only by sensory observation; a quota of troops furnished; any one of the representative groups composing an assemblage; the proportion that falls to one as a share to be contributed or furnished

### contrafactum

### a substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music

### contranym

### a word with two opposing meanings; antagonym

### contrapuntal

### of or pertaining to counterpoint; composed of two or more relatively independent melodies sounded together

### contrite

### caused by or showing sincere remorse; filled with a sense of guilt and the desire for atonement; penitent

### contumacious

### stubbornly disobedient; rebellious

### contumacy

### stubborn perverseness or rebelliousness; willful and obstinate resistance or disobedience to authority

### contumely

### contemptuous or insulting treatment arising from arrogance

### contund

### to thrash or bruise

### conurbation

### an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities; an extensive urban area resulting from the expansion of several cities or towns so that they coalesce but usually retain their separate identities

### conventional

### normal; formal

### conventional wisdom

### ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true, though typically unexamined, by the public or by experts in a field

### conversazione

### a formal gathering for conversation, especially on arts, literature, etc.

### convivencia (Spanish)

### living together

### convivial

### friendly; agreeable; jovial; festive; fond of feasting, drinking, and merry company; of or befitting a feast

### cooze

### a woman, especially one regarded as sexually attractive or available; a woman's genitals; pussy; a sexually-objectified woman

### coprocephalic

### one whose cranial cavity is filled with feces; shithead

### coprolalia

### the uncontrollable use of obscene language

### coprolite

### fossilized feces

### coquette

### a characteristically flirtatious woman, especially in a teasing, lighthearted manner; a woman who flirts lightheartedly with men to win their admiration and affection; a flirt

### cordate

### heart-shaped

### corky

### of or resembling cork; lively; buoyant

### coronary

### of or relating to the crown; of or relating to the heart; of or relating to the arteries or veins of the heart

### corniche

### a coastal road, especially one cut into the side of a cliff

### cornucopia

### a horn containing food and drink in endless supply; an abundant, overflowing supply

### corolla

### the petals of a flower as a group

### corona

### a white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body, especially around the sun or moon; wreath, crown, garland; aureola

### corpocracy

### a society in which corporations control the government; an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests; corporatocracy

### corpus delicti

### the concrete evidence that shows that a crime has been committed

### corrigible

### capable of being corrected

### coruscant

### sparkling; gleaming; glittering; giving forth flashes of light

### coruscate

### to emit vivid flashes of light; sparkle; scintillate; gleam

### corybantic

### frenzied

### corymb

### a cluster of flowers with a flat or convex top

### cosare (Italian)

### to perform an action you don't know the name of

### cosher

### to treat with special fondness; to excessively dote on; to levy certain exactions or tribute upon; to lodge and eat at the expense of; to chat in a friendly way

### cosmogony (cosmogeny)

### any theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be; a theory or story of the origin and development of the universe, the solar system, or the earth-moon system

### cosmopolitan

### at home all over the world; a citizen of the world; sophisticated

### cosset

### to treat as a pet; pamper; coddle

### costados (Spanish)

### genealogical lineages traced back from a grandparent

### coterie

### a group of people who associate closely; an exclusive group; clique; a group of prairie dogs occupying a communal burrow

### coterminous

### having the same border or covering the same area; being the same in extent; coextensive in range or scope; conterminous

### cothurnal

### of or related to tragedy or tragic acting

### couloir (French)

### a steep gorge along the mountainside

### countenance

### to tolerate or support; appearance, especially the facial expression; the face; composure; approval or support

### coup de grace (French)

### a death blow, especially one delivered mercifully to end suffering; any finishing or decisive stroke (literally, blow of mercy)

### coup de main (French)

### a surprise attack or sudden action (literally, blow from the hand)

### coup d'état

### a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force (literally, blow to the state); putsch

### courgette

### zucchini

### couth

### cultured, refined, and well mannered

### cowabunga

### an expression of surprise, joy, or enthusiasm

### cozen

### to trick or deceive

### craic (Irish)

### doing something for its own sake; good times; fun with friends and family

### crampon

### a spiked iron plate worn on boots or shoes for aid in climbing or to prevent slipping on ice, snow, etc.; a device for grasping and lifting heavy loads, usually consisting of a pair of hooks suspended from a chain or cable, the upward pull on which provides tension for the hooks to grip the load on opposite sides.

### crapulous

### suffering from overindulgence in food or drink

### craven

### very cowardly; a thorough coward; contemptibly timid; pusillanimous

### crazelty

### infirm or dilapidated

### crazling

### somebody who's affect by a craze or mania

### credenda

### things to be believed; articles of faith

### creditable

### bringing or deserving credit, honor, reputation, or esteem

### crenelate

### to notch or indent

### crepitate

### to make a crackling sound; crackle

### crepitus

a grating sound or sensation produced by friction between bone and cartilage or the fractured parts of a bone; the noise made by broken bones rubbing together

### crepuscular

### pertaining to twilight; appearing at or becoming active at twilight; vespertinal

### crescendo

### a process of gradually increasing in intensity

### crescive

### increasing; growing

### cribble

### a coarse sieve or screen; coarse flour or meal; to cause to pass through a sieve or riddle; to sift; coarse

### criticaster

### an inferior critic

### cromulent

### fine; acceptable

### crore

### ten million (100 lak)

### crowdsource

### to enlist the services of a large number of people, for little or no pay, to accomplish a task

### cruft

### computer science jargon for anything that is left over, redundant, and getting in the way

### crump

a loud thudding sound, especially one made by an exploding bomb or shell; to make a loud, thudding sound

### crural

### relating to the leg

### cryptomnesia

### when a forgotten memory returns without it being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original; a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke, not deliberately engaging in plagiarism but rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration; remembering someone else's work without realizing that one is remembering rather than creating it

### crytoscopophilia

### the love of looking into other people's homes' windows; the urge to look through people's windows as you pass by their houses

### cucubate

### to hoot like an owl

### culaccino (Italian)

### the dregs in a glass, or the remaining part of a substance in a vessel; a water ring; a mark left on a surface by the bottom of a wet glass or vessel; dringle; the end of a salami, cigar, loaf of bread, etc.; butt-piece; rump; heel

### culm

### coal dust; a stem or stalk, especially the jointed and usually hollow stem of grasses, including bamboo; the hollow stem of a grass or cereal plant, especially that bearing the flower

### culpable

### deserving blame or censure; blameworthy; deserving censure

### cultural capital

### the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech and dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society; the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate any given society

### culture jamming

### a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising, often by using its own power against itself; counter-hegemony; cf. war of position

### culture shock

### the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life

### cumbrous

### cumbersome; burdensome; troublesome; unwieldy; clumsy

### cumshaw

### a present; gift; gratuity; tip

### cumulus

### a heap; pile; a cloud of a class characterized by dense individual elements in the form of puffs, mounds, or towers, with flat bases and tops that often resemble cauliflower

### cunctator

### one who hesitates; a procrastinator or delayer

### cupidity

### eager or excessive desire, especially to possess something; greed; avarice

### curiosare (Italian)

### to look round or through

### cutlass

### a short, heavy, slightly curved sword with a single cutting edge, formerly used by sailors

### cwm

### a valley

### cwtch (Welsh)

### a cubbyhole or similar hiding place; a hug or cuddle; to hug or cuddle

### cybernetics

### the study of human control functions and of mechanical and electronic systems designed to replace them, involving the application of statistical mechanics to communication engineering

### cyclothymia

### a type of chronic mood disorder widely considered to be a milder or sub-threshold form of bipolar disorder

### cymophobia

### a fear of waves, sea swells, tidal waves, or tsunamis

### cynefin (Welsh)

### a place where a person or an animal feels it ought to live and belong; it is where nature around you feels right and welcoming; a very personal sense of place, belonging, and familiarity; the environment in which you live and to which you are naturally acclimatised

### cynophobia

### a fear of dogs

### cynosure

### something that strongly attracts attention by its brilliance, interest, etc.; something serving for guidance or direction; a center of attention; one who serves to direct or guide

### "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world."

— Robin Williams

### daa sanuk (Thai)

### to enjoy scolding other

### dabster

### an expert; a bungler

### dactylogram

### the image of a fingerprint

### dadirri (Australian Aboriginal)

### a deep, spiritual act of reflective and respectful listening

### daedal

### complex or ingenious in form or function; intricate; skillful; artistic; ingenious; rich; adorned with many things

### dah

### an echoic word, the referent of which is a tone interval approximately three times the length of the dot, used to designate the dash of Morse code (cf. dit)

### dàhòutiān (Mandarin)

### three days ahead (cf. dàqiántiān)

### dalliance

### a casual romantic or sexual relationship; a sexual relationship, not serious but often illicit; playful flirtation; amorous play; a wasting of time in idleness or trifles

### damascene

### to inlay a metal object with gold or silver patterns; to gild; a native or inhabitant of Damascus; relating to Damascus or the Damascenes; having a wavy pattern; sudden and significant

### damson

### a variety of small plum (Prunus insititia) or its fruit; a dark purple color

### dan

### a title of honour similar to master or father, used of historical and legendary figures of the past; a rank of black belt in martial arts; someone who has achieved a level of black belt; a small truck or sledge used in coal mines; a traditional South and East Asian unit of weight, based upon the load of a shoulder pole and varying by place and over time but usually standardized at about 60 kg

### dān tián (Mandarin)

### places in the body that are believed to be significant in the flow of qi; focal points for meditative exercises; moral indebtedness; duty, obligation; literally, energy center

### dana

### the virtue of generosity or giving, as a form of alms, in Indian philosophy

### dander

### loose scales formed on the skin and shed from the coat or feathers of various animals, often causing allergic reactions in susceptible persons; anger; temper

### dandle

### to move a baby, child, etc. lightly up and down, as on one's knee or in one's arms; to pet; to pamper

### dangling participle

### a participle (form of a verb that may function as an adjective or noun) that modifies another word or clause ambiguously, possibly causing confusion with regard to the speaker's intended meaning

### dapjeongneo (Korean)

### a question that only has one expected answer

### dapple

### a small contrasting spot or blotch; a mottled appearance, especially of the coat of an animal; to mark with patches of a color or shade; to spot

### dàqiántiān (Mandarin)

### three days ago (cf. dàhòutiān)

### dark energy

### a hypothetical form of energy, accounting for 73% of the total mass-energy of the universe, that permeates all of space and tends to accelerate the expansion, or inflation, of the universe; dark gravity

### dark matter

### a hypothetical type of matter, which neither emits nor absorbs light or other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level, hypothesized to account for 84% of the matter in the universe and 23% of its mass-energy

1

### darkle

### to make or become dark, indistinct, or gloomy; to unsparkle or anti-sparkle

### dastard

### a mean, sneaking coward; of or befitting a dastard; mean, sneaky, and cowardly

### data shadow

### the sum of all small traces of information that an individual leaves behind through everyday activities

### datsuzoku (Japanese)

### a break from daily routine; an escape from one's daily activities

### daunt

### to intimidate; to dishearten or discourage

### dauphin

### the eldest son of a king of France, used as a title from 1349 to 1830; an heir apparent

### dayeinu (Hebrew)

### it should be enough

### daymare

### a distressing experience, similar to a bad dream, occurring while one is awake; an acute anxiety attack

### de minimis non curat lex (Latin)

### the law does not concern itself with trifles; expression of the rule that the law will not remedy an injury that is minimal

### de profundis

### out of the depths (of sorrow, despair, etc.)

### dead reckoning

### the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time and course, making it potentially useful, but subject to cumulative errors

### deadstock

### merchandise that was never sold to or used by consumers before being removed from sale, usually because it was outdated; livestock animals that die before they can be slaughtered and made into meat or otherwise sold

### deasil

### clockwise; in a direction following the apparent course of the sun (ant. widdershins)

### deave

### to make deaf; deafen

### debag

### to strip the pants off someone as punishment or joke

### debark

### to remove the bark from a dog; to remove the bark from a log; to disembark

### debauchery

### excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures; intemperance

### debonair

### courteous, gracious, and having a sophisticated charm; suave; elegant; polished; urbane; jaunty; carefree; sprightly

### debouch

### to emerge from a narrow area into an open one

### debutante

### a person who makes a debut into a professional career or before the public; a young woman making a debut into society

### decant

### to pour, especially in a manner that the sediment is left behind; to rehouse people while their buildings are being rebuilt or refurbished

### decathect

### to withdraw one's feelings of attachment from a person, idea, or object in anticipation of a future loss

### declaim

### to speak rhetorically; to speak in a pompous manner; to recite with eloquence; to state with passion

### decoupage

### the art or technique of decorating something with cut-outs of paper, linoleum, plastic, or other flat material over which varnish or lacquer is applied

### decussate

### to intersect or to cross

### deepfake

### media that takes a person in an existing sound, image, or video and replaces them with someone else's likeness and/or voice; a convincingly realistic video or other media forgery

### defalcate

### to misuse funds; to embezzle

### defeasible

### capable of being revised, defeated, or annulled

### default mode network (DMN) (also default network, or default state network)

### a large-scale brain network best known to be active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering

### defenestrate

### to throw someone or something out of a window

### defunctive

### of or pertaining to the dead; funereal

### degrassé

### entranced and unsettled by the vastness of the universe

### degust

### to taste or savor carefully or appreciatively

### dehiscence

### the opening, at maturity, of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents

### dehortation

### a strongly-worded admonition beginning with never; neverism (antonym: exhortation)

### dein (Karen)

### a small hut in a rice field

déj-ku

### haiku that bear some relationship to other poems

déj vu (French)

the feeling of having experienced something before (cf. jamais vu: not remembering having actually experienced something)

### deke

### a fake or feint intended to deceive a defensive player, typically trying to draw that player out of position

### delectate

### to delight, to charm, to bring pleasure to; to take delight in, to take pleasure in

### delitescent

### concealed; hidden; latent

### demersal

### living near the bottom of a body of water

### demi-monde

### a group of people who live hedonistic lifestyles, usually in a flagrant and conspicuous manner; a group characterized by lack of success or status; a class of women who have lost their standing in respectable society because of indiscreet behavior or sexual promiscuity; prostitutes or courtesans in general; a group whose activities are ethically or legally questionable (literally, half-world)

### demisemiseptcentennial

175th anniversary

### demiurge

### the creator of a world; a supernatural being imagined as creating or fashioning the world in subordination to the Supreme Being, and sometimes regarded as the originator of evil; a public official or magistrate in Ancient Greece

### demographic shift

### a phenomenon that occurs when the median age of a country or region rises due to rising life expectancy and/or declining birth rates

### demographic transition

### the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system

### demonym

### a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place; gentilic

### demotic

### of or pertaining to the common people; popular

### demur

### to make objection, especially on the grounds of scruples; take exception; object

### dendrochronology

### the science dealing with the study of the annual rings of trees in determining the dates and chronological order of past events

### dendroid

### resembling, branching like, or shaped like a tree

### déniveler (French)

### to make uneven

### denizen

### an inhabitant; resident; a person who regularly frequents a place; habitué; anything adapted to a new place, condition, etc., as an animal or plant not indigenous to a place but successfully naturalized

### denouement

### the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot, as of a drama or novel; the place in the plot at which this occurs; the outcome or resolution of a doubtful series of occurrences

### dentulous

### having teeth

### deontology

### the normative ethical position that judges the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules; duty-, obligation-, or rule-based ethics

### dépaysement (French)

### the feeling that comes from not being in one's home country; disorientation felt in a foreign country or culture; feeling homesick for one's country or culture; countrysickness; nationsickness

### depilate

### to remove the hair from

### deployment of expedient means

### the technique of teaching each being according to its level of understanding; the tailoring of a message to fit with the ideological and personality features of an audience

### depone

### to testify under oath; depose

### depthless

### immeasurably deep; shallow; superficial

### deracinate

to tear something up by the roots; uproot; extirpate; to remove or separate from a native environment or culture; to force people from their homeland to a new or foreign location; to liberate or be liberated from a culture or its norms

### dérive (French)

### "a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances"; an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants drop their everyday relations and "let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there"

### derogate

### to detract, as from authority, estimation, etc.; to stray in character or conduct; degenerate; to disparage or belittle; to take away (a part) so as to impair the whole; to deviate from

### derry

### a meaningless refrain or chorus in old songs

### desacralize

### to deprive of hallowed status

### desbundar (Portuguese)

### shedding one's inhibitions in having fun

### descamisado

### a very poor person

### descant

### to talk tediously; a comment on a subject; an ornamental melody sung or played above a basic melody

### descry

### to catch sight of, especially something distant or obscure; to discern; to discover by observation; to detect

### desiccate

### to remove the moisture from something, especially food, typically to preserve it; to dry; to preserve by drying; lacking interest, passion, or energy

### desideratum

### something considered necessary or desirable

### desiderium

### an ardent longing, as for something lost

### desinence

### a termination or ending

### destinating

### arriving at its destination; incoming

### destinesia

### the experience of arriving at a destination, whether physical or virtual, only to realize you've forgotten why you wanted or needed to go there

### desuetude

### a state of disuse

### desultory

### lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order; disconnected; fitful; digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; tangential; random

### detournement

### a perspective-jarring turnabout in your everyday life

### deuced

### devilish; confounded; damned

### deunx (Latin)

### eleven-twelfths

### deus ex machina

### in ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot; any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot

### devekut (Hebrew)

### a form of Jewish ecstatic prayer that incorporates singing, dancing, and storytelling; a deep, trance-like meditative state attained during Jewish prayer, Torah study, or when performing holy deeds

### dextrocular

### favoring the right eye by habit or for effective vision

### dharma

### the eternal and inherent nature of reality, regarded in Hinduism as a cosmic law underlying right behavior and social order; the nature of reality regarded as a universal truth taught by the Buddha; cosmic law and order; the teaching of Buddhism; an aspect of truth or reality; the body of doctrine pertaining to the purification and moral transformation of human beings; the path of righteousness and proper religious practice (antonym: adharma)

### dhyāna (Sanskrit, or jhāna in Pali)

the training of the mind, commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions, and leading to a state of perfect equanimity and awareness; profound meditation which is the penultimate stage (7th limb) of yoga; effortless concentration

### diacritic

### a mark, point, or sign added or attached to a letter or character to distinguish it from another of similar form, to give it a particular phonetic value, to indicate stress, etc., as an accent, cedilla, circumflex, macron, tilde, or umlaut

### diadem

### a crown; a cloth headband, sometimes adorned with jewels; royal dignity or authority

### dialectical bootstrapping

### an individual generating multiple perspectives; the wisdom of many in one mind; one person generating different ideas and opinions

### dialectics

two (or more) phenomena that mutually imply, support, reinforce, or reproduce each other; evolving interrelationships; interbeing (cf. trialectics and multilectics)

### diametrical

### of, pertaining to, or along a diameter; in direct opposition; being at opposite extremes; complete

### diaphanous

### very sheer and light; almost completely transparent or translucent; delicately hazy

### Dickensian

### of or relating to Charles Dickens or his works; relating to social conditions marked by poverty, social injustice, mistreatment of children, etc.

### dictery

### a witty saying or quote

### dictionary

### a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and/or other information; a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another; a lexicon

### dictionary thumping

### the practice of randomly following a trail of words in the dictionary

### didact

### one overinclined to instruct others

### didactic

### intended for instruction; instructive; inclined to teach or lecture others too much; teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson

### didactics

### the art or science of teaching

### didymous

### occurring in pairs; twin

### diegogarcity

### a term used to denote the appearance of another term, often in multiple sources, shortly after you have learned it; Baader-Meinhof; synchronicity

### diel

### of or relating to a 24-hour period, especially a regular daily cycle, as of the physiology or behavior of an organism

### dieresis

### the separation of two adjacent vowels, dividing one syllable into two; a sign (¨) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate separate pronunciation, as in one spelling of the older forms naïve and coöperate; the division made in a line or verse by coincidence of the end of a foot and the end of a word

### dietary didacticism

### the belief that meat-eating and cruelty to animals signifies and amplies a cruel disposition in the perpetrators, which leads to the natural retributive justice of mental and physical disorders; admonitory advice about food

### dietetics

### the science concerned with the nutritional planning and preparation of foods

### dietrologia (Italian)

### conspiracy theory; the search for hidden motives; the belief that hidden dimensions underlie surface reality; the art of finding dark, ulterior motives behind the most obvious decisions

### diffident

### hesitant in acting or speaking; reserved, unassertive; uncertain

### diffluence

### the act of flowing off or away; the act or process of dissolving into a liquid; liquefaction; deliquescence; the rate at which fluid flow diverges along an axis perpendicular to the direction of flow at a given point

### diin (Arabic)

### an ideologically founded way of life

### diktat (Russian)

### an order or decree imposed without popular consent; a harsh settlement imposed upon a defeated party

### dilatory

### tending to put off what ought to be done at once; given to procrastination; marked by procrastination or delay; intended to cause delay

### dilettante

### one who takes up an activity or interest in a superficial or casual way; a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge; superficial; amateurish

### dilogy

### the use of an ambiguous or equivocal expression; repetition of a word or phrase, in the same context

### dimorphism

### the occurrence of two forms distinct in structure, coloration, etc., among animals of the same species

### dinheiro do bêbado (Brazilian Portuguese)

### drunkard's money; crumpled currency that was stuffed into a pocket outside of a wallet

### Dionysian

### of, pertaining to, or honoring Dionysus or Bacchus; Bacchanalian; recklessly uninhibited; unrestrained; undisciplined; frenzied; orgiastic; of or relating to the set of creative qualities that encompasses spontaneity, irrationality, the rejection of discipline, etc.

### dipsomania

### an insatiable, periodic craving for alcohol

### dirge

### a song of lamentation; a lament for the dead, especially one forming part of a funeral rite; a mournful song, piece of music, or poem; threnos; a threnody

### dirigisme

### an economy in which the government exerts strong directive influence

### disabuse

### to free from a mistaken belief or error

### disaffect

### to alienate the support or loyalty of someone

### discombobulate

### to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate; to throw into confusion

### discomfit

### to confuse and deject; disconcert; to frustrate the plans of; thwart; foil; to take the fruit or nuts out of a piece of candy

### discourse

### the production of knowledge through language; mechanism by which knowledge and power are dialectically related

### discreet

### judicious in one's conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect; showing prudence and circumspection; decorous; modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious

### discrete

### apart or detached from others; separate; distinct; consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous

### discursive

### jumping from topic to topic; rambling; proceeding logically, using reason or argument rather than emotion

### disfluency (also dysfluency)

### impairment of the ability to produce smooth, fluent speech; an interruption in the smooth flow of speech, as by a pause, making as sound (e.g., um, uh, er, eh), or the repetition of a word or syllable

### disport

### to divert or amuse oneself; a diversion or amusement

### dispositive

### relating to or bringing about the settlement of a case

### disprize

### to disdain or scorn

### dissemble

### to give a false or misleading appearance to; to conceal the truth or real nature of; feign; to conceal one's true motives, thoughts, etc., by some pretense; speak or act hypocritically

### dissensus

### the state of being in disagreement; difference of opinion; disagreement; quarrel; dissension; conflict; widespread disagreement, dissatisfaction, or dissent

### dissimulate

### to disguise one's intentions, thoughts, motives, etc. by pretense; to disguise or conceal under a false appearance; dissemble; speak or act hypocritically

### dissonance

### a harsh, discordant combination of sounds; conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding; a state of disagreement or conflict

### dissolute

### indifferent to moral restraints; given to immoral or improper conduct; licentious; dissipated

### dissuade

### to convince someone not to do something

### disinter

### to remove from a grave; to bring to light

### disinterested

### impartial; objective

### dispositive

### involving or affecting disposition or settlement

### disquisition

### a long or elaborate essay or discussion on a particular subject; a lengthy, formal discourse that analyses or explains some topic; a dissertation or treatise; a formal discussion on a subject: discourse

### dissemble

### to give a false or misleading appearance to; conceal the truth or real nature of; to put on the appearance of; feign; to conceal one's true motives, thoughts, etc., by some pretense; to speak or act hypocritically

### distaff

### of or relating to women; women considered collectively; a woman's work or domain; a staff for holding flax, wool, etc. for spinning

### dit

### an echoic word, the referent of which is a click or brief tone interval, used to designate the dot of Morse code (cf. dah)

### dithyramb

### any wildly enthusiastic speech or writing; a Greek choral song or chant of vehement or wild character and of usually irregular form

### divagate

### to wander, stray, or digress; a major scandal involving a diva

### divaricate

### to branch off or diverge; branched off or diverging widely

### divertimento

### an instrumental composition in several movements, light and diverting in character, similar to a serenade

### divertissement

### a diversion or entertainment

### divulgate

### to make publicly known; publish

### divulgo (Latin)

### to spread amongst the people

### divulse

### to tear away or apart

### DIY

### do-it-yourself

### dizen

### to attire with finery; to dress or decorate in a gaudy manner

### doček (Serbo-Croatian)

### a gathering organized at someone's arrival (but not necessarily a positive one, like a welcome party)

### doch (German)

### this statement is true, although someone is denying it; on the contrary; an affirmative answer to a negative statement; yet (toch in Dutch)

### Doctorow's Law

### anytime someone puts a lock on something you own, against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key, they're not doing it for your benefit

### doggerel

### comic or burlesque verse, and usually loose or irregular in measure; rude and crude

### doggo

### still and quiet

### dogmatic

### expressing beliefs or opinions forcefully or positively as if they were true

### dol

### a unit of measurement for pain equal to one "just noticeable difference"; fraud committed to induce another to make a contract

### dolce far niente (Italian)

### it is sweet to do nothing

### dolo (Latin)

### by means of trickery

### dolorous

### full of, expressing, or causing pain or sorrow; grievous; mournful

### donaldkacsázás (Hungarian)

### wearing a shirt but no pants nor underpants at home; literally, Donald Duck-ing

### donnybrook

### an inordinately wild fight or contentious dispute; free-for-all fair; brawl; riot; bedlam

### doomsday cult

### a group that prophesies catastrophe and destruction or one that attempts to bring it about

### dopodomani (Italian)

### after tomorrow

### doppelgänger

### a person's counterpart, double, twin, or alter ego

### dor (Romanian)

### missing something; someone gone and not available at that time

### dord

### density

### Dorito Effect

### how a decades-long quest to create inexpensive, plentiful food has robbed it of both nutrition and inherent flavor, which is then replaced with flavorings created in labs

### dormiveglia (Italian)

### the state of being half-asleep or half-awake; the experience between sleeping and waking

### dorsal

### situated on the back; situated on or toward the upper side of the body, equivalent to the back, or posterior

### doryphore

### a pedantic or persistent critic

### dosology

### the study of the dosages of drugs, especially the determination of appropriate dosages; posology

### dostadning (Swedish)

### the act of slowly and steadily decluttering one's home as the years go by; decluttering before death

### dotage

a decline of mental faculties, especially associated with old age; senility; excessive fondness; foolish affection (cf. nonage)

### dotard

### a person, especially an old person, exhibiting a decline in mental faculties; a weak-minded or foolish old person

### double consciousness

### "looking at one's self through the eyes of others"; "measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity"; "two-ness"; "two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals" (W.E.B. DuBois)

### douce

### sedate; modest; quiet

### doughty

### steadfastly courageous and resolute; valiant

### dowager

### a widow with a title or property derived from her dead husband; an elderly woman of wealth and dignity

### dowie (Scottish and North English)

### dull; melancholy; dismal

### dowse

### to search for underground water or minerals with a divining rod

### dox

### to research and broadcast personally identifiable information about an individual

### doxa (Greek)

### common belief or popular opinion

### doxastic

### of or relating to belief

### doyen

### one who is the senior member of a group, class, or profession

### drachenfutter (German)

### a gift given to one's significant other after severely messing up (literally, dragon food)

### dragoman

### an interpreter or guide (especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages)

### drapetomania

### an overwhelming urge to run away; a conjectural mental illness that was hypothesized as the cause of black slaves fleeing captivity

### dreadnought

### a type of battleship armed with heavy-caliber guns in turrets; an outer garment of heavy woolen cloth; a thick cloth with a long pile

### dreamt

### past tense of dream; the only word in regular English usage to end with -mt

### dreck

### worthless trash; junk; excrement; dung

### dregs

### he remnants of a liquid left in a container, together with any sediment or grounds; the most worthless part or parts of something

### dringle

### the watermark left by a glass of liquid; cf. culaccino (Italian)

### drishti (Sanskrit)

### a view or gaze, especially one at a single point

### droke (Canadian)

### a valley with steeply sloping sides

### droog

### a member of a gang

### drumlin

a long, narrow, whale-shaped hill of gravel, rock, and clay debris, formed by the movement of a glacier (cf. cirque, cwm, esker, fjord, moraine)

### dubiety

### doubtfulness or uncertainty

### ductile

### malleable; able to change form without breaking

### dudgeon

### a feeling of offense or resentment; anger; state or fit of intense indignation; ill humor

### duende

### a quality of passion and inspiration; a goblin; demon; spirit; charm; magnetism

### duke (Scots)

### to cut in line

### dulcarnon

### the person in a dilemma

### dulcify

### to make more agreeable; mollify; appease; to sweeten

### dulcinea

### a ladylove; sweetheart

### dum

### cooked with steam; syllable used when humming a tune

### dun

### to make persistent demands for payment, especially for a debt

### dunandunate

### to overuse a word or phrase that has been recently added to one's vocabulary; to learn a word and then use it incessantly

### Dunning-Kruger effect

### a cognitive bias whereby unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate, due to a metacognitive inability of the ignorant and unskilled to recognize their ignorance and ineptitude; above average effect; superiority bias; leniency error; sense of relative superiority; the primus inter pares effect [first among equals effect]; Lake Wobegon effect

### dunt

### a hard blow or hit, especially one that makes a dull sound; thump; the injury caused by such a blow; to crack ceramic because of excessively rapid cooling

### duoliteral

### having two letters

### duple

### having two parts; double; twofold; having two or sometimes a multiple of two beats in a measure

### dux

### the pupil who is academically first in a class or school; a military chief commanding the troops in a frontier province

### dwaal (Afrikaans)

### a dreamy, dazed, or absent-minded state; a trance

### dwam

a stupor or daydream; reverie; a fainting spell or sudden attack of illness; to faint or swoon; a trance or daydreaming state

### dwarsligger (Dutch)

### a book printed with text parallel to the spine of a conventional 12cm book; a type of book that read pleasantly, was easy to carry, and did not collapse; railway sleeper; sleeper; crossbeam; fractious person; cross-grained; cross-patch

### dxʷshudičup (Coast Salish)

### one lighting the fires for change and unity

### dybbuk (Yiddish)

### the malevolent spirit of a dead person which enters and controls a living body until exorcized or no longer necessary

### dynamo

### an electric generator, especially for direct current; an energetic, hardworking, forceful person

### dysania

### a state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning

### dyscalculia

### difficulty in learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, and learning facts in mathematics, along with difficulties with time, measurement, and spatial reasoning (cf. dyslexia)

### dyslexia

### a learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing, and spelling; a word difficult to read, write, and spell, especially if one has this condition

### dyspeptic

### relating to or suffering from indigestion; having a bad temper; gloomy; irritable

### dysphemism

### the substitution of a harsh, disparaging, impolite, or unpleasant word or expression for a more neutral one; a word or expression so substituted (antonym: euphemism)

### dyspraxia

### inability to perform coordinated movements

### dysthymia

### a mood disorder consisting of the same cognitive and physical problems as in depression, with less severe but longer-lasting symptoms; a mild depression

### "Words are power. ... Be careful what power you get from [them]. But know that you do."

— Yoko Ono

### e

### he, she, or other; a pronoun referring to an individual regardless of sex or gender; cf. ze

### earworm

### involuntary musical imagery; the phenomenon of a song or piece of music getting stuck in one's head; a constant loop of fifteen to twenty seconds of music lodged in one's head for at least a few hours

### eblandish

### to get by coaxing

### eccedentesiast

### a person who hides feelings, especially sorrow or pain, behind a smile

### ecdysiast

### a person or thing that strips; a person who performs a striptease

### echt (German)

### authentic (opposite of ersatz)

### echolalia

### the imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development; the uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person

### ecotopia

### an ecologically ideal place

### ectype

### a reproduction; copy

### edacious

### devouring; voracious

### edacity

### greediness; big appetite

### edentulous

### without teeth

### educe

### to draw forth or bring out, as something potential or latent; to infer or deduce

### eesome

### pleasing to the eye; attractive

### effable

### utterable; expressible; able to be spoken of; able to be expressed

### efface

### to cause to disappear by rubbing out, striking out, etc.; to erase; to render illegible or indiscernible; to destroy, as a mental impression; to wipe out; to eliminate completely; to make (oneself) inconspicuous

### efferent

### conveying or conducting away from an organ or part (opposed to afferent); an efferent part, as a nerve or blood vessel

### effervescent

### giving off bubbles; bubbly; fizzy; vivacious; enthusiastic

### effete

### lacking in wholesome vigor; degenerate; decadent; exhausted of vigor or energy; worn out; unable to produce; sterile

### effloresce

### to burst into bloom; blossom; in chemistry, to change either throughout or on the surface to a mealy or powdery substance upon exposure to air, as a to change either throughout or on the surface to a mealy or powdery substance upon exposure to air, as a crystalline substance through loss of water of crystallization

### effluvia

### slight or invisible exhalations or vapor, esp. ones that are disagreeable or noxious; odorous fumes given off by waste or decaying matter; byproduct or residue; waste

### effulgent

### shining forth brilliantly; radiant

### eggcorn

### an erroneous alteration of a word or phrase, by replacing an original word with a similar sounding word, such that the new word or phrase also makes a kind of sense

### egress

### the act or an instance of going, especially from an enclosed place; a means or place of going out; an exit; the right or permission to go out; to go out; emerge (antonym: ingress)

### eidetic

of, pertaining to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail; marked by or resulting from extraordinary ability to recall detailed and vivid images

### eidolon

### an idealized person or thing

### eidos

### the formal sum of a culture, its intellectual character, ideas, etc. (plural eide)

### eiron

### a person characterized by self-deprecation and awareness of irony

### eisegesis

### an interpretation of a text, especially Scripture, that expresses the interpreter's own ideas, bias, or the like, rather than the meaning of the text; reading something into a text that isn't there (cf. exegesis)

### eisenbahnscheinbewegung (German)

### the false sensation of movement when, looking out from a stationary train, you see another train depart

### ekistics

### the study of human settlements, drawing on such disciplines as city planning, architecture, sociology, etc.

### ekphrasis (or ecphrasis)

### the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art

### élan

### zeal inspired by passion or enthusiasm; impetuous ardor

### eldritch

### unnaturally strange; other-worldly; eerily weird and unsettling; eerie; weird; spooky

### eleemosynary

### relating to charity; charitable; of or relating to alms, charity, or charitable donations; derived from or provided by charity; dependent on or supported by charity

### elegiac

### expressing sorrow or lamentation

### elegy

### poem composed as a lament for the dead

### eleutheromania (or eleutherophilia)

### a mania or frantic zeal for freedom

### elfin

### of or like an elf; small and charmingly spritely, merry, or mischievous; an elf

### elide

### to suppress; omit; ignore; pass over; eliminate; abridge; to strike out; annul; quash

### elision

### the omission of a vowel, consonant, or syllable in pronunciation; the omission of a vowel at the end of one word when the next word begins with a vowel; an act or instance of eliding or omitting anything

### elixir

### panacea  
cure-all; remedy; a sweetened, aromatic solution of alcohol and water containing, or used as a vehicle for, medicinal substances; the quintessence or absolute embodiment of anything

### ellipsis

### a mark consisting of three periods, historically with spaces in between, before, and after them " . . . ", but more recently a single character "..."

### ellipsism

### the property of containing omission; the sadness that one will never know how history turns out

### elucubration

### studying or writing by firelight

### elusion

### evasion; avoidance

### elutriate

### to purify by washing and straining or decanting

### elysian

### relating to or characteristic of heaven or paradise; heavenly; blissful; delightful

### emanata

### lines drawn around the head to indicate shock or surprise

### ember months

### the final four months of the calendar year; the months from September to December that are usually considered together as a period of heightened or intense activity, especially in Nigeria

### embiggen

### to enlarge or grow; to make or become bigger

### embodied cognition

### the belief that the motor system influences our cognition, just as the mind influences bodily actions; the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of the entire body of the organism; mind-body connection

### embonpoint

### excessive plumpness; stoutness

### embosom

### to draw to or into one's bosom; to treasure; to cherish; to foster; to enclose, surround, or protect

### embouchure

### the mouth of a river; the opening out of a valley into a plain; the mouthpiece of a wind instrument; the adjustment of a player's mouth to such a mouthpiece

### embox

### to enclose in a box; as if in a box

### embrangle

### to confuse

### emend

### to free from faults or errors; correct

### emeritus (fem: emerita; plural: emeritae)

### retired but retaining an honorary title

### emersion

### the act or an instance of emerging; the reappearance of a celestial body after an eclipse or occultation; egress

### emetic

### causing vomiting, as a medicinal substance

### emollient

### having the quality of softening or soothing the skin; a preparation that softens the skin

### emolument

### the returns arising from office or employment, usually in the form of compensation or perquisites; salary, wages; payment, salary, or fees from an office or employment

### emotional intelligence

### the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically; the ability to identify, understand, and manage emotions; EQ

### empathy

### identifying understanding of another's experience; feeling another's emotions

### empirical

### information acquired by means of observation or experimentation

### emulous

### eager to imitate, equal, or to surpass another; jealous or envious

### emunah (Hebrew)

### faith; a certainty in uncertainty

### empyreal

### celestial; of the sky; related to the highest heaven; elevated; formed of pure fire or light

### empyreuma

### the smell of burnt organic matter

### enaction

the manner in which a subject of perception creatively matches its actions to the requirements of its situation; cognition is not the representation of a pre-given world by a pre-given mind but is rather the enactment of a world and a mind on the basis of a history of the variety of actions that a being in the world performs; experience of the world is a result of mutual interaction between the sensorimotor capacities of the organism and its environment

### enation

### an outgrowth

### enchiridion

### a handbook or a manual

### enceinte

### pregnant; with child

### enclitic

### a monosyllabic word or form that is treated as a suffix of the preceding word

### encomium

### a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly; glowing praise; a formal expression of high praise; eulogy

### endemic

### natural to or characteristic of a specific people or place; native; indigenous; belonging exclusively or confined to a particular place

### endogenous

### having an internal cause or origin

### endonym

### a name given by members of a particular ethnolinguistic group to the group itself, its language or dialect, and/or its homeland or a specific place within it; autonym (cf. exonym)

### endoxa

### commonly held beliefs accepted by the wise, by elder rhetors, and/or by the public in general

### energy turn

### the shift from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels and potentially-disastrous nuclear power to safe, clean, more decentralized renewable power

### enervate

### to deprive of force or strength; destroy the vigor of; weaken; enfeeble, debilitate, sap, exhaust

### engentado (Spanish)

### to be disturbed by being around too many people; peopled out; needing to be alone or quiet after being around too many people; dazed

### engkanto (Tagalog)

### mythical environmental spirits, like elves that live in trees

### engram

### the supposed physical basis of an individual memory in the brain; a presumed encoding in neural tissue that provides a physical basis for the persistence of memory; a memory trace; neural pathway

### enjambment

### the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza; incomplete syntax at the end of a line, where the meaning runs over from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation, without being end-stopped

### enjoin

### to order or prescribe a course of action; to forbid or restrain

### ennui

### a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom (cf. anhedonia)

### enormity

### the great or extreme scale, seriousness, or extent of something perceived as bad or morally wrong; a grave crime or sin

### énouement

### the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, when you can finally get the answers to how things turn out in the real world

### enraonar (Catalan)

### to discuss in a civilised, reasoned manner

### ensimismada (Spanish)

### self-involved

### ensorcell

### to enchant; to bewitch

### entelechy

### perfect realization as opposed to potentiality; a vital force propelling one to self-fulfillment; the realization or complete expression of some function; the condition in which a potentiality has become an actuality

### entheogen

### generating the divine within; a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context that induces altered states of consciousness

### entitative

### considered as pure entity, abstracted from all attendant circumstances

### enthymeme

### an argument in which one premise is not explicitly stated; a rhetorical syllogism (a three-part deductive argument) used in oratorical practice; an incomplete argument of forms other than the syllogism; a less-than-100% argument

### entoptic

### relating to images that originate within the eye (as opposed to images resulting from the light entering the eye), such as floaters

### entrain

### to board a train; incorporate and sweep along in its flow; cause or bring about as a consequence; of a rhythm or something that varies rhythmically causing another gradually to fall into synchronism with it; to fall into synchronism with something; getting in sync; interbeing; to draw along as a current does; to suspend small particles in the current of a fluid; to set up or propagate a signal, such as an oscillation; to encarriage, to conjoin, to link; to become trained or conditioned in a pattern of brain behavior

### entrepot

### a place, such as a warehouse, port, or trading center, to which goods are brought for distribution to other parts of the world

### entresemana (Spanish)

### on a weekday

### entropy

### a doctrine of inevitable decline, disorder, degeneration, and decay; lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder (cf. enthalpy; antonym: negentropy)

### enucleation

### surgical removal of the entire eye

### enuresis

### lack of control of urination, especially during sleep; bed-wetting; urinary incontinence

### eolian

### relating to or arising fro the action of the wind

### eon (or aeon)

### an indefinitely long period of time; an age; the largest division of geologic time, comprising two or more eras; one billion years

### epact

### the difference in days (~11) between a solar year (~365) and a lunar year (~354)

### epanalepsis

### a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated after intervening text

### epanorthosis

### immediate rephrasing of something said to correct it or to make it stronger

### epenthesis

### the insertion of a phoneme, letter, or syllable into a word, usually to satisfy the phonological constraints of a language or poetic context

### epexegesis

### the addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence; the word or words so added

### ephebe

### a young man

### ephemeral

### lasting only a short time; evanescent

### ephor (Spartan)

### one who is democratically elected to watch over a king

### epicanthic

### of or relating to a fold of skin that partially covers the corner of the eye (canthus); figuratively, East Asian

### epicene

### belonging to, or partaking of, the characteristics of, both sexes; hermaphroditic; of neither sex; sexless; lacking gender distinction; androgynous

### epicenter

### the point on the earth's surface vertically above the focus of an earthquake; the central point of something

### epicurean

### fond of or adapted to luxury or indulgence in sensual pleasures; having luxurious tastes or habits, especially in eating and drinking; hedonistic

### epidemiological transition

### a phase of development witnessed by a sudden and stark increase in population growth rates brought about by medical innovation in disease or sickness therapy and treatment, followed by a re-leveling of population growth from subsequent declines in fertility rates

### epigenetics

the study of the way in which the expression of heritable traits is modified by environmental influences or other mechanisms without a change to the DNA sequence; the study of the process by which genetic information is translated into the substance and behavior of an organism; the phenomenon of switching genes on and off due to environmental factors

### epigone

### an undistinguished imitator, follower, or successor of an important or reknowned writer, painter, artist, musician, etc.

### epigraph

### an inscription on a building or statue; a quotation introducing a book or a chapter

### epigram

### a short witty saying, often in verse

### epilimnion

### the surface of the water

### epiphanot

### an idea that seems like an amazing insight to the conceiver, but is in fact pointless, mundane, stupid, or incorrect; a false epiphany

### epiphany

### a sudden realization of the meaning or essence of something

### epiphenomenon

### a secondary phenomenon, one resulting from another

### epistemology

### the theories, nature, value, and scope of knowledge; the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion

### epistolary

### of or relating to letters; composed of letters

### epistrophe (epiphora)

### the repetition of a word or words at the end of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences, especially for emphasis (cf. anaphora)

### equable

### not easily upset; tranquil; uniform; steady; free from extremes

### equanimity

### evenness of temper in all circumstances; mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation; lojong; upekha; samatha

### equifinal

### having the same end, effect, outcome, or result from initially different events

### equipoise

### a state of balance; equality in distribution, as of weight, relationship, or emotional forces; equilibrium; a counterpoise; a counterbalance

### equivocate

### to be vague or ambiguous, especially in order to mislead

### eremite

### a recluse, especially for religious reasons

### erinaceous

### of, pertaining to, or resembling a hedgehog

### eristic (eristical)

### pertaining to controversy or disputation; controversial; a person who engages in disputation; controversialist; the art of disputation; a type of dialogue or argument where the participants do not have any reasonable goal and the aim is to argue for the sake of conflict

### errant

### traveling, especially in search of adventure; erring, straying, or moving aimlessly

### ersatz

### artificial substitute; imitation; simulated; counterfeit; synthetic; something similar in a superficial way

### erstwhile

### former; of times past

### erubescent

### becoming red or reddish; blushing

### eruct

### to belch; to expel; to emit or issue forcefully or violently

### erudite

### having or showing great knowledge or learning; scholarly

### erumpent

### bursting forth; prominent; projecting from or bursting through host tissue

### escape velocity

### the speed needed to "break free" from the gravitational attraction of a massive body, without further propulsion, i.e., without spending more fuel

### eschatology

### any system of doctrines concerning last, or final, matters, as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc.; the branch of theology dealing with such matters

### esculent

### something edible, especially a vegetable; suitable for use as food; edible

### escutcheon

### a shield or shield-like surface on which a coat of arms is depicted; an ornamental or protective plate around a keyhole, door handle, drawer pull, light switch, etc.; reputation; one's pubic hair distribution

### esoteric

### ideas preserved or understood by a small group of those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest; inner-group knowledge; exploration of the hidden meanings and symbolism in various philosophical, historical, and religious texts

### esperanto (Esperanto)

### one who is hoping

### esperto (Portuguese)

### on the ball; quick-witted; with-it; canny; street smarts; having common sense; cunning; intuitive; imaginative; someone who gets things done

### esprit d'escalier (French)

### thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit; wisdom acquired after an event; treppenwitz

### espy

### to catch sight of; to perceive with the eyes; to discover, as a distant object partly concealed, or not obvious to notice; to see at a glance; to discern unexpectedly; to spy

### esse

### being; existence

### estival

### relating to or occurring in summer

### estivate

### to enter a state of torpor, or dormancy, in the summer; to pass the summer in a dormant state

### estrenar (Spanish)

### to have the feeling of confidence one gets when wearing new clothes

### estrus

### regular periodic state of heightened sexual arousal or receptivity in the female of most mammals that immediately precedes ovulation and during which the female is most receptive to mating; sexual receptivity; heat (cf. musth)

### ethereal

### delicate; spiritual; heavenly; not of this world

### ethnocentrism

### judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture (cf. chauvinism; xenophobia)

### etiolate

### to make pale by preventing exposure to sunlight; to make weak by stunting the growth of; to become pale, weak, or stunted

### etiology

### any study of origination, causes, causation, or causality

### étude

### a musical composition, usually instrumental, intended mainly for the practice of some point of technique; study

### etymological fallacy

### to insist that a word should mean the same as when it was coined

### etymology

### the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their forms and meanings have changed over time; the derivation of a word; a chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating its spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning; the study of historical linguistic change, especially as manifested in individual words

### eucatastrophe

a sudden, favourable resolution of events; a happy ending; the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears

### eudemonia

### a state of pleasant well-being; happiness; a state of excellence characterized by objective flourishing across a lifetime, and brought about through the exercise of moral virtue, practical wisdom, and rationality; the greatest good for an individual human being; a life of love, meaning, and purpose

### eueconomics

### an economics that focuses on the best economy and economic conditions that support the best society and benefits the most people; positive economics

### euhemerism

### the idea that gods are based on historical heroes whose stories became exaggerated in retelling

### eukaryote

### any organism having as its fundamental structural unit a cell type that contains specialized organelles in the cytoplasm, a membrane-bound nucleus enclosing genetic material organized into chromosomes, and an elaborate system of division by mitosis or meiosis, characteristic of all life forms except bacteria, blue-green algae, and other primitive microorganisms; eukaryote

### eumoirous

### happiness from being honest

### euneirophrenia

### a good state of mind after sleeping; the peaceful state of mind after a pleasant dream

### eunoia

### a healthy mental state; beautiful thinking; a well mind (n.b., the shortest word with all the vowels)

### eupolity

### a political system that focuses on the best political conditions that support the best society and benefits the most people

### eupsychology

### a psychology of health and wellness; positive psychology

### eurythmy

### an expressive movement art, primarily a performance art, as part of anthroposophic medicine for claimed therapeutic purposes

### eurytopic

### able to adapt only to a wide range of environmental conditions (antonym stenotopic)

### eusociology

### a sociology of the wellness and betterment of social groups and the individuals therein; positive sociology

### eustress

### stress that is deemed healthful or giving one the feeling of fulfillment

### euthenics

### a science concerned with bettering the condition of human beings through the improvement of their environment

### eutaxy

### good or established order or arrangement; proper management

### eutony

### the pleasantness of a word's sound

### eutrapely

### pleasantness in conversation; liveliness and ease of conversation

### evanescent

### vanishing; fading away; fleeting; tending to become imperceptible; ephemeral or transitory

### event horizon

### a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer; the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible; point of no return

### event-process

### any event is also in a process, in the same way that light is both particle and wave

### evince

### to show clearly; make evident or manifest; prove; to reveal the possession of a quality, trait, etc.

### evitable

### contingent; up for debate; capable of being avoided or evaded

### evolution

### any process of formation or growth; development; change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift; a process of gradual, peaceful, progressive change or development, as in social or economic structure or institutions

### ex post facto

### done or made afterward, especially when having retroactive effect

### exanthem (or exanthema)

### a breaking out

### exaptation

### a term used in evolutionary biology to describe a trait that has been co-opted for a use other than the one for which natural selection has built it; using something for a purpose it was not originally intended for

### excipient

### an inactive substance that serves as the vehicle or medium for a drug; the material or surface that receives the pigments in painting

### excoriate

### to denounce or berate severely; flay verbally; to strip off or remove the skin from; flay

### excrescence

### an outgrowth or enlargement on an animal or vegetable, especially an abnormal one

### exculpate

### to clear from alleged fault or guilt

### execrable

### utterly detestable; abominable; abhorrent; deplorable

### exegesis

### critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text; an exposition or explanation of a text, especially a religious one; hermeneutics; reading out (cf. eisegesis)

### exeleutherostomize

### to speak out freely

### exfiltrate

### to escape furtively from an area under enemy control

### exigent

### requiring urgent attention; pressing; demanding

### exiguity

### smallness; thinness; the quality of being meager

### exiguous

### scanty; small; slender

### exilarch

### the head of a community in exile

### eximious

### select; choice; outstanding; exceptional

### exine (or extine)

### the outer coat of a spore, especially a pollen grain

### existentialism

### a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will; a philosophical attitude, opposed to rationalism and empiricism, that stresses the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices

### exogenous

### relating to or developing from external factors

### exonym

### an external name for a geographical place, group of people, or language/dialect: a common name used only outside the place, group or linguistic community in question, usually for historical reasons; xenonym (cf. endonym)

### exorable

### capable of being persuaded or moved

### exordium

### the beginning or introductory part of anything, especially of a discourse, treatise, etc.

### exoteric

### suitable for or communicated to the general public; not belonging, limited, or pertaining to the inner or select circle, as of disciples or intimates; popular; simple; commonplace

### expatiate

### to speak or write at length; be copious in description or discussion; to move about freely; to move or wander about intellectually, imaginatively, etc. without restraint

### expectorate

### to spit; to eject by coughing

### exponential

### whenever a quantity grows or decays at a rate proportional to its current value

### expostulate

### to reason earnestly with someone against something that person intends to do or has done

### expurge

### to purge; to purify

### extant

### in existence; still existing; not destroyed or lost

### extenuate

### to represent (a fault, offense, etc.) as less serious; to underestimate, underrate, or make light of

### extirpate

### to remove or destroy totally; do away with; exterminate; uproot

### extrapolate

### to infer an unknown from something that is known

### extremophile

### an organism that thrives in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on Earth (cf. acidophile and alkaliphile; antonym: mesophile and neutrophile)

### exulansis

### the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it

### exumbilication

### a pronounced protrusion of the navel

### eyen

### archaic plural of eye

### "Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power."

— Sigmund Freud

### fabaceous

### bean-like

### Fabian strategy

### a military strategy where pitched battles and frontal assaults are avoided in favor of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition and indirection (while avoiding decisive battles, the side employing this strategy harasses its enemy through skirmishes to cause attrition, disrupt supply and affect morale); guerilla warfare

### fabulate

### to tell invented stories; to create fables or stories filled with fantasy; to relate an event as a fable

### fabulist

### a writer or teller of fables; a liar

### fachidiot (German)

### an extreme specialist who only knows about their field, and doesn't know or care about what happens around them otherwise

### facinorous

### exceedingly wicked

### factious

### creating by way of being divisive

### factitious

### produced artificially, in distinction from what is produced by nature; artificial; not authentic or genuine; sham

### factive

### presupposing the truth of an embedded sentence that serves as complement, as in I didn't realize that he had left, which presupposes that it is true that he had left

### factoid

### something false but presented as true and often believed due to repetition; "a fact which has no existence on Earth other than that what's appeared in the newspaper and then gets repeated for ever after" (erroneously used to describe a small, trivial, or ephemeral fact) (cf. paranym; truthiness; alternative fact)

### factorage

### activity of buying and selling for another; commission or fee paid to a factor

### factotum

### a person who serves in many capacities

### facture

### the act, process, or manner of making anything; construction; the thing made

### fadā (Arabic)

### to fart quietly (cf. silent but deadly)

### faff

### to waste time without accomplishing much; fuss; activity perceived as a waste of time

### fagin

### one who trains others, especially children, in crime

### fain

### gladly; willingly; content; rejoiced; well-pleased

### fakir

### an ascetic mendicant, especially one who performs feats of endurance or apparent magic; faqir

### falcate

### curved like a scythe or sickle; hooked; falciform; sickle-shaped

### famn (Swedish)

### the area or space within two embracing arms; cf. colo (Portuguese)

### famulus

### an assistant to a wizard or scholar

### fana (Arabic)

### annihilation of the self to become one with one's object of desire

### fandango

### a lively Spanish dance in triple time; a piece of music for this dance; a foolish or silly behavior, act, or thing

### fane

### temple; shrine; place of worship

### fanfaron

### a boaster or a braggart; rodomont

### fanfaronade

### swaggering; empty boasting; blustering manner or behavior; bragging; bravado; ostentatious display; fanfare; bluster

### fantast

### a visionary or dreamer

### fantod

### a state of worry or nervous anxiety, irritability; an irritable outburst

### farbrengen (Yiddish)

### joyous gathering; tish (or tisch); any joyous public celebration, gathering, or meal, with discussion and songs, often of a Jewish nature

### farceur

### a joker; wag; a writer or director of or actor in farce

### fard

### to paint the face with cosmetics, as to hide blemishes; facial cosmetics

### fardel

### a bundle; a burden

### fare la scarpetta (Italian)

taking a small piece of bread to mop up the last of the sauce on your plate (literally, "make the little shoe")

### farfel (Yiddish)

### a solid foodstuff broken into small pieces; small pellet or flake-shaped pasta used in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine

### fargin (Yiddish)

### to glow with pride at the success of others

### farouche

### sullenly unsociable or shy; fierce

### farraginous

### heterogeneous; having a mix of random things

### farrago

### a confused mixture; an assortment; a medley; hodgepodge; gallimaufry

### fastidious

### excessively particular, demanding, or fussy about details, especially about tidiness and cleanliness; difficult to please; quick to find fault

### fastigiate

### rising to a pointed top; joined together in a tapering adhering group; erect and parallel, as branches; having such branches

### fastuous

### haughty; arrogant; showy; ostentatious

### fatidic

### of or relating to predicting fates; prophetic

### fatuous

### foolish or inane, especially in a complacent and smug manner; silly; unreal; illusory

### fatwa (Arabic)

### a non-binding legal opinion issued by a qualified Islamic scholar under Islamic law

### faustity

### good luck; good fortune; happiness

### favonian

### of or pertaining to the west wind; mild or favorable; propitious

### fay

### a fairy

### febrile

### pertaining to or marked by fever; feverish

### feck

### efficacy; force; value; amount, especially a greater or the largest amount or quantity

### feckless

### ineffective; incompetent; futile; having no sense of responsibility; indifferent; lazy

### feculent

### full of filth or waste matter

### fecund

### producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit, vegetation, etc., in abundance; prolific; fruitful; very productive or creative intellectually

### feestvarken (Dutch)

### someone in whose honor a party is thrown; literally, party pig

### feeze

### fretful excitement; a race; a run; a running start, as for a leap; vexation; worry; fret; to drive off; frighten away; put to flight; to drive; compel; urge; to beat; whip; chastise; to vex; worry; harass; plague; tease; disturb; to defeat; settle or finish

### to fret; be in a fume; worry; to sneeze; to untwist; ravel out; to dawdle; loiter; to screw; twist; tighten by screwing

### feh

### an interjection conveying disapproval, dismissiveness, displeasure, or disgust

### feierabend (German)

### the free time between leaving the office and bedtime on any working day; an atmosphere of carefree wellbeing, of deep inner reconciliation, of the pure and clear quiet of the evening; celebration evening

### felicific

### causing or tending to cause happiness

### felicitate

### to compliment upon a happy event; congratulate

### felicity

### the state of being happy, especially in a high degree; bliss; a source of happiness; a skillful faculty

### fejlkøb (Danish)

### something you bought that you wish you hadn't

### fen

### low land covered wholly or partially with water; boggy land; a marsh

### feng shui

### the Chinese art of creating harmonious surroundings that enhance the balance of yin and yang, or negative and positive forces in the universe

### fēng yùn (Mandarin)

### personal charm and graceful bearing

### ferfrumt (Yiddish)

### pejorative term for someone very religious or pious

### ferhoodle (Pennsylvania German)

### to confuse or mix up

### ferklempt (also verklempt)

### overcome with emotion; clenched; choked up; speechless; unable to express one's feelings/emotions

### ferly

### something unusual, unexpected, strange, or causing wonder or terror; astonishment; wonder

### ferment

### to cause fermentation; to cook without heat with microbes and chemical agents; zymotic; to seethe with agitation or excitement; agitation; unrest; excitement; commotion; tumult

### Fermi paradox (or Fermi's paradox)

### the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations

### fernweh (German)

### a longing to travel to distant lands; a kind of homesickness or deep desire for the unexplored; wanderlust; errance (French)

### fershlugina (Yiddish)

### beaten up; messed up; exhausted; no good

### fervid

### intensely enthusiastic or passionate, especially to an excessive degree; burning, hot, or glowing

### festinate

### to hurry or hasten; hurried or hasty

### fetial

### concerned with declarations of war and treaties of peace

### fetid

### having an offensive odor; stinking; malodorous

### feuilleton

### the part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, criticism, and the like; also something printed in this section; a novel published in installments; a short literary piece

### fey

### possessing or displaying a strange and otherworldly aspect or quality; magical or fairylike; elfin; appearing to be under a spell; wild or crazy acting; marked by an apprehension of death, calamity, or evil; supernatural; unreal; enchanted; being in unnaturally high spirits; whimsical; strange; otherworldly; having visionary power; clairvoyant

### fez

### a felt cap, usually of a red color, having the shape of a truncated cone, and ornamented with a long black tassel, worn by men in Egypt and North Africa

### fika (Swedish)

### a coffee break, often with sweets, for the purpose of socializing; a relaxed chat over coffee; coffee diversion; any social break with a hot beverage

### filch

### to steal (especially something of small value); to take surreptitiously in small amounts; pilfer

### fillip

### to strike with the nail of a finger snapped from the end of a thumb; anything that tends to rouse, excite, or revise; stimulus

### filial

### of, relating to, or befitting a son or daughter; having or assuming the relationship of child or offspring to parent; of or relating to a generation or the sequence of generations following the parental generation

### filiate

### to declare a child the descendant of a particular parent; to adopt as a child

### filiopietistic

### pertaining to reverence of forebears or tradition, especially if carried to excess

### filipendulous

### hanging by a thread

### fingerspitzengefühl (German)

### the ability to think clearly about many individual complex events and treat them as a whole; to have an understanding of something on multiple levels and how they all mesh; systems thinking; great sensitivity; sure instinct; fingertip feel

### finifugal

### hating endings; of someone who tries to avoid or prolong the final moment of a story, relationship, event, or some other phenomenon

### firgun (Hebrew)

### the simple, unselfish joy from something good happening to someone else; compersion; fargin (Yiddish); mudita (Sanskrit) (antonym: schadenfreude)

### firth

### a long, narrow indentation of the seacoast; frith

### fissiparous

### reproducing by fission; having a tendency to divide into groups or factions

### fixer

### one who fixes; a person who assists foreign journalists, often in volatile countries, often providing interpretation, personal connections, and transportation as a service; a person who arranges immunity for defendants by tampering with the justice system via bribery or extortion, especially as a business endeavor for profit; a chemical (sodium thiosulfate) used in photographic development that fixes the image in place, preventing further chemical reactions

### fjaka (Croatian)

### a sublime state in which a human aspires for nothing; relaxation of both body and mind; a state beyond the self; a special kind of general immobility, drowsiness, and numbness; a weariness and indifference towards all important and ancillary needs; a lethargic stupor and general passivity on the journey to overall nothingness; half somewhere and half nowhere, always somehow in between

### fjellvant (Norwegian)

### being accustomed to walking in the mountains

### flaccid

### soft and limp; flabby; not firm; lacking force; weak

### flagitious

### extremely wicked or criminal

### flahoolick

### free with money; generous; full of largesse; an exuberant spender

### flâneur (French)

### an idler or loafer; loiterer; one who leisurely strolls; an urban explorer or connoisseur of the street

### flautjan (Gothic)

### to play the flute

### flavescent

### yellowing; turning yellow or yellowish

### flaxen

### of the pale yellowish color of dressed flax or linen; relating to flax

### fletcherize

### to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly

### flexuous

### full of bends or curves; sinuous

### flibbertigibbet

### a gossip; a chattering or flighty, light-headed person

### floccinaucinihilipilification

### the act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant; the estimation of something as valueless; chronically trivializing something

### floccipend

### to regard as worthless

### flocculent

### like a clump or tuft of wool; covered with a soft, woolly substance; consisting of or containing loose woolly masses; having a fluffy or woolly appearance; consisting of flocs and floccules

### florilegium

### a compilation of excerpts from other writings, mashing up selected passages and connecting dots from existing texts to better illustrate a specific topic, doctrine, or idea; anthology

### flotsam

### things found floating after a shipwreck; material or refuse floating on water; useless or unimportant items

### flounce

### to go with impatient or impetuous, exaggerated movements; to throw the body about spasmodically; flounder; a strip of material gathered or pleated and attached at one edge, with the other edge left loose or hanging; to throw the body about spasmodically

### flounder

### to struggle with stumbling or plunging movements; to struggle clumsily or helplessly; a European, marine flatfish, Platichthys flesus; any flatfish other than soles

### flow

### a movement in people or things with a particular way in large numbers or amounts; the movement of a real or figurative fluid; the mental state in which a person performing an activity, which is not too easy or too difficult and typically challenging yet attainable, is highly immersed in a feeling of energized focus, deep involvement, and enjoyment, often losing track of time, sense of surroundings, and physical needs; being in "the zone"

### fluorescence

### the emission of radiation, especially of visible light, by a substance during exposure to external radiation, as light or x-rays; the property possessed by a substance capable of such emission; the radiation so produced

### flug

### dust or lint that collects in pockets, under beds, in belly buttons, and in similar places; dust bunnies; flying hug

### flummox

### to bewilder; confound; confuse; baffle; dumbfound

### fluvial

### of or relating to a river or stream

### flygskam (Swedish)

### the feeling of environmental guilt travellers have over flying; literally, flight shame

### flying buttress

### a buttress that stands apart from the structure that it supports, and is connected to it by an arch

### focalism

### the tendency to think just about one event and neglect the other things that happen

### fogdog

### a bright spot sometimes seen in a fog bank

### foggara

### ancient African system to capture and distribute groundwater

### fogosphere

### the place and space where fog exists; the distance one can see when it is foggy

### foible

### a weakness or eccentricity in someone's character; a minor weakness or failing of character; slight flaw or defect; the weaker part of a sword blade, between the middle and the point (opposed to forte)

### folderol (also falderal)

### nonsense; foolishness; a trifle; gewgaw

### folkelig (Danish)

### folkish; belonging to the people; democratic national spirit/sentiment; having broad popular appeal

### folksonomy

### a classification system derived from user-generated electronic tags or keywords that annotate and describe online content; social tagging; collaborative tagging

### foma

### harmless untruths; lies that, if used correctly, can be useful and undamaging

### fomes

### an object capable of absorbing and transmitting infectious organisms from one person to another (plural  
fomites)

### fon

### a fool; idiot; foolish; simple; silly; to be foolish or simple; act like a fool; dote

### fondant

### a thick, creamy flavored paste of sugar and water, used in sweets and icings

### foolscap

### a type of inexpensive writing paper, especially legal-size, lined, yellow sheets, bound in tablet form

### footle

### to act or talk in a foolish or silly way; to waste time

### foozle

### to botch or bungle; a botched attempt at something

### fop

### a man who is excessively vain and concerned about his dress, appearance, and manners

### forbear

### to refrain or resist; to be tolerant or patient if provoked

### force majeure

### literally superior strength, it is a common clause in legal contracts that allows either party to limit their liability in the face of some unforeseeable, extraordinary event that makes it impossible for a party to fulfill its obligations

### forelsket (Danish/Norwegian)

### the euphoria of falling in love; that feeling when you are just starting to fall in love; enamored

### forensic

### pertaining to, connected with, or used in courts of law or public discussion and debate; adapted or suited to argumentation; rhetorical

### forensics

### the art or study of argumentation and formal debate

### forfend

### to defend, secure, or protect; to fend off, avert, or prevent; forbid

### forficate

### deeply forked

### formicate

### to crawl like ants; to swarm with ants

### formication

### a tactile hallucination involving the belief that something is crawling on the body

### fornication

### consensual sexual intercourse between people not married to each other

### forswear

### to renounce something; to commit perjury

### fortuitous

### happening by accident or chance rather than design, whether good, bad, or otherwise

### founder

### a person who founds or establishes; to fill with water and sink; to fall or sink down, as buildings, ground, etc.; to become wrecked; fail utterly; to stumble; to break down, go lame, or suffer from laminitis; to become ill from overeating

### foudroyant

### overwhelming and sudden in effect; beginning in a sudden and severe form; striking as with lightning

### foursquare

### firm; unyielding; frank; forthright; square in shape; in a firm or forthright manner

### fourth wall

### the imaginary wall of a box set, separating the actors from the audience; the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play

### foy

### a farewell gift, feast, or drink; faith

### frabjous

### wonderful, elegant, superb, delightful, or delicious

### fractious

### irritable; cranky; unruly

### frages (South Welsh)

### in an awful long time

### frangible

### breakable or easily broken

### Frankenfood

### genetically modified food (GM food); genetically engineered food (GE food); genetically modified organism (GMO) for consumption

### frappadingue (French)

### someone who acts so crazy, perhaps spontaneously and dangerously, that it is like they have been hit on the head

### frass

### insect excrement

### fremdschamen (German)

### a feeling of shame for another; feeling embarrassed for someone else; vicarious embarrassment; myötähäpeä (Finnish)

### frenetic

### frantic; frenzied

### fress (Yiddish)

### to eat, especially with enthusiasm; to eat like an animal, i.e., quickly, noisily, and in great quantity (cf. ess,  
to eat like a human)

### fribble

### to act in a wasteful or frivolous manner; to fritter away; a wasteful or frivolous person or thing

### frieze

### any sculptured or richly ornamented band in a building or, by extension, in rich pieces of furniture; a kind of coarse woolen cloth or stuff with a shaggy or tufted (friezed) nap on one side; a banner with a series of pictures

### frigorific

### causing or producing cold

### friluftsliv (Norwegian; also Danish and Swedish)

### open-air life; embracing nature and enjoying the outdoors as a way of life; being immersed in nature; enjoying outdoor recreation to rejuvenate and restore balance among living things, regardless of weather

### frippery

### finery in dress, especially when showy or gaudy; empty display; ostentation; pretentious elegance; something trivial or nonessential

### frislet

### a kind of small ruffle

### frisson

### a sudden and intense sensation of excitement; a shudder of emotion; thrill

### frist

### delay

### frit

### a fused or partially fused material used as a basis for glazes or enamels; fused or calcined material prepared as part of the batch in glassmaking

### frivol

### to behave frivolously; trifle; to spend frivolously

### froideur

### an attitude of haughty aloofness; cold superiority; reserve between people; a chill in relations

### frottage

### the technique or process of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface to form the basis of a work of art; a work of art produced by taking a rubbing from an uneven surface; the practice of touching or rubbing against the clothed body of another person in a crowd as a means of obtaining sexual gratification; a sexual act of rubbing up against each other

### froward

### difficult to deal with; contrary

### frowsty

### musty; having a stale smell

### fructify

### to bear fruit; become fruitful; to make fruitful or productive; fertilize

### frumious

### very angry

### Fuchsteufelswild (German)

### complete, unadulterated rage

### fueki ryuko (Japanese)

### the unchanging and the ever-changing

### fug

### a heavy, stale, stuffy atmosphere, especially the musty air of an overcrowded or poorly ventilated room; stale air, especially the humid, warm, ill-smelling air of a crowded room

### fugacious

### lasting a very short time; transient; ephemeral

### fugue

### a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or more themes, which are enunciated by several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end; a musical form in which a theme is repeated in several voices and developed into a complex pattern; a pathological state of consciousness in which someone appears to be conscious of one's actions but has no memory of them after returning to a normal state; a period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase

### fulcrum

### the support, or point of rest, on which a lever turns in moving a body; any prop or support; a hinge; an agent through which vital powers are exercised

### fulgor

### splendor; brightness

### fulgurate

### to flash like lightning; to destroy by electricity

### fuliginous

### sooty; dusky; obscure

### fulminate

### express vehement protest

### fulsome

### excessive to the point of being offensive; effusive; lavish

### fumfer (Yiddish)

### to stall or evade a question, remark, etc., whether intentionally or not

### funambulist

### a tightrope walker

### fundamental attribution error

### people's tendency to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation, rather than considering external factors; correspondence bias; attribution effect (cf. ultimate attribution error)

### fundi (Swahili)

### a person who teaches a craft to the next generation

### fungible

### freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation; interchangeable

### funicity

### memory without consciousness; an inbuilt quality of materials that permanently "remember" their original time and place of creation; the reflection of an object's own history in its current form

### funistrada

### an option on a preference test representing something imaginary

### funky

### offbeat, unconventional, or eccentric; not quite right; of questionable quality; not appropriate to the context; cool; great; excellent

### furbizia (Italian)

### the sort of cleverness typically channeled into getting around bureaucracy

### furcate

### to form a fork; branch; forked; branching

### furcula

### the forked clavicular bone of a bird; wishbone

### furgling

### the act of fumbling in one's pocket for keys, loose change, etc.

### furrow

### a narrow groove-like or trench-like depression in any surface

### fustian

### pompous, inflated, or pretentious speech or writing

### fusty

### having a stale smell; moldy; musty; old-fashioned or out-of-date; stubbornly conservative; fogyish

### futilitarian

### devoted to futile pursuits; holding the belief that human striving is useless; a person devoted to futile pursuits; one who believes that human striving is useless

### futz

### to pass time in idleness (usually followed by around); a fool; simpleton

### fýrgebræc (Old English)

### the distinct, sharp cracking or breaking sound made by a fire

### "Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it."

  * ### Ursula Le Guin

### g-force

### a force acting on a body as a result of acceleration or gravity, informally described in units of acceleration equal to one g

### gad

### to move restlessly or aimlessly from one place to another; a goad for driving cattle; a pointed mining tool for breaking up rock, coal, etc.

### gadabout

### a person who moves about restlessly or aimlessly, especially from one social activity to another; a person who travels often or to many different places, especially for pleasure; gallivanter; rover

### gadfly

### a person who persistently annoys or provokes others with criticism, schemes, ideas, demands, requests, etc.; any of various flies, as a stable fly or warble fly, that bite or annoy domestic animals

### gadi

### a cushioned throne

### gadugi (Cherokee)

### cooperative labour; working together for the common good

### gainly

### graceful; dexterous

### galaticor (Latin)

### to mix Jewish and Christian ceremonies

### gallimaufry

### a hodgepodge; a jumble; farrago

### gallivant

### to wander about, seeking pleasure or diversion; gad; to go about with members of the opposite sex

### galluptious

### excellent; delightful; delicious

### galumph

### move in a clumsy, ponderous, or noisy manner

### galvanize

### to stimulate; to startle into sudden activity; to coat (metal, especially iron or steel) with zinc

### gaman (Japanese)

### the ethic or practice of uncomplaining perseverance

### gambit

### a remark made to open or redirect a conversation; an opening in chess in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage by sacrificing a pawn or piece; any maneuver by which one seeks to gain an advantage

### gambler's fallacy

### the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen less frequently in the future, or that if something happens less frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen more frequently in the future (presumably as a means of balancing nature); Monte Carlo fallacy; the fallacy of the maturity of chances

### gamboge

### a strong yellow color

### game theory

### the study of mathematical models of conflict, cooperation, and strategic decision making amongst intelligent rational decision-makers

### gamic

### sexually produced; sexual; having a sexual character

### gamin (French)

### a young boy working as a glassblower's assistant

### gamine

### a neglected girl who is left to run about the streets; a diminutive or very slender girl, especially one who is pert, impudent, or playfully mischievous

### gamp

### a large umbrella; a collection of weaving patterns used as a test of color and/or texture mixes between warp and weft

### gangle

### to move awkwardly or ungracefully

### gangrel

### a vagrant or drifter; a tall, thin, long-limbed person

### ganzfeld

### complete field

### gardyloo

### a cry formerly used in Scotland to warn pedestrians when dirty water or slops were about to be thrown outside from an upstairs window

### garret

### a top-floor or attic room, especially a small dismal one (traditionally inhabited by an artist); a habitable attic or small and often dismal or cramped living space at the top of a house or larger residential building

### garrulous

### excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner, especially about trivial matters; wordy or diffuse; babbling; chattering; pleniloquence; loquatious

### gasconade

### extravagant boasting; boastful talk; to boast extravagantly; bluster

### gastrolith

### a stone in the stomach

### gastronome

### a lover of good food and drink; a connoisseur of food and drink

### gattaro (Italian)

### person who feeds or takes care of stray cats; cat lover

### gaucherie

### lack of social grace, sensitivity, or acuteness; awkwardness; crudeness; tactlessness; an act, movement, etc. that is socially graceless, awkward, or tactless

### gaudeamus

### a convivial gathering or merry-making of students at a college or university

### gaum (or gorm)

### to smear or cover with a gummy, sticky substance

### gaumless (or gormless)

### lacking in vitality or intelligence; stupid, dull, or clumsy

### Gause's law

### complete competitors cannot coexist

### gazette

### a newspaper; an official journal of an organization

### gazump

### to cheat a buyer by raising the price, at the time a contract is to be signed, over the amount originally agreed upon

### gazunder

### to reduce the amount of an offer after it has been accepted by the seller

### geborgenheit (German)

a feeling of safety that comes from being surrounded by loved ones; feeling protected and safe from harm

### gedogen (Dutch)

### toleration in law, but not in culture (antonym: zero-tolerance)

### gedoogbeleid (Dutch)

### tolerance policy

### gelogenic

### inducing or provoking laughter

### gelotophobia

### the fear of being laughed at (cf. katagelasticism)

### gemach (Hebrew)

### literally, an abbreviation of "acts of lovingkindness", it is a Jewish free-loan fund which subscribes to both the positive Torah commandment of lending money and the Torah prohibition against charging interest on a loan; a community library of money or goods; a grass-roots assistance system for sharing money or goods in a community

### gemeinschaft

### social relations based on personal ties, affection, kinship, etc

### geminate

### combined or arranged in pairs; twin; coupled; to make or become doubled or paired; duplicate; a doubled consonant sound

### gemütlichkeit (German)

### the mood or feeling of comfort and coziness; a state of mind that is opposite to stressing; the intimacy of being at ease

### genethliac

### of or pertaining to birthdays or to the position of the stars at one's birth

### genizah (or geniza) (Hebrew)

### a storage area in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery designated for the temporary storage of worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics prior to proper cemetery burial

### genki (Japanese)

### limited time only

### genuflect

### to bend the knee, as in reverence or worship; to act in a submissive or servile way

### geodesy

### the branch of applied mathematics that deals with the measurement of the shape and area of large tracts of country, the exact position of geographical points, and the curvature, shape, and dimensions of the Earth

### geometric

### of or pertaining to geometry or to the principles of geometry; resembling or employing the simple rectilinear or curvilinear lines or figures used in geometry; increasing or decreasing in a geometric progression; using simple shapes such as circles, triangles and lines in a decorative object

### gerund (Latin)

### that which ought to be carried through

### gesamtkunstwerk (German)

### a work of art that combines multiple media

### gesellschaft

### an association of individuals for common goals, as for entertainment, intellectual, or cultural purposes or for business reasons; a society or group characterized chiefly by formal organization, impersonal relations, the absence of generally held or binding norms, and a detachment from traditional and sentimental concerns, and often tending to be rationalistic and secular in outlook

### gest

a notable deed or exploit; a story or tale (cf. gesture and jest)

### gestalt

### a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole; the shape, form, figure, or image of some person, character, or thing

### gewgaw

### something gaudy and useless; trinket; bauble

### gezellig (Dutch)

### a warm and cozy state of well-being; a very comfortable feeling; contentment from simple pleasures (cf. gemütlich (German), hygge (Danish), koselig (Norwegian), and mysa (Swedish))

### ghost in the machine

### the perceived absurdity of dualist systems like Rene Descartes' where mental activity carries on in parallel to physical action, but where their means of interaction are unknown or, at best, speculative

### ghosting

### the practice of suddenly ending all contact with a person without explanation, especially in a romantic relationship; the act of leaving a social event or engagement suddenly without saying goodbye; ghost writing; in offset printing when image from the back of one sheet of paper in the stack appears in a solid print on the other side of the paper it is touching; the after image that a fast moving picture leaves on a screen with slow pixel refresh rate; moving silently and/or unseen; in video games, when a dead player chats with one or multiple living players; in video games, projecting an image of oneself that enemy characters continue to attack while one steps aside invisibly to attack from a different angle, or simply flee to safety

### G.I. Joe Fallacy

the mistaken belief that "knowing is half the battle", given that situation selection, habit formation, emotion regulation, and other cognitive biases are so critical to how most people act

### gibbous (also gibbose)

### convex at both edges, as the moon when more than half full; humpbacked; egg-shaped

### gibigiana (Italian)

### flash of reflected light; the play of light reflected from water or a mirror; a woman who flaunts her charm and dazzles

### gigil (Tagalog)

### the urge to pinch or squeeze someone or something that is unbearably cute, cherished, or loved

### gilgul (Hebrew)

### the soul of a dead person that passes into another living body to assume a new existence and atone for past sins; reincarnation; transmigration; metamorphosis; rolling; revolving

### gimcrack

### showy but useless

### gimlet

### small tool for boring holes; able to penetrate or bore through; penetrating; piercing; a cocktail made with gin or vodka, sweetened lime juice, and sometimes soda water

### ginkoo (Japanese)

### a walk that is usually planned in a special place, such as a garden or area of scenic beauty, for the purpose of being inspired to compose haiku

### gird

### to encircle or bind with a belt or band; to surround; to prepare for action; to jeer; a sarcastic remark

### giri-choco (Japanese)

### obligation chocolate

### girn

### to snarl, grimace, or complain; a grimace or snarl

### git (British)

### a foolish or contemptible person

### gjensynsglede (Norwegian)

### the joy of meeting someone you haven't seen in a long time

### glabella

### the space between the eyebrows and above the nose

### glabrous

### bald, in the sense of being hairless or pubescent; smooth

### glace

### ice placed in a drink to cool it

### gladsome

### causing or showing joy

### glass ceiling

### the unseen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements

### gleaming detail

### the element that makes a story stand out

### gleen

### a sudden burst of warm sunshine

### gleichschaltung (German)

### forced synchronization under an authoritarian regime

### glim

### a light or lamp

### glissade

### a skillful glide over snow or ice in descending a mountain; a sliding or gliding step

### glissando

### a glide from one pitch to another; a continuous slide upward or downward between two notes; glide

### glitterati

### wealthy or famous people who conspicuously or ostentatiously attend fashionable events

### gloaming

### twilight; dusk; after sunset and before dark

### global warming

an increase in the Earth's average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in climate and that highly likely results from the greenhouse effect; a sustained increase in the average temperature of the earth, sufficient to cause climate change; climate change

### global weirding

### an alternative term to global warming to reflect the belief that climate change causes and will cause various weather-related extremes, including both hot and cold weather, floods and droughts, storms, wildfires, spread of disease, etc. to become more intense as well as various disruptions in the oceans, jet stream, and so on

### glom

### to steal; to seize or grab; to look at; to latch onto something; a glimpse

### gloop

### any messy sticky fluid or substance

### glop

### unappetizing food, especially of a semi-liquid consistency; any messy substance, especially of a semi-liquid consistency; sentimentality; mawkishness

### glossa (Latin)

### explanation of a difficult word

### glossolalia

### incomprehensible speech in an imaginary language, sometimes occurring in a trance state, an episode of religious ecstasy, or schizophrenia; speaking in tongues

### glossophobia

### speech anxiety; the fear of public speaking or of speaking in general

### glout

### to scowl or frown

### glower

### to look or stare with annoyance or anger; scowl

### gloze

### to minimize or to explain away; to use flattery; to make an explanation; to shine brightly; a comment; flattery; a pretense

### gnathonic

### flattering; obsequious; deceitful

### gnomic

### of, pertaining to, or resembling a gnome; like or containing gnomes or aphorisms; of, pertaining to, or noting a writer of aphorisms, especially any of certain Greek poets; puzzling, ambiguous, or incomprehensible yet seemingly profound

### gnomist

### a writer of aphorisms

### gnomon

### the raised part of a sundial that casts the shadow

### gnosis

### knowledge of spiritual truth and of the deeper wisdom that is concealed from those without the necessary faith or insight

### gnostic

### pertaining to knowledge; possessing knowledge, especially esoteric knowledge of spiritual matters

### Godwin's Law

### as a(n online) discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 100%

### gökotta (Swedish)

### waking up early to hear the first birds sing

### golconda

### a source of great wealth

### Golden Ratio

### Fibonacci ratio; the ratio of a number to its predecessor in the Fibonacci Sequence; phi; approximately 1.618

### golem

### a figure from Jewish folklore artificially constructed in the form of a human being and endowed with life; an automaton

### golem effect

### a phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophesy whereby low expectations lead to a decrease in performance

### gongoozle

### to leisurely watch the passage of boats; to observe things idly

### Gongorism

### an affected literary style marked by intricate language and elaborate figures of speech

### Goodhart's law

### when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

### goop

### a bad-mannered or inconsiderate person; clod; boor; a viscous or sticky substance; goo

### gopura

### in South Indian architecture, the entrance gateway to the Hindu temple enclosure

### goro goro (Japanese)

### the tradition of rolling around and luxuriating in bed; dozing off or lazing about in the space between wakefulness and rest; the term for the sound of a cat purring

### gorp

### a loose mixture of dried fruit, nuts, frequently salt, and sometimes other ingredients; an energy supplement for use while hiking, climbing, canoeing, etc.; trail mix; to eat greedily

### gospodin (Serbo-Croatian)

### gentleman; mister; sir

### gossamer

### a fine, filmy cobweb seen on grass or bushes or floating in the air in calm weather, especially in autumn; a thread or a web of this substance; an extremely delicate variety of gauze, used especially for veils; any thin, light fabric

### götterdämmerung (German)

### twilight of the gods

### gound

### the gunk, crystals, etc. that accumulate in the corners of the eyes

### Gordian

### highly intricate; extremely difficult to solve

### Gordian Knot

### pertaining to Gordius, ancient king of Phrygia, who tied a knot (the Gordian knot) that, according to prophecy, was to be undone only by the person who was to rule Asia, and that was cut, rather than untied, by Alexander the Great

### gossamer

### a fine, filmy cobweb seen on grass or bushes or floating in the air in calm weather, especially in autumn; a thread or a web of this substance; an extremely delicate variety of gauze, used especially for veils; any thin, light fabric; something extremely light, flimsy, or delicate

### gotong-royong

cooperation by members of a community to achieve a common goal; the joint sharing of burdens; the bearing of the weight of the world together with trusted friends

### goya (Urdu)

### the suspension of disbelief that occurs, often through good storytelling

### gracile

### gracefully slender; thin

### gradgrind

### someone who is solely interested in cold, hard facts

### gramarye

### occult learning; magic

### grammatolatry

### the worship of words; regard for the letter of something while ignoring the spirit of it

### grandiloquent

### speaking or expressed in a lofty style, often to the point of being pompous or bombastic; turgid, inflated, rhetorical, pretentious language

### granfalloon

### a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless

### grangerize

### to add to the visual content of a book by inserting images not included in the original volume, often by mutilating other books; to mutilate a book by clipping pictures out of it

### grapheme

### the smallest semantically distinguishing unit in a written language, analogous to the phonemes of spoken languages

### gratulation

### a feeling of joy; the expression of joy

### gravamen

### the essence or most serious part of a complaint or accusation

### grawlixes

### typographical symbols standing for profanities, which appear in dialogue balloons in the place of actual dialogue

### gree

### one of a flight of steps; a stage in a process; a degree of rank or station; pre-eminence; victory or superiority in combat (hence also, the prize for winning a combat; a degree; pleasure, goodwill, satisfaction; to agree

### greenhouse gas

### a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (NH4), and nitrous oxide (NO), which leads to global warming

### grey literature

### academic literature that is not formally published

### grey swan

### an event that can be anticipated to a certain degree, but is considered unlikely to occur and may have a sizable impact, if it does occur (cf. black swan)

### griffonage

### careless handwriting; a crude scrawl; illegible writing

### grimalkin

### a cat; an old female cat; an ill-tempered old woman

### grimoire

### an instruction manual for performing magic

### grinagog

### one who is always grinning

### griot

### a member of a hereditary caste among the peoples of western Africa whose function is to keep an oral history of the tribe or village and to entertain with stories, poems, songs, dances, etc.

### grippe

### former term for influenza

### gris-gris (also grigri or greegree)

### a charm, amulet, or fetish

### grith

### protection or asylum for a limited period of time; security, peace, or protection, guaranteed either in a certain place or for a period of time; a place of safety or protection; guaranteed security, sanctuary, safe conduct; a place of protection; sanctuary; to make peace; to give peace to

### groak

### to stare at people who are eating in the hope that they will offer to share their food; to look or stare at longingly

### grobian

### a coarse, uncouth, uncivilized fellow; rude or clownish person; boor; lout

### grog

### an alcoholic drink diluted with water; a strong alcoholic drink

### grok

### to understand thoroughly and intuitively; to communicate sympathetically; to drink so deeply as to become one with it; complete empathy and understanding; to understand someone or something so thoroughly that observer becomes part of the observed

### groupuscule

### a very small political group or faction

### growth mindset

### the belief that intelligence can be trained and that most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work; the mentality that intelligence and skills can always be developed and improved (antonym: fixed mindset)

### guān xì (Mandarin)

### cultivating relationships; reciprocal connections; networking; social karma

### guò yǐns (Mandarin)

### satisfaction of a craving; a highly pleasurable and enjoyable experience

### guerdon

### reward; recompense

### guff

### empty or foolish talk; nonsense; insolent talk

### gukurahundi (Shona)

### the early rains that wash away the chaff before the spring rains

### gula

### The upper front of the neck, next to the chin; the upper throat (English);

### the desire to eat simply for the taste; gluttony; eating in excess; gourmandizing (Spanish); a kind of drumstick with a large head for beating drums (Hausa)

### gulosity

### gluttony

### gumption

### initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness; courage; spunk; guts

### gumption trap

### an event or mindset that can cause a person to lose enthusiasm and become discouraged from starting or continuing a project

### gunnen (Dutch)

### to think that someone deserves something good; to feel happy for someone getting something

### gurge

### a whirlpool; to swirl like a whirlpool

### guru (Sanskrit)

### one who transforms darkness into light, ignorance into enlightenment, for others

### guttle

### to eat gluttonously; gulosity

### guttural

### of or pertaining to the throat; harsh; throaty; pertaining to or characterized by a sound articulated in the back of the mouth

### gymkhana

### any of various sporting events, as an exhibition or contest, or a place where any such event is held

### gymnosophy

### deep contemplation performed while naked

### "Words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels."

— Hazrat Inayat Khan

### habeas corpus

### a legal document ordering somebody to appear in person before a court; a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful

### habiliments

### clothes or clothing; clothes as worn in a particular profession, way of life, etc.; accouterments or trappings

### habitué

### a frequent or habitual visitor to a place; a regular

### habromania

### a form of delusional insanity in which the imaginings assume a cheerful or joyous character

### habseligkeiten (German)

### one's most treasured possessions

### hackney

### to make trite, common, or stale by frequent use

### hackneyed

### lacking significance through having been overused; unoriginal and trite.

### hada (Arabic)

### to be Jewish

### hadron

### a composite particle made of quarks held together by a strong force

### haecceity

### that property or quality of a thing by virtue of which it is unique or describable as "this one"; the property of being a unique and individual thing; the property that uniquely identifies an object

### hagiography

### an uncritical biography, treating its subject with undue reverence

### haibun (Japanese)

### a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku

### haiku

A short poem that often says more than a long one. Most traditional Japanese haiku use 17 syllables (onji); some don't. Most traditional western haiku have 3 lines; some don't. Most traditional haiku also have seasonal (kigo) and cutting (kireji) words; some don't. Some believe metaphors should be completely avoided; others feel they are inherent. Some believe that haiku should be present tense, should be from actual lived experience, should be concrete, should contain juxtaposition, shouldn't rhyme, etc. None of these characteristics are necessary. Haiku—literally meaning "playful verse" and originating as the basis of a collectively-written linked poem (renga)—are meant to be played with. Basho himself (along with other haiku masters) led the way by both following and straying from these guidelines. A haiku is simply a very short evocative poem that captures a moment of awareness; it is a poetic snapshot. Nothing more, nothing less. (cf. senryu; Korean sijo)

### haimish (Yiddish)

### home-like; homey; cozy and unpretentious; friendly; folksy; familial; comfortable; informal; down-to-earth; sympatico; approachable; plain; simple (same German root as Amish)

### haka

### a ceremonial dance or challenge from Maori culture that is performed by a group with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet and intense facial expressions with rhythmically shouted accompaniment; a fierce display of a tribe's pride, strength and unity

### halcyon

### calm; serene; peaceful; joyful; prosperous; related to kingfishers; a kingfisher

### halevai (Hebrew)

### if only it were so

### halidom (also halidome)

### a holy place; something considered holy

### halobiont

### an organism that thrives in a saline environment

### hallarse (Spanish)

### to find oneself

### hallow

### to make holy; sanctify; consecrate

### hallux

### big toe

### hamartia

### the flaw in character which leads to the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy; tragic flaw; a developmental defect characterized by the abnormal arrangement or combination of tissues normally present in a specific area

### hamula (Arabic)

### extended family

### han (Korean)

### the collective acceptance of suffering combined with the quiet yearning for things to be different

### hanami (Japanese)

### any flower viewing, though typically cherry blossom viewing

### handsel (or hansel)

### first encounter with or use of something taken as a token of what will follow; a gift or token for good luck or as an expression of good wishes; a first installment of payment

### hanging chad

### piece of punch-through paper on a voting ballot that has not fully detached from the card-stock (cf. dangling chad)

### Hanlon's razor

### do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence

### hansik (Korean)

### Korean food

### hanyauku (Kwangali)

### to walk on tiptoes across a hot surface

### hapa (Hawaiian)

### a person of mixed heritage (Hawaii); any person of part Asian or Pacific Islander descent (California)

### hapexlagomenon

### a word appearing only once in a text; a unique occurrence

### haplography

### the accidental omission of a letter or letter group that should be repeated in writing

### happiness

### a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy

### haptic

### related to the sense of touch

### hara hachi bu (Japanese)

### eat until you are 4/5 full (literally, stomach eight parts (of 10) full)

### haragei (Japanese)

### wordless communication; non-verbal communication

### harambee (Swahili)

### community and communal development (literally, all pulling together)

### harbinger

### a person who goes ahead and makes known the approach of another; herald; anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign; a person sent in advance of troops, a royal train, etc., to provide or secure lodgings and other accommodations; scout; forerunner; to signal the approach of something; presage

### hardihood

### boldness or daring; courage; audacity or impudence; strength; power; vigor; hardy spirit or character; determination to survive; fortitude

### harioiation

### skilled soothsaying

### harl

### to drag something along the ground; to drag oneself; trail along; to cover a building with a mixture of lime and gravel; to troll for fish; the act of harling or dragging; a small quantity; a scraping; a mixture of lime and gravel; roughcast

### harmony

### a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; order or congruity of parts to their whole or to one another; agreement in action, opinion, feeling, etc; congruity; accord

### hartal

### a mass protest, often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, and courts of law, as a form of civil disobedience similar to a general strike, involving the voluntary closing of schools and places of business

### haruspicate

### to inspect the entrails (exta) of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry

### hassha (Japanese)

departure or train melodies; short, ear-pleasing jingles to replace the traditional departure buzzer of a train

### hashtag

### a word or phrase preceded by a hash mark (#), used within a message to identify a keyword or topic of interest and facilitate a search for it

### hauteur

### arrogance; haughtiness; highhandedness; lordliness

### haw

### to utter a sound representing a hesitation or pause in speech; a sound or pause of hesitation; to turn or make a turn to the left

### Hawthorne effect (also the observer effect)

### a phenomenon whereby workers improve or modify an aspect of their behavior in response to the fact of change in their environment, rather than in response to the nature of the change itself; as we notice, ponder, measure, or analyze something, we change it; novelty effect; cf. demand effect

### heartfulness

### heightened relational awareness

### hebdomad

### a group of seven; a period of seven days; a week

### hebephrenia

### a form of insanity occurring at puberty, also known as disorganized schizophrenia

### hebetate

### to make dull or obtuse

### hebetude

### the state of being dull or lethargic

### hedonic adaptation (also hedonic treadmill)

### the tendency of humans to return, fairly quickly, to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes; the process of becoming accustomed to a positive or negative stimulus such that the emotional effects of that stimulus are attenuated over time

### he-gassen (Japanese)

### fart competitions; fart fight

### heifer

### a young cow over one year old that has not produced a calf

### heimat (German)

### home; homeland; place where something originated or where it is deep-rooted; a place towards which one has a strong feeling of belonging, and (usually) a deep-rooted fondness; the emotional position of a person relative to a place

### Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle

### one cannot measure values (with arbitrary precision) of certain conjugate quantities, which are pairs of observables of a single elementary particle (e.g., position and momentum)

### heliotrope  
a flower that follows the sun's path in the sky; anything devoted to the sun

### helix  
a spiral

### hella (Northern California slang)

### intensifier; signifies an abundance of a thing; much or many

### helper's high

### a typical state of euphoria reported by those engaged in charitable activity; the good feelings that derive from giving of oneself produces endorphins in the brain that provide a mild version of a morphine high; powerful physical and psychological feelings people experience when directly helping others

### hemidemisemiquaver

### a sixty-fourth note

### hemiteleia

### the replacement of one word with another because the new word is deeply associated with another word that rhymes with the old word (as in Cockney Rhyming Slang)

### hendiadys

### two separate words read together not for their individual meanings but as one phrase; a figure of speech in which two words joined by a conjunction are used to convey a single idea instead of using a word and its modifier

### hendiatris

### a figure of speech used for emphasis, in which three words are used to express one idea (cf. tricolon)

### henotheism

### belief in or worship of one deity without denying the existence of other deities (cf. kathenotheism)

### herd immunity

### the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease, especially through vaccination; a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through previous infections or vaccination, thereby providing a measure of protection for individuals who are not immune

### heresy

### any provocative belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs

### heretic

### a proponent of heresy

### hermenaut

### a traveler in search of meaning and significance

### hermeneutics

### the theory and methodology of text interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts

### hermetic

### airtight; not affected by outside influence; relating to the occult sciences, especially alchemy; magical; obscure or hard to understand

### heterochromatic

### having many different colors; multi-colored

### heteroclite

### a person who is unconventional; a maverick; a word that is irregularly formed; deviating from the ordinary rule; eccentric; irregularly inflected

### heterodox

### different from established beliefs or opinions; holding unorthodox opinions

### heterophony

### the simultaneous performance of the same melodic line, with slight individual variations, by two or more performers

### heteroskedasticity

### when sub-populations have different variabilities from others in a collection of random variables

### heterotelic

### having the purpose of its existence or occurrence apart from itself

### heuristic

### any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect or rational, but which is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal; serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of furthering investigation; encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error; of, pertaining to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial-and-error methods

### heuristics

### strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to facilitate problem solving in human beings and machines

### hew

to uphold, follow closely, or conform (to); to strike with cutting blows; chop; hack; to make, shape, smooth, etc., with cutting blows

### hey rube

### a fight between members of a circus and the general public; a call to rally circus members in a fight

### hiemal

### of or pertaining to winter; wintry

### hieratic

### of or pertaining to priests or the priesthood; sacerdotal; priestly; noting or pertaining to a form of ancient Egyptian writing consisting of abridged forms of hieroglyphics, used by the priests in their records; noting or pertaining to certain styles in art in which the representations or methods are fixed by or as if by religious tradition; highly restrained or severe in emotional import; ancient Egyptian hieratic writing

### hierophany

### to reveal sacredness or holiness

### higgledy-piggledy

### in a disordered or random manner; confused; jumbled

### high impedance

### a point in a circuit (a node) allows a relatively small amount of current through; low current, high voltage

### hikikomori (Japanese)

### the phenomenon of reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement (literally "pulling inward, being confined", i.e., "acute social withdrawal")

### hin

### an ancient Hebrew unit of liquid measure equal to about 1.5 U.S. gallons (5.7 liters)

### hipi (Wolof)

### to open one's eyes; to awaken

### hippocampus

### a sea-horse shaped part of the brain involved in forming, storing, and processing memory; a mythological sea horse with two forefeet and a body ending in the tail of a dolphin or fish; school grounds for hippos

### hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

### a fear of long words

### hiraeth (Welsh)

### a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past; cf. charmolypi (Greek), natsukashi (Japanese), saudade (Portuguese), sehnsucht (German)

### hircine

### resembling or relating to goats; goat-like; of or relating to a goat; caprine; having a strong odor; lustful; lewd

### hirsute

### hairy; shaggy; pilose

### histrionics

### dramatic representation; theatricals; acting; behavior or speech for effect, as insincere or exaggerated expression of an emotion

### hitbodedut (Hebrew)

### practices of self-secluded Jewish meditation; an unstructured, spontaneous, and individualized form of prayer or meditation through which one could ultimately see the Divinity inherent in all being, possibly by establishing a close, personal relationship with God; talking or yelling to the natural world

### ho'oponopono (Hawaiian)

to correct a mistake or make it right; process of reconciliation and forgiveness

### hoarfrost

### a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.; dew drops that have undergone deposition and frozen into ice crystals to form a white deposit on an exposed surface, when the air is cold and moist

### hoary

### gray or white with age; ancient or venerable; tedious from familiarity; stale

### Hobson's choice

### an apparently free choice that offers no real alternative

### hobson-jobson

### the alteration of a word borrowed from a foreign language to accord more closely with the linguistic patterns of the borrowing language

### hodiernal

### of or pertaining to the present day

### hodophilia

having a love of roads; having a love of travel; sexual arousal from traveling or being on the road

### Hofstadter's Law

### it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law

### hoi polloi

### the common people; the masses; the many

### hoke

### to alter or manipulate so as to give a deceptively or superficially improved quality or value (usually followed by up)

### holarchy

### a hierarchy of self-regulating holons that function first as autonomous wholes in supra-ordination to their parts, secondly as dependent parts in sub-ordination to controls on higher levels, and thirdly in coordination with their local environment

### holloway

### a route that centuries of use have eroded down into the bedrock, so that it is recessed beneath the level of the surrounding landscape

### holobiont

### a host plus all of its symbiotic microorganisms, including viruses; a group of different species that travel together

### holograph

### a document handwritten by its author; handwritten by the author

### holon

### something that is simultaneously a whole and a part; the idea that everything is simultaneously a whole and a part (cf. holarchy)

### holophrasm

### a one-word sentence; a complex idea conveyed in a single word

### holorime

### a form of rhyme in which the rhyme encompasses every syllable of an entire line or phrase

### holotropic

### moving toward wholeness

### holus-bolus

### all at once; altogether

### homeostasis

### the tendency of a system to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function

### homiletics

### in theology, the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific department of public preaching

### homily

### a sermon, usually on a Biblical topic and usually of a nondoctrinal nature; an admonitory or moralizing discourse; an inspirational saying or cliché; a lecture of a moralizing or admonishing nature, usually tedious and trite

### homodoxian

### one who has the same opinion as another

### homogamy

### marriage between individuals who are, in some culturally important way, similar to each other

### homologate

### to approve officially; to register a specific model of a motor vehicle to make it eligible to take part in a racing competition

### homophene

### a word or phrase that, when spoken, sounds the same as a different word or phrase

### homophily

### love of the same

### homunculus

an artificially made miniature person or creature, supposedly produced in a flask by an alchemist; fully formed, miniature human body believed, according to some medical beliefs of the 16th and 17th centuries, to be contained in the spermatozoon; a diminutive human being; the human fetus (cf. golem)

### honeyfuggle (or honeyfugle)

### to deceive or swindle, especially by flattery

### hong-sau (Sanskrit)

### I am spirit

### honi (Japanese)

### poetic essence

### hoomalimali (Hawaiian)

### something designed primarily to attract favorable attention

### hooptedoodle

### nonsense

### hoppípolla (Icelandic)

### hopping into puddles

### hornswoggle

### to cheat, trick, or deceive; swindle; hoodwink

### horology

### the art or science of making timepieces or of measuring time

### hortatory

### strongly urging; hortative

### hosanna(h)

### used as a cry of acclamation or adoration

### hotchpot

### the bringing together of shares or properties to divide them equally

### howe

### a hole; the hold of a ship; a hollow; dell; deep

### hsien

### one of a group of benevolent spirits promoting good in the world

### huckster

### one who sells things of questionable value in an aggressive or dishonest manner

### huzzah

### used to express joy, applause, encouragement, etc.; an instance of appreciation or applause; to cheer

### hyaline

### glassy or transparent; hyaloid

### hydroxyzine

an antihistaminic compound, C21 H27 ClN2 O2, used in the treatment of allergy, nausea, and anxiety; mild sedative and minor tranquilizer used in the treatment of psychological neuroses; the only English word with the letters x, y, and z (and they're in order!)

### hygge (Danish)

### a warm and cozy state of well-being; a deep sense of place, warmth, and contentment; contentment from simple pleasures; to cherish oneself; to keep or make oneself snug; a very comfortable feeling; coziness; the absence of anything annoying or emotionally overwhelming (cf. gemütlich (German), gezellig (Dutch), koselig (Norwegian), and mysa (Swedish))

### hyggelig (Danish)

### a feeling of openness, comfort, warmth, and friendship between friends

### hygroscopic

### the property of absorbing moisture from the air

### hylozoism

### the philosophical conjecture that all or some material things possess life, or that all life is inseparable from matter; panvitalism

### hymeneal

### relating to a wedding or marriage; a wedding song or poem

### hyperbola

### a curve having a single bend, with lines going infinitely far from the bend

### hyperbole

### obvious and intentional exaggeration; a deliberate exaggeration used for effect; an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally

### hyperbolic

### of or pertaining to hyperbole; of or pertaining to hyperbola

### Hyperbolic Discounting

### the tendency to prefer smaller rewards now over potentially larger rewards later

### hypercorrection

### the substitution, in an inappropriate context, of a pronunciation, grammatical form, or usage thought by the speaker or writer to be appropriate, resulting usually from overgeneralizing in an effort to replace seemingly incorrect forms with correct ones; the form so substituted; a mistaken correction to text or speech made through a desire to avoid nonstandard pronunciation or grammar

### hyperform

### a pronunciation or grammatical form or usage produced by hypercorrection

### hypergelast

### one who laughs excessively

### hypergolic

### igniting on contact

### hypergraphia

### an uncontrollable urge to write

### hyperhidrosis

### abnormally excessive sweating

### hyperopia

### a condition of the eye in which parallel rays are focused behind the retina, distant objects being seen more distinctly than near ones; farsightedness (antonym: myopia)

### hyperthymesia

### the condition of possessing an extremely detailed autobiographical memory; highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)

### hypertrophy

### unarrested development; overdevelopment; excessive growth (antonym atrophy)

### hyperurbanism

### a pronunciation or grammatical form or usage produced by a speaker of one dialect according to an analogical rule formed by comparison of the speaker's own usage with that of another, more prestigious, dialect and often applied in an inappropriate context, especially in an effort to avoid sounding countrified, rural, or provincial

### hypnogogia (or hypnagogic consciousness)

### the experience of the state of transition between wakefulness and sleep; between the states of being awake and falling asleep; rational cognition trying to make sense of non-linearity

### hypnopedia

### sleep learning

### hypnopompia

### the experience of the state of transition between sleep and wakefulness; emotional cognition trying to make sense of physical rationality

### hypogeum

### an underground burial chamber; the underground part of a building, as a vault

### hyponym

### a more specific term in a general class

### hypostasis

the accumulation of fluid or blood in the lower parts of the body or organs under the influence of gravity, as occurs in cases of poor circulation or after death; an underlying reality or substance, as opposed to attributes or that which lacks substance; the underlying state or underlying substance and is the fundamental reality that supports all else

### hypostatization

### a fallacious effect of reification which results from supposing that whatever can be named, or conceived abstractly, must actually exist

### hypotenuse

### the longest side of a right-angled triangle; the side opposite of the right angle

### hyppytyynytyydytys (Finnish)

### the satisfaction one gets from sitting on a bouncy cushion or comfortable chair

### hypugeusia

### decreased sensitivity to taste

### hypoxia

### oxygen depletion

### hypozeuxis

### the use of a series of parallel clauses, each of which has a subject and predicate (e.g., "I came, I saw, I conquered.")

### hysteron proteron

### a rhetorical device in which the first key word of the idea refers to something that happens temporally later than the second key word with the goal of calling attention to the more important idea by placing it first; a figure of speech in which a phrase that should come last is put first (e.g., putting on one's shoes and socks)

### "Good words cool more than cold water."

— John Ray

### iamb

### a foot of two syllables, a short followed by a long in quantitative meter, or an unstressed followed by a stressed in accentual meter

### iambic pentameter

### a commonly used metrical line with a particular rhythm in traditional verse and verse drama with five iambs

### idedem (Latin)

### in the same book, chapter, page, etc.; ibid.

### icarian

### of or relating to an over-ambitious attempt that ends in ruin

### ichigo ichie (Japanese)

### a cultural concept of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of a moment; for this time only; once in a lifetime; unprecedented and unrepeatable

### ichor

### the ethereal fluid flowing through the veins of the immortal (Greek) gods

### idealism

### the philosophical theory which maintains that experience is ultimately based on mental activity

### ideation

### the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract

### idoneous

### appropriate; fit; suitable; apt

### ietsism

### an unspecified belief in an undetermined higher force; somethingism; spiritual but not religious; agnostic theism

### ignis fatuus (Latin)

### something deluding or misleading

### ignominy

### disgrace; dishonor; public contempt; shameful or dishonorable quality or conduct; opprobrium

### ignosticism (or igtheism)

### the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts (cf. theological noncognitivism)

### ijirashi (Japanese)

### a feeling that you get when you see someone who is praiseworthy overcoming an obstacle; cheering when a David beats a Goliath

### ikebana (Japanese)

### the Japanese art of flower arrangement (aka kado, the way of flowers); cf. ohanami

### ikigai (Japanese)

### that which makes life worth living; having a purpose in life; happiness in living; a reason for being; a reason to wake up in the morning; raison d'être; plan de vida

### iktsuarpok (Inuit)

### the sense of anticipation waiting for someone to visit; going outside often to check if someone is coming

### ilinx

### a form of play that creates a temporary disruption of perception

### illecebrous

### tending to attract; enticing; alluring

### illectronicy

### the inability to properly use electronic devices

### illeism

### speaking about oneself in the third person

### illusive

### an unrealistic expectation or an unreachable goal or outcome; illusory

### illusory superiority

### a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others; above average effect; superiority bias; leniency error; sense of relative superiority; primus inter pares effect; Lake Wobegon effect; Animal Farm effect

### ilunga (Tshiluba)

### a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time

### imago

### the adult, or perfect form, of an insect after metamorphosis; an idealized concept of a loved one, formed in childhood and retained unaltered in adult life

### imaituq (Alutiiq)

### it is empty (antonym: imartuq)

### imartuq (Alutiiq)

### it is full (antonym: imaituq)

### imbricate

### to have or having overlapping edges, as tiles on a roof or scales on a fish

### imbroglio

### a complicated and embarrassing state of things; a confused or complicated disagreement or misunderstanding; an intricate, complicated plot, as of a drama or work of fiction; a confused mass; a tangle

### immanent

### remaining within; indwelling; inherent; taking place within the mind of the subject and having no effect outside of it

### imminent

### about to happen

### immiscible

### not miscible; incapable of being mixed

### immix

### to mix in; mingle

### immolate

### to kill or sacrifice, especially by burning

### impact bias

### the tendency to overestimate the emotional impact of a future event, both in terms of intensity and duration, especially negative events

### impasto

### paint applied thickly, so that brush and palette knife marks are evident; paint that is applied to a canvas or panel in quantities that make it stand out from the surface

### impecunious

### having little or no money; penniless; poor

### impedimenta

### baggage, supplies, or equipment related to an activity or expedition, especially when regarded as slowing one's progress

### imperious

### assuming power or authority without justification; arrogant and domineering; domineering in a haughty manner; dictatorial; overbearing; urgent; imperative

### impertinent

### intrusive or presumptuous; not pertinent or relevant; irrelevant

### impetrate

### to obtain by entreaty

### impignorate

### to pledge, pawn, or mortgage

### importunate

### urgent or persistent in solicitation, sometimes annoyingly so; pertinacious, as solicitations or demands; troublesome; annoying

### impostor syndrome (also impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome)

### a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments, dismissing external evidence of their competence as luck, timing, deception, etc.

### imposture

### the action or practice of imposing fraudulently upon others; deception using an assumed character, identity, or name, as by an impostor

### imprecate

### to invoke or call down (evil or curses), as upon a person

### impregnable

### incapable of being taken by force; strong enough to withstand attack; capable of being impregnated

### impresa

### an emblem or device, usually with a motto

### imprimatur

### approval or permission to publish

### impromptu

### done without being planned, organized, or rehearsed; made, done, or formed on or as if on the spur of the moment; happening suddenly and often unexpectedly and usually without clearly known causes or relationships; improvised; extemporaneous

### impudent

### marked by offensive boldness

### impugn

### dispute the truth, validity, or honesty of a statement or motive; call into question

### in vitro

### in glass and referring to a biological procedure that occurs in a test tube rather than a body

### inamorata

### a woman whom one is in love with; a female lover; a mistress

### inchoate

### not yet completed or fully developed; rudimentary; just begun; incipient; not organized; lacking order

### incipient

### beginning to exist or appear

### incommodious

### inconvenient, as not affording sufficient space or room; uncomfortable

### incondite

### ill-constructed; unpolished; crude; rough; unmannerly

### inconnu

### a person who is unknown; a stranger

### inconspicuous consumption

### purchasing goods and especially services that are intended to increase social, cultural and/or symbolic capital, especially for oneself or one's children, including health, education, and experiences

### inculcate

### to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly; to cause or influence (someone) to accept an idea or feeling

### incunabula

### extant copies of books produced in the earliest stages (before 1501) of printing from movable type; books printed during the infancy of printing, especially those produced before 1501; the earliest stages or first traces of anything; artifacts of an early period

### indagate

### to investigate; to research; to search into

### indesinent

### not ceasing; perpetual

### indeterminacy

### the common scientific and mathematical concepts of uncertainty and their implications; the nature of definition or meaning

### indolence

### avoidance of activity or exertion; laziness; inactivity; slothfulness

### indotherm

### wavy, rising lines used in drawings to represent steam or heat on hot objects (cf. wafferon)

### indhrivanam (Malayalam)

### a sense of forest

### indigen

### a native organism, person, or even object

### indolent

### having or showing a disposition to avoid exertion; slothful; causing little or no pain; inactive or relatively benign

### inehe (Tigrinya)

### here I am (Hebrew: hineni)

### ineffable

### incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible; not to be spoken because of its sacredness; unutterable; beyond expression in words; unspeakable; forbidden to be uttered; taboo

### ineluctable

### incapable of being evaded; inescapable; unavoidable; inevitable; irrevocable, unpreventable, unstoppable, inexorable

### inemuri (Japanese)

### the practice of napping during meetings and class

### inexorable

### cannot be moved or influenced by persuasion or entreaty; unrelenting; that which cannot be altered or restrained

### induratize

### to harden one's heart to someone's pleas or advances or to the idea of love

### inflection point

### a point of a curve at which a change in the direction of curvature occurs; a time of significant change in a situation; a turning point; pivot point

### infinite regress

### a series of an infinitely cascading propositions, where the validity of one depends on the validity of the one which follows and/or proceeds it (viciously circular infinite regressions are propositions which reintroduce their own proposition in the solution)

### inflection point

### a point of a curve at which a change in the direction of curvature occurs; a time of significant change in a situation; a turning point

### inflorescence

### a flowering or blossoming; the arrangement of flowers on the axis; the flowering part of a plant; a flower cluster; flowers collectively

### informatics

### the science of computer information systems

### infradian rhythm

### a rhythm with a period longer than the period of a (24 hour) circadian rhythm

### infundibuliform

### funnel-shaped

### ingeminate

### to repeat; reiterate

### ingenuous

### guileless; innocent; frank; naive

### ingress

### the act of going in or entering; the right to enter; a means or place of entering; entryway (antonym: egress)

### ingurgitate

### to swallow greedily or in large amounts (antonym: regurgitate)

### inimical

### adverse in tendency or effect; unfavorable; harmful; unfriendly; hostile

### iniquitous

### characterized by injustice or wickedness; unfair; wicked; sinful

### inkhorn

### affectedly or ostentatiously learned; pedantic

### inlak'ech (Mayan)

### you are my other me

### inmiarsi (Italian)

### to penetrate deeply into your conscience or spirit

### innamorarsi (Italian)

### to fall in love

### innenwelt (German)

### the "inner world"; the interaction between the imaginary interior space that the "I" occupies and the physical world in which the living human subject is situated; the mental experience of interiority that accompanies the "I" formed in the mirror stage (cf. umvelt)

### innerer schweinehund (German)

### the weak or lazy part of one's nature; one's shoulder devil; literally, inner pig dog

### inorthography

### incorrect spelling

### inosculate

### to join or unite

### insidious

### intended to entrap or beguile; stealthily treacherous or deceitful; operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect

### insipid

### without distinctive, interesting, or stimulating qualities; vapid; without sufficient taste to be pleasing; bland

### inskolning (Swedish)

### when parents go to school with their toddlers for the first week of kindergarten to help them adjust to their new environment

### insolent

### boldly rude or disrespectful; contemptuously impertinent; insulting

### insouciant

### free from concern, worry, or anxiety; marked by blithe unconcern; blithely indifferent; carefree; nonchalant; casual; undisturbed

### inspissate

### to thicken, as by evaporation; make or become dense; to condense

### instanton

### a kind of evanescent event that is localized in time (rather than in space)

### instauration

### renewal; restoration; renovation; repair

### insuperable

### impossible to achieve or overcome or be negotiated; overwhelming or insurmountable

### intaglio

### incised carving, as opposed to carving in relief; ornamentation with a figure or design sunk below the surface; a gem, seal, piece of jewelry, or the like, cut with an incised or sunken design

### integrity

### adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty; the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished

### integument

### a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind; any covering, coating, enclosure, etc.

### intemerate

### inviolate; undefiled; unsullied; pure

### intercalate

### to insert (an extra day, month, etc.) in the calendar; to interpolate; interpose

### interdigitate

### to interlock like the fingers of two hands

### interesting number paradox

### a semi-humorous paradox which arises from the attempt to classify natural numbers as "interesting" or "dull", with the paradox stating that all natural numbers are interesting based on the "proof" of contradiction (cf. interesting word paradox; interesting thing paradox; interesting experience paradox)

### internecine

### of or pertaining to conflict or struggle within a group; mutually destructive; characterized by great slaughter; deadly

### internuncial

### serving to announce or connect; serving to connect nerve fibers

### interobject

### a phenomenon of dreams, in which there is a perception of something that is "between" two objects

### interoception

### a lesser-known sense that helps one understand and feel what's going on inside one's body; tuning into the state of one's body, as well as one's deep feelings; responsiveness to external stimuli; the faculty of sensation; any sense that is normally stimulated from within the body

### interosculate

### to form a connecting link; to interpenetrate

### interpolate

### to introduce something additional or extraneous between other things or parts; interject; interpose; intercalate; to insert; to alter (a text) by the insertion of new matter, especially deceptively or without authorization

### interpose

### to place in between; to intrude or to interrupt; the act of, or an instance of, putting something in between; an interference or interruption

### interregnum

### a period of discontinuity or gap in a government, organization, or social order

### interrobang

### a nonstandard punctuation mark used in various written languages and intended to combine the functions of the question mark (also called the "interrogative point") and the exclamation mark or exclamation point (known in printers' jargon as the "bang"); interabang

### interstice

### an intervening space, especially a very small one

### interstitial

### concerning or located between things, especially those closely spaced

### intertemporal choice

### the process by which people make decisions about what and how much to do at various points in time, when choices at one time influence the possibilities available at other points in time

### intima

### the innermost membrane or lining of some organ or part, especially that of an artery, vein, or lymphatic

### intrapreneur

### an employee of (usually a large) corporation who is given freedom and financial support to create new products, services, systems, etc., and does not have to follow the corporation's usual routines or protocols

### intrepid

### resolutely fearless; dauntless; daring; bold

### intrinsic motivation

### engaging in behavior because the activity is enjoyable itself; internally motivated without seeing reward (antonym: extrinsic motivation)

### intromit

### to introduce; to send, put, or let in

### intuarsi (Italian)

### to penetrate deeply into your conscience or spirit

### intuit

### to know or sense immediately without the use of reasoning

### inuksuk (Inuktitut)

### a human-made stone landmark or cairn

### inure

### to accustom to hardship, difficulty, pain, etc.; toughen or harden; habituate; to come into use; take or have effect; to become beneficial or advantageous

### inveigh

### to protest strongly or attack vehemently with words; to rail against; harangue

### inveigle

### artful or sweet talk; to entice, lure, or ensnare by flattery or inducements

### inveterate

### firmly established by long persistence; deep-rooted; of long standing; fixed in habit by long persistence; confirmed; habitual

### invidious

### calculated to create ill will or resentment or give offense; hateful; offensively or unfairly discriminating; injurious; causing or tending to cause animosity, resentment, or envy

### inwit

### conscience; reason; intellect; courage

### iota

### a very small quantity; jot; whit; the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet

### itinerant

### traveling from place to place, especially on a circuit; characterized by such traveling; characterized by alternating periods of working and wandering; peripatetic

### irascible

### easily provoked to anger; very irritable; characterized or produced by anger

### irenic

### promoting peace; peaceful; conciliatory

### iridescent

### displaying a rainbow of colors that change when seen from different angles

### irie (Jamaican patois)

### groovy; cool; alright; powerful; pleasing; excellent; highest; the state of feeling great

### ironic

### happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this; using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning; coincidental; unexpected

### irredentist

### a member of a party in any country advocating the acquisition of some region included in another country by reason of cultural, historical, ethnic, racial, or other ties; (usually initial capital letter) a member of an Italian association that became prominent in 1878, advocating the redemption, or the incorporation into Italy, of certain neighboring regions (Italia irredenta) having a primarily Italian population; pertaining to or supporting such a party or its doctrine

### irrefragable

### impossible to refute; incontestable; undeniable

### irriguous

### well-watered, as land

### irshah (Ramaytush (Costonoan/Ohlone))

### to dance

### irusu (Japanese)

### pretending to be absent from home; pretending to be out when someone knocks on one's door

### isanghada (Korean)

### to be strange or unusual

### ishq (Arabic)

### unconditional love

### isochronal

### taking the same amount of time to perform or occur

### isolato

### a person who is spiritually isolated from or out of sympathy with his or her times or society

### isolophilia

### a strong affection and preference for solitude; a desire to be feft alone

### isopolity

### equal rights of citizenship, as in different communities; mutual political rights

### isotropy

### identical in all directions; lacking axes that are predetermined

### ital (Rastafarian)

### the diet that supports livity, the energy or life-force that flows through all living things

### intenerate

### to make soft or tender; soften

### izefet (Egyptian)

### the state and idea of evil, badness, negativity, and injustice (antonym: ma'at)

### "Words are loaded pistols."

— Jean-Paul Sartre

### jabot

### a cascading or ornamental frill down the front of a blouse, shirt, etc.

### jackanapes

### a monkey, especially one on a leash; an impudent and mischevious person

### jactancy

### boasting or boastfulness

### jactation

### a reckless toss of the body

### jaksaa (Finnish)

### to have energy, enthusiasm, and spirit for a task or activity

### jaloitella (Finnish)

### to stretch one's legs by strolling around

### jalopy

### an old, decrepit, or unpretentious automobile

### jalousie

### a window, shade, or door formed of overlapping, horizontal slats (or louvers) made of wood, metal, or glass, that can be adjusted to regulate the passage of air or light coming between them

### jam karat (Bahasa Indonesia)

### rubber time; flexibility in terms of time

### jamais vu (French)

### not remembering having actually experienced something (cf. déjà vu)

### jambalaya

### a dish made of rice, herbs, spices, vegetables, and often meat; a heterogeneous mixture

### janteloven (Danish)

### a set of rules which discourages individualism in communities

### jape

### to jest; to trick; joke; gibe; to mock or make fun of; a joke; jest; quip; a trick or practical joke; prank

### jaundiced

### affected with or exhibiting prejudice, as from envy or resentment; affected with or colored by or as if by jaundice; yellowed; state of feeling in which views are prejudiced or judgment is distorted, as by envy or resentment; to distort or prejudice, as by envy or resentment

### jaup

### a splash, spurt, or drop of water; a spot or stain, as from a splash of water or mud

### jayus (Indonesian)

### a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but to laugh

### je ne sais quoi (French)

### "I-don't-know-what"; an indefinable, elusive quality, especially a pleasing one; an indescribable or indefinable 'something' that distinguishes the object in question from others that are superficially similar

### jehu

### a fast driver; driver of a cab

### jein (German)

### both yes and no

### jejunation

### fasting

### jejune

### dull; insipid; lacking maturity; lacking knowledge or experience; juvenile; simple; naive; unsophisticated; dry; lacking in nutrition

### jentacular

### relating to breakfast

### jeofail

### an oversight in pleading; the acknowledgment of a mistake or oversight

### jeremiad

### a raging, maddened speech of complaint

### jerkin

### a type of garment, such as a close-fitting collarless jacket, with or without sleeves; a sleeveless jacket, usually leather; a long waistcoat

### jetsam

### things thrown overboard to lighten a ship in distress; discarded material, debris, etc.

### Jerusalem syndrome

### a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously-themed obsessive ideas, delusions, or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem

### jete

### a jump forward, backward, or to the side, from one foot to the other

### jetsam (also jetsom)

### goods cast overboard deliberately, as to lighten a vessel or improve its stability in an emergency, which sink where jettisoned or are washed ashore; discarded odds and ends

### jeu

### a game

### Jevons paradox

### the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource

### jigger

### any of various mechanical devices, many of which have a jerky or jolting motion; some contrivance, article, or part that one cannot or does not name more precisely; a 1½-oz. (45-ml) measure used in cocktail recipes; one who jigs

### jiggery-pokery

### deceitful or dishonest behavior; underhanded manipulation or dealings; trickery

### jiggy

### nervous; active; excitedly energetic; wonderful and exciting, especially because stylish

### jikan (Japanese)

### the silence between two thoughts

### jimjams

### extreme nervousness; jitters; delirium tremens

### jīng shū (Hokkien)

### fear of missing out (FOMO); a selfish, grasping attitude

### jingo

### a person who professes patriotism loudly and excessively, favoring vigilant preparedness for war and an aggressive foreign policy; bellicose; chauvinist

### jingoism

### patriotism in the form of aggressive and often militaristic foreign policy; an extreme type of nationalism (cf. chauvinism; xenophobia)

### jink

### an evasive turn

### jinn (or jin)

### any of a class of Muslim or Arabian mythological spirits, lower than the angels, capable of appearing in human and animal forms and influencing humankind for either good or evil

### jnana

### knowledge acquired through meditation and study as a means of reaching the divine

### jobbery

### the use of a public office for private gain

### jocko

### a chimpanzee; any monkey

### jocose

### given to or characterized by joking; jesting; humorous; playful

### jocoserious

### mingling mirth and seriousness

### jocular

### given to, characterized by, intended for, or suited to joking or jesting; waggish; facetious

### jointure

### property given to a woman upon marriage, to be owned by her after her husband's death

### jojoba

### a leathery-leaved shrub, Simmondsia chinensis (or S. californica ), of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, bearing seeds that are the source of an oil (jojoba oil) used in cosmetics and as a lubricant; goat-nut

### jol

a word that South Africans use for a party; a word used to express that one is having a good time; to have a good time

### jorum

### a large drinking vessel or its contents; a great quantity

### jouissance (French)

### physical or intellectual pleasure, delight, or ecstasy; enjoyment, in terms both of rights and property, and of sexual orgasm; erotic joy

### jounce

### to bounce along; to move joltingly or roughly up and down

### jouska (Finnish)

### a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head

### jow (Scottish)

### to ring, toll, or sounds a bell; the ringing, tolling , sounding of a bell; to hit or strike; to rock from side to side

### jowl

### a jaw, especially the lower jaw; the cheek; jole

### jubilate

### to show or feel great joy; rejoice; exult; to celebrate a jubilee or joyful occasion

### jubilee

a special anniversary of an event, especially a 50th anniversary; rejoicing or celebration

### judder

### to shake or vibrate violently

### juhyangno (Korean)

### a road full of the scent of liquor

### jugaad (Hindi)

### the ability to get by

### juggernaut

### any large, overpowering, destructive force or object; anything requiring mindless devotion or cruel sacrifice

### juju (Hausa)

### an object used as a fetish, charm or amulet; an object superstitiously believed to embody magical powers; the supernatural power ascribed to such an object

### juke

### to make a move intended to deceive an opponent; a fake or feint, usually intended to deceive a defensive player; to duck, dodge, or feint; to swerve and reverse evasively; trick a defender or tackler; jink

### juridical

### of or relating to judicial proceedings and the administration of the law

### juut (Japanese)

### to uplift humanity by serving others

### juvenescence

### the act or state of being or becoming youthful; youthfulness; becoming younger in appearance; the power to make young or youthful or the process to do so

### juxtapose

### to place side by side for comparison or contrast

### "Finding the words is another step in learning to see."

— Robin Wall Kimmerer

### ka (Egyptian)

### a spiritual entity, an aspect of the individual, believed to live within the body during life and to survive it after death; soul

### kabuki

### a form of Japanese drama that includes highly stylized movements, dances, singing, and miming, and all parts are played by males; done for show only; make-believe

### kaif (Russian)

### the feeling one has when one has been waiting to urinate and finally gets to go; pissgasm

### kairos (Greek)

### moment of opportunity; the right, critical, or opportune moment for action; consciousness about context for the purposes of effective communication

### kaizen (Japanese)

### improvement through gradual progression

### kakatta (Finnish)

### an evil laugh; a malevolent, mocking cackle

### kakistocracy

### a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous people

### kalon

### ideal perfect beauty in the physical and moral sense

### kalopsia

### the delusion of things being more beautiful than they are

### kalpen (Sanskrit?)

### the object of a dream

### kalsarikannit (Finnish)

### drinking home alone in your underwear, with no intention of going out

### kamalani (Hawaiian)

### child of the heavens

### kami (Japanese)

### the inherent deity of every person, object, force, and god; forces of nature, both good and evil, which, because of their superiority or divinity, become objects of reverence and respect

### karma yoga

### one or more selfless acts dedicated towards the good of the world, not driven by self-interest or what one might receive in return

### kanyininpa (Pintupi)

### an intimate and active relationship between carer and caree

### karadaki suru (Japanese)

### to accidentally heat up empty cookware; to unintentionally put up a pot to boil without any water in it

### karass

### a group of people linked in a cosmically-significant manner, even when superficial links are not evident

### karoshi (Japanese)

### death by overwork

### karumi (Japanese)

### lightness; the beauty of ordinary things

### kashi (Sanskrit)

### to shine or look brilliant

### katagelasticism

### the joy of laughing at others (cf. gelotophobia)

### kathenotheism

### belief that multiple deities exist and that different deities are supreme among them at different times (cf. henotheism)

### katzenjammer

### hangover; distress; depression; confusion; clamor; uproar

### kavanah (Hebrew)

### concentration and intention for a special, or spiritual, purpose

### karuna (Sanskrit)

### loving compassion

### keen

finely sharpened, as an edge; so shaped as to cut or pierce substances readily; sharp, piercing, or biting; characterized by strength and distinctness of perception; extremely sensitive or responsive; having or showing great mental penetration or acumen; animated by or showing strong feeling or desire; a wailing lament for the dead

### keessaa (Oromo)

### from inside

### kelaunikui (Celtiberian)

### matrimony or covered or having a building

### kellion

### a small community of monks; a cell in a monastery

### kemp

### coarse, rough hair, wool, or fur; shaggy; rough; a champion; a knight

### kenbei (Japanese)

### strong anti-American sentiment

### kenjataimu (Japanese)

### the moment after ejaculation, when a man is free from sexual desire

### kenning

### a figurative, usually compound, expression used to describe something; a conventional poetic phrase used for or in addition to the usual name of a person or thing; knowing, having knowledge of or about, or being acquainted with a person or thing; understanding; to understand or perceive an idea or situation

### kenopsia

the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people, but is now abandoned and quiet; appraising the lack or absence of something, especially people; the strange eerieness of empty or abandoned places

### kensho (Japanese)

### seeing into one's true nature (cf. satori)

### kerf

### a cut or incision made by a saw or the like in a piece of wood; in mining, a deep cut a few inches high, used to undermine a portion of a coal or mineral seam; the act of cutting or carving; to cut or carve

### kerfuffle

### commotion; disturbance; tumult; disorderly outburst; chaos

### kestler (Yiddish)

### a married man who lives with his in-laws

### keviyah (Hebrew)

### a setting; an established thing

### ki'atudo (Tigrinya)

### may I come in?

### kiasu (Singaporean)

### the afraid-to-miss-out state of mind that overtakes people at buffets; the you-have-to-take-advantage feeling in certain situations; scared of losing out

### kibitz (Yiddish)

### verbal joking or unsolicited advice, especially from one not directly participating; circular commenting; a back-and-forth conversation outside the main issue, where the people having the conversation are not directly participating

### kilig (Tagalog)

causing or characterized by a feeling of exhilaration or elation; the giddiness one feels when meeting one's crush; the sudden feeling of an inexplicable joy one gets when something romantic or idealistic occurs; romantic excitement; enthralling; a person exhilarated by an exciting or romantic experience; exhilaration or elation caused by an exciting or romantic experience; a thrill

### killcrop

### a hungry brat; a fairy substituted for a child

### kindle

### to start a fire; to cause a flame, blaze, etc. to begin burning; to set fire to or ignite (fuel or any combustible matter); to excite; stir up or set going; animate; rouse; inflame; to light up, illuminate, or make bright; to become aroused or animated; to bear young, produce offspring, or give birth, as to a litter; a litter of kittens, rabbits, etc.

### kine

### plural of cow

### kinetic

### pertaining to motion; characterized by movement

### kintsugi (Japanese)

the art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, so that the breakage and repair becomes part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise (literally, golden joinery)

### kirjoitella (Finnish)

### to occasionally write down short passages; to jot down now and then

### kirmess (or kermesse)

### an outdoor festival and fair (usually in Belgium or Holland); an indoor entertainment and fair combined (usually in the U.S.)

### kismet

### fate; fortune; destiny

### kitsch

### art objects that are gaudy or overly sentimental, designed for popular appeal; tawdry; tacky; sentimental

### kiva

### a large chamber, often wholly or partly underground, in a Pueblo Indian village, used for religious ceremonies and other purposes

### klatsch

### a casual gathering of people, especially for refreshments and informal conversation (literally, gossip in German)

### klaxon

### a loud electric horn, formerly used on automobiles, trucks, etc., and now often used as a warning signal

### klecksography

### the art of making images from inkblots

### klieg

### a kind of arc lamp used as a studio light

### klipot (Hebrew)

### unholy shells that contain holy light

### kludge (also kluge)

### a design, especially in hardware or software, that is inefficient, inelegant, and unfathomable, but that nevertheless works; an inelegant, improvised solution to a problem; to improvise a haphazard solution to a problem; jury rig (or jerry rig); MacGyver; bricolage

### knaggy  
knotty; rough; rugged

### knapple  
to break off with a sharp, quick noise; to nibble

### knar

### a knot on a tree or in wood

### knavery

### dishonest dealing or an instance of this

### knygnešys (Lithuanian)

### book smuggler

### koan

### a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment; a story, dialogue, question, or statement that is used in Zen Buddhist practice to provoke the "great doubt", to practice or test a student's progress, and to encourage "beginner's mind"

### koi no yokan (Japanese)

### the sense one can have upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love; premonition of love

### koinonia

### communion; joint participation; the share which one has in anything; a gift jointly contributed; a collection; a contribution

### komorebi (Japanese)

### sunlight filtering through trees

### kompromat (Russian)

### compromising information about someone

### kontal-kontil (Indonesian)

### the swinging of long earrings or the swishing of a dress as one walks

### kormushka (Russian)

### the small window in the prison cell door through which food and other items are passed

### kouhai (Japanese)

### a student in a lower grade than one's own (antonym: senpai)

### koyaanisqatsi (Hopi)  
life out of balance

### 1kraal

### an enclosure for cattle and other domestic animals in southern Africa; a village of the native peoples of South Africa, usually surrounded by a stockade or the like and often having a central space for livestock; an enclosure where wild animals are exhibited, as in a zoo

### kraeng-jai (Thai)  
the fear of offending, causing inconvenience, or being a burden to another; not wanting to make a request or put someone out; the reluctance to accept another's offer of help because of the bother it would cause; literally, fear-heart

### kri'ah (Hebrew)

### the tearing of a piece of clothing one is wearing, usually a shirt, upon hearing of the death of a close loved one

### kǔ qù gān lái (Mandarin)

### happiness or relief after going through trying times; literally, go from pain, come towards sweetness

### kuebiko (Japanese)

### the fatigue generated by senseless violence; the Shinto deity of knowledge and agriculture, who is a scarecrow and cannot cannot move, but has comprehensive awareness of the world

### kuidaore (Japanese)

### to ruin oneself by extravagance in food; to eat oneself into bankruptcy

### kulanu (Hebrew)  
all of us

### kummerspeck (German)

### the excess fat gained by emotional overeating, specifically the excessive eating people do in times of stress, grief, or sorrow

### kuminopristokardamoglúphos (Ancient Greek)

### an extreme miser (literally, a cumin-splitting cress-scraper)

### kumsitz (or kumzits) (Hebrew)

### an informal gathering that Jews partake in, often in the evening, often on the floor, often with music, sometimes around a fire

### kushiyah (Hebrew)

### a difficulty (in understanding, interpretation, etc.)

### kvell (Yiddish)  
to swell with joyful pride; to burst with pride

### kvetch-22  
an intractable problem you cannot complain about

### kwashiorkor  
protein deficiency disease

### kyoka (Japanese)  
crazy poems

### "Words are things; and a small drop of ink

### Falling like dew upon a thought, produces

### That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."

  * ### Lord Byron

### l'abbiocco (Italian)

### a need to lie down, especially the one that strikes after eating and drinking heartily; food exhaustion

### l'appel du vide (French)

### the call of the void

### laager (or lager)

### a camp, especially one protected by a circle of wagons or armored vehicles; an entrenched policy or viewpoint; to enclose in a defensive encirclement

### labrose

### thick-lipped

### lachanophobia

### fear of vegetables

### lachrymose

### relating to or inducing tears; tearful; lachrymogenic

### laciniate

### cut into narrow, irregular lobes; slashed; jagged

### laconic

### using few words; expressing much in few words; concise; terse

### lacteal

### of milk; milky; lactescent; lactinacious

### lacubrate

### to work diligently by artificial light

### lacuna

### a gap or missing part; a cavity or empty space; a small opening

### lacustrine

### of or pertaining to a lake; living or growing in lakes; formed at the bottom or along the shore of lakes, as geological strata

### laeotropic

### turning to the left, typically in a left-handed spiral; oritented or coiled in a leftward direction

### lagniappe

### an unexpected benefit, especially a small gift

### lagom (Swedish)

### moderation; just the right amount; not too much but not too little, especially in terms of needs; appropriateness; about right

### lak (or lakh, lac)

### one hundred thousand

### lall

### the incorrect pronunciation of the letters "r" and/or "l", often for each other

### lalochezia

the use of vulgar or foul language to relieve stress or pain; emotional discharge gained by uttering indecent or filthy words; emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language

### lambent

### running or moving lightly over a surface; dealing lightly and gracefully with a subject; brilliantly playful; softly bright or radiant

### lanai

### porch, patio, or veranda; an outside area connected to a main structure; an outdoor living or dining room; roofed structure with open sides

### lancinate

### to pierce or tear

### languid

### lacking in vigor or vitality; slack or slow; lacking in spirit or interest; listless; indifferent; drooping or flagging from weakness or fatigue; faint

### languor

### weakness or weariness of body or mind; listless indolence

### laodicean

### lukewarm or indifferent, especially regarding religion

### laotong (Chinese)

### a type of relationship within Chinese culture, which was practiced in Hunan, that bonded two girls together for eternity as kindred sisters

### lapidary

### the art of cutting, polishing, and engraving precious stones or one who does this; having elegance, precision, or refinement suggestive of gem cutting

### lapsus linguae

### a slip of the tongue

### larder

### a room or place where food is kept; pantry; a supply of food

### larine

### of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a gull

### larrup

### to beat or thrash

### larruping

### very; excellent

### laissez-faire

### the theory or system of government that upholds the autonomous character of the economic order, believing that government should intervene as little as possible in the direction of economic affairs; the practice or doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of others, especially with reference to individual conduct or freedom of action

### laissez-fairytales

### the absurd and counterfactual beliefs of right-wing economists who mistake markets - artificial political economic constructions that inevitably cause wealth to trickle up, not down, and that fail to account for essential values such as environmental "externalities" - for natural or even divinely ordained phenomena, and who dread and delegitimize any form of reasonable regulation of economic activities by the public sector despite many decades of evidence establishing the indispensable role of such regulation

### lassitude

### weariness of body or mind from strain, oppressive climate, etc.; lack of energy; listlessness; languor; a condition of indolent indifference

### latchstring (word with six consecutive consonants)

### a string passed through a hole in a door, for raising the latch from the outside

### latibulate

### to hide oneself in a corner

### latibule

### a hiding place; a place a safety and comfort; cf. abditory

### latitudinarian

### permitting or marked by freedom of attitude or behavior, especially in religious matters; holding broad and tolerant views, especially on matters of religion; one who is broadminded and tolerant, especially concerning religion

### latrate

### to bark like a dog

### laureate

### having special distinction or recognition in a field; a person honored for achieving distinction in a field

### lave

### to wash; bathe; to flow along, against, or past

### lazar

### a person infected with a disease, especially leprosy

### lazaretto

### a medical facility for people with infectious diseases; a building or ship used for quarantine; on a ship, a space between decks used as storage

### learned helplessness

### a behavior in which an organism forced to endure aversive, painful, or otherwise unpleasant stimuli becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are then escapable; trained incapacity

### leeway

### the amount of freedom to do something: margin or latitude

### legato

### smooth and connected; without breaks between the successive tones

### legerdemain

### sleight of hand; trickery; deception; deceitful cleverness; conjuration; illusion; magic; prestidigitation

### lehizdangef (Hebrew)

### to stroll or promenade along Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Street; to have care-free fun

### leitmotif (or leitmotiv)

### a recurrent theme in a piece of music or literature, situation, etc.

### lek

### a traditional place where males assemble during the mating season and engage in competitive displays that attract females; (Swedish) unstructured child's play; (Thai) small

### lemma

### the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme

### lentic

### still or unmoving; pertaining to or living in still water; lenitic (antonym lotic)

### lentiginous

### covered with freckles

### lepak

### To loiter about casually; to hang out

### lethologica

### the forgetting of a word, term, or phrase; the inability to recall a precise word for something

### lethonomica

### the forgetting of people's names

### leukos (Greek)

### white as pure light

### levee

### an embankment made to prevent flooding; an embankment around a field that is to be irrigated; a landing place; a quay; a formal reception

### levigate

### to rub, grind, or reduce to a fine powder; to make a homogeneous mixture of, as gels; having a smooth, glossy surface; glabrous

### levin

### lightning; a bright light

### Lewis's law

### the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism

### lex loci

### law of the place; local law

### lexeme

### a set of forms taken by a single word (cf. lemma)

### lexical field

### the way of organizing related words and expressions into a system that shows their relationship to one another; semantic field

### lexicography

### the art or craft of compiling, writing, or editing dictionaries

### lexicology

### the study of words, their nature, and their meanings

### lexicon

### a wordbook or dictionary, especially of Greek, Latin, or Hebrew; the vocabulary of a particular language, field, social class, person, etc.; inventory or record

### lexis

### the set of all words and phrases in a language; the vocabulary used by a writer

### lézarder (French)

### to lizard; to lie in the sun like a lizard (cf. apricity)

### liberosis

### a longing for liberty; the desire to care less about things

### libertine

### a person who is morally unrestrained; unrestrained by conventions or morality

### licit

### not forbidden; lawful; legal; legitimate

### lichtaffen (German)

### monkeys drawn to light

### lief

### gladly; willing; desirous

### liege

### loyal; faithful; owing primary allegiance and service to a feudal lord; pertaining to the relation between a feudal vassal and lord; a feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service; a feudal vassal or subject

### lien (Thai)

### too oily; sickly sweet

### light year

### a unit of length (not time) equal to the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days), which is about 6 trillion miles or 10 trillion kilometers

### ligneous

### having the texture or appearance of wood

### Lilliputian

### something small (cf. Blefuscuan; antonym: Brobdingnagian)

### limaceous

### resembling a slug; slug-like

### limen

### a threshold of response; the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to generate a response

### limerence

### the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship; the state of mind caused by a romantic attraction

### liminal

### relating to the point beyond which a sensation becomes too faint to be experienced; relating to a threshold; at the threshold of consciousness; neither here nor there; at a transition

### limn

### to portray in words; to draw or paint, especially in outline

### limnology

### the scientific study of bodies of fresh water, as lakes and ponds, with reference to their physical, geographical, biological, and other features

### limpet

one that clings stubbornly; something that attached to something else; hanger on (cf. aufwuch)

### limpid

### clear, transparent, or pellucid, as water, crystal, or air; free from obscurity; lucid; completely calm; without distress or worry; serene; easily comprehenible

### Lindy Effect

### a theory of the life expectancy of non-perishable things that posits for a certain class of nonperishables, like a technology or an idea, every additional day may imply a longer life expectancy

### lineament

### a distinctive feature, especially of a face; a linear topographic feature

### linglot (Thai)

### to be overjoyed; literally, monkey jump

### lipogram

### a written work composed of words chosen so as to avoid the use of one or more specific alphabetic characters

### lisp

### a speech defect in which "s" is pronounced like "th"; a word hard to pronounce with this condition

### lissom (or lissome)

### lithesome or lithe, especially of body; supple; flexible; agile, nimble, or active; limber

### lissotrichous

### having straight or smooth hair

### listicle

### an article structured in the form of a list, typically having some additional content relating to each item

### listless

### devoid of energy or enthusiasm; without a list

### litost (Czech)

### a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery

### litotes

### an ironic figure of speech where something positive is stated by negating its opposite; a form of understatement by expressing the negative of its contrary; the opposite of hyperbole

### littoral

### by the shoreline, usually on the underwater side; pertaining to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean

### livid

### having a discolored, bluish appearance caused by a bruise, congestion of blood vessels, strangulation, etc., as the face, flesh, hands, or nails; dull blue; dark, grayish-blue; enraged; furiously angry; feeling or appearing strangulated because of strong emotion; reddish or flushed; deathly pale; pallid; ashen; lurid

### livity (Rastafarian)

### the energy or life-force that flows through all living things

### livsnjutare (Swedish)

### one who loves life deeply and lives it to the extreme; enjoyer of life; bon vivant; hedonist

### llano

### an open grassy, almost treeless plain

### loam

### a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay; a mixture of clay, sand, straw, etc., used in making molds for founding and in plastering walls, stopping holes, etc.; earth or soil

### locum

### a person filling in for another, especially for a doctor or clergyman

### logastellus

### a person whose love of words is greater than their knowledge of words

### logatome

### a nonce word that fulfills all of a language's requirements for word creation but is still total nonsense; a nonsense syllable is a short pseudoword consisting most of the time of just one syllable which has no meaning of its own; pseudoword

### logodaedaly

### skill in using or coining words

### logogram (also logograph)

### a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme; ideogram

### logolepsy

### a fascination or obsession with words

### logomachy

### a dispute about or concerning words; an argument or debate marked by the reckless or incorrect use of words; meaningless battle of words

### logomaniac

### one who is obsessively interested in words

### logophile

### a lover of words

### logorrhea

### excessive wordiness

### logos

### the rational principle that governs and develops the universe; the divine word or reason incarnate in Jesus Christ; plural of logo

### logotherapy

### a method of healing by cultivating a capacity to create a meaningful life

### logy

### lacking physical or mental energy or vitality; sluggish; dull; lethargic; heavy feeling

### loll

### to recline or lean in a relaxed, lazy, or indolent manner; lounge; to hang loosely; droop; dangle; to allow to hang, droop, or dangle

### lollop

### to move forward with a bounding or leaping motion; to hang loosely; droop; dangle

### lollygag (also lallygag)

### to spend time idly; loaf; to fool around, waste time, or spend time lazily; to neck

### lomstair (Irish)

### objective historical facts

### longanimity

### patient endurance of hardship, injuries, or offense; forbearance

### longueur

### a long, dull, and tedious passage in a book, play, musical composition, or the like

### lope

### to move or run with bounding steps, as a quadruped, or with a long, easy stride, as a person; to canter leisurely with a rather long, easy stride, as a horse

### loquacious

### talking or tending to talk much or freely; talkative; chattering; babbling; garrulous; characterized by excessive talk; wordy; verbose, voluble; characterized by or showing a tendency to talk a great deal; pleniloquence

### lorem ipsum

### a common piece of Latin text used as mock content when testing a given page layout or font

### losel

### one that is worthless

### lotic

### flowing and running; of or pertaining to moving water (antonym: lentic)

### louche

### dubious; shady; disreputable

### lour

### lower; to frown

### love

### love

### lown

### a calm or quiet state; stillness, tranquility; shelter; a peaceful or sheltered place

### löyly (Finnish)

the steam that rises from a sauna stove; the heat of the sauna; sauna bath; sauna; to turn up the heat on something

### lubricious

### arousing or expressive of sexual desire; lustful; lascivious, libidinous; salacious; having a slippery or smooth quality

### lucaflect

### a shiny spot on a surface of something

### lucida

### the brightest star in a constellation

### lucifugous

### avoiding life

### lucubrate

### to work (such as study, write, discourse) laboriously or learnedly, especially at night; the act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation; that which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement

### ludic

### full of fun and high spirits; showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness

### luftmensch (Yiddish)

an impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income; one more concerned with airy (intellectual) pursuits than practical (business) matters; someone over-educated yet under-employed; nubivagant; cf. nefelovamon (Greek) and nefelibata (Portuguese)

### lugubrious

### mournful, dismal, melancholy, or gloomy, especially in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner

### lumbago

### pain in the lower, or lumbar, region of the back or loins, especially chronic or recurring pain

### luminare (Italian)

### a shining heavenly body; one who has achieved success in their field; leading light, luminary; a vertical opening in a catacomb meant to let light and air inside; illumination

### luminous

### full of light

### lummox

### a clumsy, stupid person

### lune

### anything shaped like a crescent or a half moon

### lunette

### any of various objects or spaces of crescent-like or semicircular outline or section; an area in the plane of a wall enframed by an arch or vault

### lunker

### something unusually large for its kind

### lunula

### something shaped like a narrow crescent

### lurgy

### a highly dangerous, highly infectious, and — as it turns out — highly fictitious disease; any undetermined illness

### lurid

### gruesome; horrible; revolting; glaringly vivid or sensational; shocking; terrible in intensity, fierce passion, or unrestraint; lighted or shining with an unnatural, fiery glow; wildly or garishly red; wan, pallid, or ghastly in hue; livid

### lustra (also luster and lustre)

### a period of five years

### lustrate

### to purify by means of rituals or ceremonies; to remove undesirable people from an organization, especially in an abrupt or violent manner

### luxate

### to put out of joint; dislocate

### luxon

### any matter or energy traveling at lightspeed (currently only photons can be luxons, but this doesn't bar something else from the possibility of becoming a luxon)

### lyard

### streaked or spotted with gray or white

### lycanthropy

### a delusion in which one imagines oneself to be a wolf or other wild animal; the supposed or fabled assumption of the appearance of a wolf by a human being; the supernatural transformation of a person into a wolf; a form of madness involving the delusion of being an animal, usually a wolf, with correspondingly altered behavior; the ability to shapeshift into a wolf; becoming a werewolf

### lyophilization

### freeze drying; cryodesiccation

### lypophrenia

### a vague feeling of sadness seemingly without cause

### lyric

### of or pertaining to the lyre; adapted to the lyre, meant to be sung; pertaining to or characteristic of song

### lyssophobia

### a pathological fear of going insane

### "I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

— James Michener

### ma (Japanese)

### gap, space, pause, interval, or the space between two structural parts; negative space; the simultaneous awareness of form and non-form deriving from an intensification of vision; the space that gives shape to the form; the thing that takes place in the imagination of the human who experiences space between compositional elements; the complex network of relationships between people and objects

### maai

### the space-time between two opponents in combat; engagement distance; the time, place, stance, angle, and position from which one opponent can strike the other

### ma'at (Egyptian)

### the state, idea, or personification of order, perfection, fullness, righteousness, and justice (antonym: izifet)

### macarize

### to call or consider someone or something to be happy; to be happy or blessed; taking pleasure in being the source of another person's joy

### macaronic

### composed of a mixture of languages; composed of or characterized by Latin words mixed with vernacular words or non-Latin words given Latin endings; mixed; jumbled; of or pertaining to macaroni

### macerate

### to soften or separate into parts by steeping in a liquid; to soften or decompose (food) by the action of a solvent; to soften by soaking; to cause to grow thin

### mach

### a number indicating the ratio of the speed of an object to the speed of sound in the medium through which the object is moving

### macher (Yiddish)

### big shot, important person, literally "doer, someone who does things"

### Machiavellian

### the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct

### machinate

### to plot or scheme

### machuteynesteh (Yiddish)

### kinship term for your child's parent(s)-in-law; co-in-laws

### mackle

### a blur in printing, as from a double impression; to blur, as from a double impression in printing

### macnas (Irish)

### joyful abandonment

### macrobiotic

### a dietary regimen which involves eating grains as a staple food, supplemented with other foods such as local vegetables, and avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods and most animal products

### macropsia

### a defect of vision (or imagination) in which objects (or phenomena) appear larger than normal

### madder

### more mad; any of several rubiaceous plants of the genus Rubia, especially the Eurasian R. tinctoria, which has small yellow flowers and a red fleshy root; the root of this plant; a dark reddish-purple dye formerly obtained by fermentation of this root; identical to the synthetic dye, alizarin; a red lake obtained from alizarin and an inorganic base; used as a pigment in inks and paints

### madro (Danish)

### silence or peace allowing for the comfortable consumption of food

### maelstrom

### a large, powerful, or violent whirlpool; a restless, disordered, or tumultuous state of affairs

### magari (Italian)

### I hope so

### magical realism

### a style of literature or visual arts in which fantastic or imaginary and often unsettling images or events are depicted in a sharply detailed, realistic manner; an artistic genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment; an acceptance of magic in the rational world; fabulism

### magari (Italian)

### even if; probably; maybe; if only it were true

### Maginot Line

### an ineffective line of defense that is relied upon with undue confidence; something that provokes the very situation it was intended to avoid

### magisterial

### of, relating to, or befitting a master; authoritative; weighty; of importance or consequence; imperious; domineering: a magisterial tone of command; of or befitting a magistrate or the office of a magistrate

### magnificat

### an utterance of praise

### magniloquent

### lofty or grandiose in speech or expression; using a high-flown style of discourse; bombastic; speaking or expressed in a lofty or grandiose style; pompous; bombastic; boastful

### magnum

### a large wine bottle having a capacity of two ordinary bottles or 1.5 liters (1.6 quarts); a cartridge or firearm equipped with a larger charge than other cartridges of the same size

### magpie

### any of various birds, typically having a long tail and black-and-white plumage as well as various other birds that resemble a magpie; a chatterer; a person who indiscriminately collect things, especially things of little value

### mahalo (Hawaiian)

### may you be in divine breath; gratitude; admiration

### mai pen rai (Thai)

### never mind; don't worry

### maieutic

### of or relating to the aspect of the Socratic method that induces a respondent to formulate latent concepts through a dialectic or logical sequence of questions

### maieutics

### the philosophical belief that truth is latent in the mind of every human being

### mainour

### a stolen article found on the person of or near the thief

### majordomo

### someone whose job is to make arrangements or organize things for another

### majuscule

### a large letter, such as a capital

### malandragem (Brazilian Portuguese)

### a term for a lifestyle of idleness, fast living, and petty crime

### malapert

### boldly disrespectful

### malapropism

### an act or habit of ridiculously misusing words or language

### malinger

### to pretend to be ill or otherwise physically or mentally incapacitated so as to avoid duty or work; egrote

### mallemaroking

### the boisterous and drunken exchange of hospitality between sailors, espeecially in extreme northern waters

### Malthusian

### relating to the view that population increases faster than its means of subsistence resulting in disaster, unless population is checked by natural calamities or by people having fewer children

### malservito (Italian)

### badly run; poorly served

### malversation

### corrupt behavior or illegitimate activity, especially by someone in a position of authority

### mamechishiki (Japanese)

### beans of knowledge

### mamihlapinatapai (or mamihlapinatapei) (Yaghan, Tierra del Fuego)

### looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do; a look between people that expresses unspoken but mutual desire; a situation in which all participants want something to be done, but none want to do it; to make each other feel awkward

### mammock

### to break or tear into fragments or shreds; the fragments, shreds, or scraps themselves

### mammose

### big-breasted; bathykolpian

### mammon

### riches or material wealth; a personification of riches as an evil spirit or deity

### mammose

### having large breasts

### mana (Hawaiian, Polynesian)

### spiritual power; sacredness

### manabamate (Rapa Nui)

### the lack of appetite one suffers when falling in love

### Mandela effect

### false memories that are shared among a large population of people; a collective misremembering

### manducate

### to chew or eat

### mångata (Swedish)

### the glimmering road-like reflection the moon makes on water; cf. yakamoz (Turkish)

### mangiafagioli (Italian)

### the bean eater

### Manichean

### of or relating to a dualistic view of the world, dividing things into either good or evil, black or white, involving no shades of gray; adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark, matter being regarded as dark and evil

### manna (Hebrew)

### gifts of healthy food, "like a coriander seed", that are always enough and may taste like whatever you want, but can't be saved

### manque

### the numbers 1 to 18 in roulette; having failed, missed, or fallen short, especially because of circumstances or a defect of character; unsuccessful; unfulfilled or frustrated; unfulfilled in realization of one's potential or ambition

### mansard

### a roof that has four sloping sides, each of which becomes steeper halfway down; gambrel

### mansuetude  
mildness; gentleness; timidity

### mantic  
of or pertaining to divination; having the power of divination

### manticulate  
to pickpocket; to do something stealthily

### mantissa

### an addition of little importance; the decimal part of a logarithm or the positive fractional part of a number

### manuahi (Hawaiian)  
free, because I love you; ex gratia (cf. omiyage)

### manumit  
to release or free from slavery or servitude

### marasma  
chaos; confusion

### Marinism

### a literary style marked by extravagant imagery, elaborate metaphors, etc.

maritorious  
a wife who is excessively fond of her husband (cf. uxorious)

### marivaudage

### affected writing style; banter, especially of a flirtatious nature

### masese (Chichewa)

### the sediment at the bottom of a beer glass

### mashal (Hebrew)

### an allusive parable

### maskil (Hebrew)

### an enlightened person

### masticate  
to chew; to reduce to a pulp by crushing, grinding, or kneading; fletcherize

### matricious  
of or relating to the womb

### matte

### having a dull or lusterless surface

### maturate

### to mature; to suppurate

### matutinal  
pertaining to or occurring in the morning; early in the day

### matutolypea

### waking up in a bad mood

### maugre

### in spite of; notwithstanding

### mauka (Hawaiian)  
toward the mountain(s); inland; highlands

### maunder

### to talk in a rambling, foolish, incoherent, vague, or meaningless way; to move, go, or act in an aimless, confused manner; wander; maunder; to talk aimlessly; to walk aimlessly

### maven  
expert

### maw

### the symbolic or theoretical center of a voracious hunger or appetite of any kind; the mouth, throat, or gullet of an animal; a cavernous opening that resembles the open jaws of an animal

### mawkish

### excessively sentimental, especially in a false or childish manner; having a nauseating taste or smell

### mazard  
face, head, or skull; bonce

### mazarine

### a deep, rich shade of blue

### mbuki-mvuki (Bantu)

### to shed one's clothes to dance uninhibited

### McCarthyism

### the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence; "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."

### McGurk effect

### a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception, whereby an auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound; an audio illusion

### mea culpa

### an apology (literally, my fault)

### meat paradox

### a state of cognitive dissonance whereby one who claims to love animals still feels comfortable consuming them (cf. carnism)

### mechaye (Yiddish)  
a source of pleasure

### meiosis

### understatement for rhetorical effect; the process of cell division in which the number of chromosomes per cell is reduced to one half

### mélange  
a mixture or medley

### melancholy

### a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness

### melina

### a designated hiding place used by Jews to escape the Nazis in the Vilna Ghetto (Polish?); a place where illegal wares are stored and sold (Polish); a decrepit, sleazy dwelling, or establishment (Polish); a tactic, in the final minutes of a game of soccer, in which the winning side maintains possession of the ball with a series of short passes to run out the clock (Italian)

### meliorism

### the belief that the world can be made better by human effort

### melismatic

### an ornamental phrase of several notes sung to one syllable of text, as in plainsong or blues singing

### mellifluous  
flowing like honey; smooth; a pleasant sound

### melomania

### an abnormal or excessive attraction or love of music

### 1meme

### an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture; a unit of self-replicating cultural transmission (e.g., ideas, slogans, melodies, symbols, pictures); the smallest unit of an ideology or culture

### memento

### an object or item that serves to remind one of a person, past event, etc.; keepsake; souvenir; anything serving as a reminder or warning (cf. momento; moment)

### memetics

### an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer focused on the success, not the truth, of ideas

### mendacious  
telling lies, especially habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful; false or untrue

### mendicament (also medicant)

### a healing substance; medicine; remedy

### mendicant

### begging; practicing begging; living on alms; pertaining to or characteristic of a beggar; a person who lives by begging; beggar; a member of any of several orders of friars that originally forbade ownership of property, subsisting mostly on alms

### Mendoza Line

### the boundary between a respectable and a ridiculed batting average in baseball's major leagues; the boundary separating the acceptable from the unacceptable

### menefreghista (Italian)

### someone who doesn't care; a person prone to not giving a damn; someone with an uncaring attitude

### mensch (Yiddish)

### a good, kind, and caring person; decent, upright, mature, and responsible person (literally, a human being)

### meniscus

### the apparent curve when liquid is in a cylinder; a crescent or crescent-shaped body

### mens sana in corpore sano (Latin)

### a healthy mind in a healthy body

### menticide

### the systematic undermining of a person's beliefs, attitudes, and values

### mephitic

### poisonous or foul smelling; terribly smelly, with the smell coming from a low place

### merak (Serbo-Croatian)

### a sense of oneness with the universe derived from the simplest of pleasures; enjoyment of the simple things in life

### meraki (Greek)

### the idea of doing something with great love; throwing forward all of your creativity and energy; putting your heart into something; putting yourelf into your work

### mercurial

### changeable; volatile; fickle; flighty; erratic; animated; lively; sprightly; quick-witted; pertaining to, containing, or caused by the metal mercury

### mere-exposure effect

### a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them; a tendency to favor the familiar and dislike the unfamiliar; familiarity principle

### meretricious

### plausible but false or insincere; gaudy; attracting attention in a vulgar manner; specious; fallacious; deceptively attractive; tawdry; based on pretense or insincerity

### meriggiare (Italian)

### to rest at midday in a shady spot

### meso-

### middle; intermediate

### messenger

### a person who carries a message or goes on an errand for another, especially as a matter of duty or business; a rope or chain made into an endless belt to pull on an anchor cable or to drive machinery from some power source, as a capstan or winch; a single sunbeam that breaks through a thick cloud

### mestizo

### a person of combined European and Native American descent

### meta-

### beyond; transcending; at a higher state of development; self-referential

### metacognition

### cognition about cognition; thinking about thinking

### metagrobolize

### to puzzle or to mystify

### metamemory

### a type of metacognition, is both the introspective knowledge of one's own memory capabilities (and strategies that can aid memory) and the processes involved in memory self-monitoring

### metamorphosis

### transformation; a striking change

### metanoia

### a profound transformation in one's outlook; the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life; personal transformation

### metanym

### a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept

### metaphor

### a figure of speech comparing one thing in terms of another, often implicitly and with the abstract in terms of something concrete

### metaphysician

### a person who creates or develops theories regarding the nature of reality

### metaphysics

### a branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science, concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world; philosophy dealing with first principles; the underlying theoretical principles of a subject or field; highly abstract thought

### metastasis

### the transference of disease-producing organisms or of malignant or cancerous cells to other parts of the body by way of the blood or lymphatic vessels or membranous surfaces; a rapid transition, as from one subject to another; a change in position or orbit of an elementary particle

### metastasize

### to spread or escalate in an undesirable manner; to spread to other parts of the body

### metathesis

### the transposition of letters, sounds, or syllables in a word

### metempirical

### beyond or outside the field of experience

### Methuselah

### an extremely old person; an oversized wine bottle holding approximately six liters

### métier

### an occupation; a profession; an area in which one excels

### metonymy

### a figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part

### metta (Pali)

### lovingkindness; active benevolence; chesed (Hebrew); agape; jampa (Tibetan)

### metz (Hebrew acronym for moreh tzedek)

### a teacher of righteousness

### mew

### the tiny, high-pitched sound a cat, kitten, or gull makes; a cage for hawks, especially while molting; a pen in which poultry is fattened; a place of retirement or concealment

### mewl

### to cry, as a baby, young child, or the like; to cry weakly with a soft, high-pitched sound; to whimper; to whine

### mews

### an area of stables built around a small street; a street having small apartments converted from such stables

### mfecane (Zulu)

### to be weak from hunger

### -mi (Quechua)

### I have personal knowledge of this statement (attached to the end of the statement's last word) (cf. -si (Quechua) this statement is derived from hearsay (attached to the end of the statement's last word) and -chá (Quechua) this statement is probably true (usually used with statements of what seemed real in a dream or while intoxicated) (attached to the end of the statement's last word))

### miasma

### noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere; a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere

### micaceous

### of, pertaining to, consisting of, containing or resembling mica; sparkling; brilliant

### micawber  
an eternal optimist

### miche

### to lurk out of sight

### mickle  
a large amount; great, large; much

### microadventure

### a short, perspective-shifting burst of travel, usually close to home

### microbiome

### the totality of microorganisms and their collective genetic material present in or on the human body or in another environment; gut flora

### micturate

### to pass urine; urinate

### midden  
a dunghill or refuse heap

### midding

### feeling the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it; hovering on the perimeter of a gathering; feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be

### middlescence

### the middle-age period of life

### middot (Hebrew)

### qualities of souls; vitalities; ethical balance

### mien

### bearing, air, or demeanor, as showing character, feeling, etc.; a person's manner, bearing, or appearance, expressing personality or mood

### mihrab (Arabic)

### a niche in the wall that points east and shows Muslims the kiblah, the direction to pray toward Mecca

### milieu

### surroundings, location, or setting, especially of a social or cultural nature; environment; habitat; social or cultural niche

### militate

### to have a substantial effect; weigh heavily; to have force or influence; bring about an effect or a change

### millenary  
consisting of or pertaining to a thousand, especially a thousand years

### milquetoast

### a very timid, unassertive, spineless person, especially one who is easily dominated or intimidated

### Miller's law

### to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of

### mimesis  
the imitative representation of nature and human behavior

mindfulness  
heightened mental alertness; focused awareness without judgment; awareness of present experience with acceptance; maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our sensations, feelings, and thoughts, without getting caught up in them; non-judgmental awareness; a focus on the here and now, wherever and whatever it is; paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally; awareness of all five senses of the body: sight, smell, taste, hearing, and physical touch sensations, as well as the "6th sense" of all your thoughts, feelings, and emotions; being aware of whatever arises in your consciousness in the present moment; remembering and incorporating holism

### mindgasm

### having a sense of awe; the feeling of complete happiness and understanding one gets from any number of things; the feeling of an overwhelmingly happy thought; braingasm

### mindsight

### the capacity to perceive the mind of the self and others

### mingalaba (Burmese)

### may this day be filled with blessings; a polite greeting in Burmese

### mingent  
discharging urine

### minim

### the least amount of anything; in music, a half note; a unit of liquid measure, equivalent to 1/60 of a fluid dram (about one drop of liquid); in calligraphy, a short vertical stroke

### minyan (Hebrew)

### the quorum of ten adult (i.e., 13 or older) Jews (among the Orthodox, males) who are necessary for the performing of certain rituals or blessings

### mise en place

### the concept or practice of having everything in its place, including ingredients and utensils, as applied to the work in a kitchen

mise-en-scne (French)

### the setting of a scene in a play, movie, etc.; everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement; the setting or background of an event

### misology

### hatred of logic or reason

### misoneism  
a fear or hatred of change or innovation

### misprision

### the deliberate concealment of one's knowledge of a treasonable act or a felony

### mistral

### a cold, dry, northerly wind common in southern France and neighboring regions

### miswanting

### the act of being mistaken about what and how much one will like something in the future

### mither

### to make an unnecessary fuss, moan, bother; to pester or irritate someone

### mithridatism

### the condition of immunity acquired by taking gradually increased doses of something; habituation; tachyphylaxis

### mitigate

### to make less severe, serious, or painful; mollify

### mittimus

### an official order to commit someone to prison

### mitumba (Swahili)

### literally meaning "bundles", used to refer to plastic-wrapped packages of used clothing donated by people in wealthy countries; the clothing that arrives in these bundles

### mitzvah (Hebrew)

### a sacred duty or holy deed (literally, a commandment; colloquially, a good deed)

### mizzle

### to rain in fine drops; drizzle; mist

mnemonic (or mnemonic device)  
assisting or intended to assist the memory; any learning technique that aids information retention

### mni wiconi (Lakota)

### water is life

### moai (Japanese)

### a support network of friends; a friendship circle

### modus operandi (or M.O.)

### mode of operating or working; procedure; way of doing or accomplishing

### modus vivendi

### manner of living; way of life; lifestyle; a temporary arrangement between persons or parties pending a settlement of matters in debate

mrology  
the artistic practice of professional mourning

### moider

### to throw into disorder or an unsettled state; perplex; bewilder

### moiety

### a half; an indefinite portion, part, or share; one of two units into which a tribe or community is divided on the basis of unilineal descent; each of two parts into which a thing is or can be divided; a part or portion, especially a lesser share

### moirologist

### a professional mourner

### mojo

### magical power; charm

### mokita (New Guinean)

### the truth everyone knows but nobody says

### mollify

### to soften in feeling or temper, as a person; pacify; appease; to mitigate or reduce; soften; to make something better or less severe; dulcify; to make more like Molly

### Moloch

### someone or something to which extreme sacrifices are made

### monachopsis

### the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place

### monadnock

### a residual hill or mountain standing well above the surface of a surrounding peneplain; an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain; inselberg

### monadology

### the sense that each sentient entity contains its own entire universe within it

### mondegreen

### a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been misheard

### monism

### any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry; the belief that all is one, despite appearances to the contrary; oneness

### monolithic

### consisting of one piece; solid or unbroken; characterized by massiveness, total uniformity, rigidity, invulnerability, etc.

### mononym

### a single name by which a person, thing, etc. is known

### monopsony  
one buyer, many sellers (cf. monopoly, duopoly, oligopoly, oligopsony)

### montage

### technique of combining multiple sources in a single work; a combination of disparate elements that form a coherent whole

### montivagant

### wandering over mountains or hills

### Mooers' law

### an information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for customers to have information than for them not to have it

### moonbow

### a rainbow caused by the refraction and reflection of light from the moon; cf. moonbroch

### moonglade

### the track of moonlight on water; cf. mångata (Swedish), yakamoz (Turkish), and gumusservi (Turkish)

### moot

### open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful; of little or no practical value, meaning, or relevance; to present or introduce (any point, subject, project, etc.) for discussion; to reduce or remove the practical significance of; make purely theoretical or academic; an assembly of the people in early England exercising political, administrative, and judicial powers; an argument or discussion, especially of a hypothetical legal case

### moraine  
an environment littered with talus and scree left by a glacier

### moral elevation

### the warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, courage, or compassion

### moral hazard

### a situation in which one party gets involved in a risky event knowing that it is protected against the risk and that the other party will incur the cost

### morass

### a tract of low, soft, wet ground; a marsh or bog; any confusing or troublesome situation, especially one from which it is difficult to free oneself; entanglement

### moratory  
authorizing delay of payment

### morbidezza

### an extreme softness, smoothness, or delicacy, especially in works of art, sculpture, music, etc.

### mordacious

### sharp or caustic in style, tone, etc.; biting or given to biting

### mordant

### sharply caustic or sarcastic, as wit or a speaker; biting; burning; corrosive; having the property of fixing colors, as in dyeing; a substance used in dyeing to fix the coloring matter, especially a metallic compound, as an oxide or hydroxide, that combines with the organic dye and forms an insoluble colored compound or lake in the fiber; an adhesive substance for binding gold or silver leaf to a surface; an acid or other corrosive substance used in etching to eat out the lines, areas, etc.

### mores

### customs and conventions of a social group

### morgenfrisk (Danish)

### the satisfaction one gets from a good night's sleep; feeling rested after a good night's sleep; fresh (rested, untired, energetic) in the morning

### moribund

### in a dying state; near death; on the verge of extinction, termination, or becoming obsolete; not progressing or advancing; stagnant

### morkkis (Finnish)

### post-hoc embarrassment or shame at one's drunken behavior; dread or confusion about what one might have done; a moral or psychological hangover

### morpheme

### the smallest grammatical unit in a language

### morphic resonance

### a phenomenon whereby existing patterns influence future ones merely by existing

### mortmain

### perpetual ownership of property by institutions; the often stifling influence of the past on the present and the living

### Morton's fork

### a situation involving choice between two equally undesirable outcomes; Sophie's Choice

### moschate  
having a musky smell

### mossback

### a very old-fashioned person or one holding extremely conservative views

### mot juste (French)

### the exact, appropriate word; the perfectly appropriate word or phrase for the situation; exactly the right word or phrasing

### motile

### moving or capable of moving spontaneously

### motivational triad

### the trio of pleasure seeking, pain avoidance, and energy conservation that explains much animal behavior

### mountebank  
an unscrupulous pretender; a quack

### moxie  
vigor; verve; pep; courage and aggressiveness

mpan(y)insm (Twi)  
the affairs of elders

### mu (Japanese and Korean; wu in Chinese)

### no; not; nothing; no thing; without; not have; nothingness; un-; nonexistence; nonbeing; lacking reason or cause; impossible; nonexistent; n/a; state of voidness, nothingness, or detachment which is thought to transcend the concepts of negative and positive [implies "Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions"]

### muak (Malay-Indonesian)

### so full that no more can be eaten; stuffed

### mucid

### musty; moldy; slimy; mucous

### mucilaginous

### of, pertaining to, or resembling mucus; slimy and viscous

### muckle  
many; a mickle

### mudita (Pali)

### sympathetic or vicarious joy; pure joy unadulterated by self-interest; firgun (Hebrew) (antonym: schadenfreude)

### mudra (Sanskrit)

### a symbolic or ritual gesture or pose in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism

### mugwump

### a person who is unable to make up his or her mind on an issue, especially in politics; a person who is neutral on a controversial issue; an independent

### mukbang (or muk-bang) (Korean)

### an online audiovisual broadcast in which a host eats large amounts of foods, often while interacting with their audience

### 1mulct

### to deprive (someone) of something, as by fraud, extortion, etc.; defraud or swindle; to obtain (money or the like) by fraud, extortion, etc.; to acquire by trickery or deception; to punish (a person) by fine, esp. for a misdemeanor

### muliebrity

### womanly nature or qualities; womanhood; the state of being a woman; femininity (antonym: virility and masculinity)

### mullion  
a vertical member, as of stone or wood, dividing a window or other opening

### multiplier effect

### the increase in final income arising from any new injection of spending

### multivalent  
some with three or more determinants, causes, or connections

### multiverse

### the hypothetical group of all the possible universes in existence; the collection of universes

### mumpish

### sullen; silent; depressed

### mumpsimus

### adherence to or persistence in an erroneous use of language, memorization, practice, belief, etc., out of habit or obstinacy; a person who persists in a mistaken expression or practice (antonym: sumpsimus)

### mundify  
to purge or purify

### mundungus

### offal; waste animal product; organic matter unfit for consumption

### munge

### to manipulate (raw data), especially to convert (data) from one format to another

### munificence

### the quality or action of being lavishly generous; great generosity

### muntin  
a bar for holding the edges of window panes within a sash; sash-bar; glazing-bar

### murmur

### a low, continuous sound, as of a brook, the wind, or trees, or of low, indistinct voices; a mumbled or private expression of discontent

### murmuration

### a flock of starlings

### Murphy's law

### anything that can go wrong will go wrong

### muss

### make someone's hair or clothes untidy or messy; ruffle, tousle, dishevel, rumple; a state of disorder

### musth

### a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants, characterized by highly aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones; a state or condition of violent, destructive frenzy occurring with the rutting season in male elephants; a frenzied state of sexual arousal (cf. estrus)

### muumuu

### a long, loose-hanging dress, usually brightly colored or patterned, worn especially by Hawaiian women; a similar dress worn as a housedress

### muzzle velocity

### the speed a projectile has at the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun

### muzzy  
confused; muddled

### mvi (Swahili)

### a white hair

### mwayi (Chechewa)

### good luck

### myoclonic jerk  
a sudden falling sensation while sleeping or falling asleep

### myötähäpeä (Finnish)

### vicarious embarrassment; a feeling of shame for another; feeling embarrassed for someone else; co-embarrassment; a cringing feeling; fremdschamen (German)

### myriad

### a countless or extremely great number; a unit of ten thousand

### mysa (Swedish)

### the feeling of comfort and protection; a time dedicated to cosiness (cf. gemütlich (German), hygge (Danish), koselig (Norwegian), and gezellig (Dutch))

### mysig (Swedish)

### a comfortable and relaxing place or situation; anything with an unexpectedly relaxing vibe

### mysophobia  
an irrational fear of dirt

### mysterium conjuctionis

### the mystery of the conjunction of things typically conceived as opposites

### mysterium tremendum

### overwhelming mystery; awesomely mysterious

### mythologem  
the basic theme of a myth

### mythomane

### one having a tendency to fantasize, exaggerate, or lie; having a tendency to fantasize, exaggerate, or lie

### mythopoeia (also mythopoesis)

### of or relating to the making of myths; causing, producing, or giving rise to myths; a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional mythology is created, integrating traditional mythological themes and archetypes, by the writer of prose or other fiction

### mzee (Swahili)

### an old person; an elder

### mzime (Chichewa)

### last-born child

### "Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them."

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

### nabob

### any very wealthy, influential, or powerful person; nawab; a person, especially a European, who has made a large fortune in India or another country of the East

### naches (also nakhes)

### emotional gratification or pride, especially taken vicariously at the achievement of one's (literal or figurative) children or grandchildren

### nacre

### mother-of-pearl; the pearly internal layer of certain mollusk shells, used to make decorative objects

### nacreous

### pearly; lustrous

naf

a nave or inexperienced person

### naff

### unstylish; lacking taste; to goof off; fool around

### nakur (Persian)

### a camel who won't give milk until its nostrils are tickled

### nalowale (Hawaiian)

### lost at sea

### namaste (Hindi)

### I respect the divine that dwells within you; namaskar (Tamil)

### narishkeit (Yiddish)

### Foolishness; irrelevant, everyday matters

### Nash equilibrium

### a situation in which two or more people make the best decisions they can, while taking into account the decisions of the other(s)

### natant

### swimming; floating

### natiform

### buttock-shaped

### natsukashi (Japanese)

### a happy recollection of things past; dear; beloved; cherished; sweet; missed, longed for; yearned after; ah, this really takes me back; cf. charmolypi (Greek), hiraeth (Welsh), saudade (Portuguese), sehnsucht (German)

### natter

### to talk incessantly; chatter

### naucify

### to disesteem

### navet (French)

### a very bad movie

### naz (Pashto, Urdu)

the pride one feels from being loved; desiring affection; being in the mood for affection

### neap

### designating tides midway between spring tides that attain the least height

### nebbish

### a pitifully timid or ineffectual person; an uninteresting or unaccomplished person

### nebulize

### to become vague, or indistinct; to reduce to a fine spray

### nefelibata (Portuguese)

### a cloud walker; one who lives in the cloud of their own imagination or dreams; one who does not abide by the precepts of society, literature, or art; an unconventional, unorthodox person; nefelovamon (Greek); luftmensch (Yiddish)

### negative capability (Keats)

### the capability "of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact or reason"; an ability to simultaneously acknowledge the unpredictable nature of events yet conduct ourselves with confidence and happiness; the ability to exist amid doubts and mysteries without reflexively reaching for certainty

### negativity bias

### our tendency to see the things that are holding us back more clearly than the good things that are pushing us forward

### negentropy

### becoming more in order; more organized; a measure of distance to normality; negative entropy; reverse entropy; syntropy (antonym: entropy)

### neheh (Egyptian hieroglyphics)

### long hair

### neidbau (German)

### a construction put up solely to annoy your neighbors (literally, spite house)

### neko-neko (Bahasa Indonesia)

### one who has a creative idea that only makes things worse

### nekton

### the class of swimming organisms

### nemesis

### the inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall; a long-standing rival; an archenemy; the Greek goddess of divine retribution

### nemesism

### frustration, anger, or aggression directed inward, toward oneself and ones way of living; frustration expressed as aggression turned inward against the self

### nemophilist

### one who is fond of forests or forest scenery; a haunter of the woods

### nengemishō (Japanese)

### picking up a flower with a subtle smile

### neolexia

### the act of creating a neologism

### neoliberalism

the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism, including economic liberalization policies such as privatization, austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society

### neologism

### a new word, meaning, usage, or phrase; the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words; a new doctrine, especially a new interpretation of sacred writings; a relatively new or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language

### neophobia

### a fear of new things or experiences

### neophyte

### a beginner or novice; greenhorn; tyro

### neoterism

### an innovation in language, as a new word, term, or expression; the use of new words, terms, or expressions

### neotony

### the state resulting when juvenile characteristics are retained by the adults of a species

### nepenthe

### a drug or drink that relieves one of emotional pain, grief, or sorrow; something capable of making one forget suffering; emotional anodyne

### nephelococcygia

### the act of seeking and finding shapes in clouds

### nervure

### a vein, as of a leaf or the wing of an insect

### nescient

### lacking knowledge or awareness; ignorant

### nesh (English dialect)

### unusually susceptible to cold weather

### nettle

### to irritate, annoy, or provoke; to sting as a nettle does

### nettlesome

### causing irritation, vexation, or annoyance; easily provoked or annoyed

### neuroplasticity

### changes in the brain's neural pathways and synapses due to changes in behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, emotions, as well as changes resulting from bodily injury; brain plasticity; the ability of the brain to change based on environmental conditions (cf. epigenetics)

### neuston

a class of organisms that inhabit the surface of water (cf. pleuston); superficial

### newel

### the center column that supports the steps of a spiral staircase

### news osmosis

### the passive accumulation of superficial information that is seen in headlines and/or passively heard

### newspeak

### deliberately ambiguous or euphemistic language used for propaganda; opposite talk used to obfuscate rather than illuminate; double speak; Orwellian

### ngarong (Dayak)

### spirit guide or protector (sometimes but not always an ancestor); dream helper; a guide who appears in a dream or vision, often providing a solution to a problem

### nictitate

### to wink or blink

### nidification

### the act, process, or technique of building a nest

### nidify

### to make or build a nest

### niete (German)

### a losing lottery ticket

### nigun (Hebrew)

### a wordless melody, often sung for spiritual purposes

### nihonjinron (Japanese)

### the theory of Japaneseness

### niksen (Dutch)

### doing something without a purpose; doing nothing in particular; goofing around; being intentionally unproductive; to idle or muck around; a state of indolence or languor; a thorough enjoyment of life's pauses

### nimbus

### a rain cloud; a halo or aura around the head of a person depicted in a piece of art; a cloud, aura, atmosphere, etc., surrounding a person or thing; aureole, glory, or gloriole

### nimiety

### excess or redundancy; overabundance; surfeit; plethora

### nimrod

### a stupid person; a hunter

### nirvana

### extinction of suffering; emancipation from attachment; complete bliss and peace

### nishkam karma (Sanskrit)

action performed without any expectation of fruits or results; stepping beyond personal goals and agendas while pursuing any action over greater good; self-less or desireless action; duty for duty's sake; detached involvement; work as worship

### nita (Hebrew)

### we will grow or plant

### Niven's law

### if the universe permits the possibility of time travel and of changing the past, then no time machine will be invented in that universe

### nocebo

### a substance producing harmful effects in someone because it is believed to be harmful, but which is otherwise harmless (antonym: placebo)

### nociception

### the ability to sense and feel pain

### noctambulous

### of, relating to, or given to sleepwalking

### noctilucent

### shining at night

### nocturne

### a piece appropriate to the night or evening; an instrumental composition of a dreamy or pensive character

### nodus

### complicated situation or problem; a difficult or intricate point, situation, plot, etc.

### noetic

### of or relating to mental activity or the intellect

### noetics

### a branch of metaphysical philosophy concerned with the study of mind and intellect; how beliefs, thoughts, and intentions affect the physical world

### noisome

### offensive, especially to the sense of smell; harmful; noxious

### nolo (Latin)

### I don't know

### nomophobia

### fear or worry at the idea of being without one's mobile phone or the inability to use it

### nonage

the period of legal minority; any period of immaturity (cf. dotage)

### nonce

### the present, or immediate, occasion or purpose

### nonlinear

### not of, in, along, or relating to a line; denoting digital editing in which edits are saved on computer, rather than videotape, thus enabling further edits to be made; a property of a system whose output is not proportional to its input

### nonne (Latin)

### a word put at the beginning of a question expecting the answer "yes" (cf. num)

### nonpareil

### having no equal; peerless

### noodge (or nudge)

### to bother; to push; a person who bothers

### noosphere

### the biosphere including and modified by such human activities as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, urbanization, and industrialization (synonym: anthroposphere); the sum of human knowledge, thought, and culture; the sphere of human thought

### nonplussed (nonplused)

### to render utterly perplexed; to puzzle completely; a state of utter perplexity; bewildered; unsure how to respond or act; confused; confounded

### normal accident

### multiple and unexpected failures that are effectively built into society's increasingly complex systems; a systemic accident

### Norn

### any of three Norse goddesses of fate, namely the goddess of the past (Urd), the goddess of the present (Verdandi), and the goddess of the future (Skuld)

### nosh

### to snack or eat between meals; a snack

### nosism

### the practice of using "we" to refer to oneself

### noso-n (Ohlone)

### in breath as it is in spirit; life for all living things

### nostomania

### an irresistible compulsion to return home; intense homesickness

### nostrum

### a questionable remedy; a medicine prescribed by a quack; a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims and with no demonstrable value; quack medicine; a scheme, theory, device, etc., especially one to remedy social or political ills; panacea; a medicine made by the person who recommends it

### not even wrong

### any argument that purports to be scientific but fails at some fundamental level, usually in that it cannot be falsified (i.e., tested with the possibility of being rejected) by experiment or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world; pseudo-science; religious science

### noumenon

### a posited object or event that is known (if at all) without the use of the senses; the world of ideas known to the philosophical mind (antonym: phemomenon)

### nouveau pauvre

### recently impoverished; one who is newly impoverished (antonym: nouveau riche)

### novation

### the introduction of something new; innovation; the substitution of a new obligation for an old one

### novaturient

### desiring or seeking powerful change in one's life, behavior, or situation

### novelaro (Esperanto)

### a collection of short stories

### novitiate

### the state or period of being a beginner in anything

### nubbin

### a small lump or stunted piece; stub; a small or imperfect ear of corn; an undeveloped fruit.

### nubile

### sexually attractive (referring to a young woman); ready or suitable for marriage (referring to a young woman); suitable to wed; suitable to bed

### nubilous

### cloudy, misty, or foggy; vague or obscure

### nubivagant

### having one's head in the clouds; luftmensch

### nuclear winter

### a hypothetical climatic effect of nuclear war, causing cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years by the emission of large amounts of the firestorms smoke and soot into the Earth's stratosphere

### nudiustertian

### of or relating to the day before yesterday

### nudnik (Yiddish)

### a pest; a persistently annoying person; a persistently dull, boring pest

### nugacity

### triviality; futility

### nugatory

### of little value; trifling; worthless; having no force; ineffective; not valid

### num (Latin)

### a word put at the beginning of a question expecting the answer "no" (cf. nonne)

### numen (plural numina)

### divine power, especially one who inhabits a particular object

### numinous

### spiritually elevated; sublime; supernatural; an experience that makes you fearful yet fascinated, awed yet attracted

### numpty (British)

### a stupid or ineffectual person; a useless, bumbling idiot

### nunatak (Inuit)

### an exposed ridge in a glacier

### nunchi (or noonchi) (Korean)

### the subtle art and ability to listen and gauge others' moods

### nuncupate

### to solemnly pronounce; to declare a will orally

### nurdle

### a very small pellet of plastic that serves as raw material in the manufacture of plastic products

### nutate

### to nod (the head); to oscillate while rotating; to move in a curving or circular fashion

### nutrition transition

### the shift in dietary consumption and energy expenditure that coincides with economic, demographic, and epidemiological changes, especially the transition of developing countries from traditional diets high in cereal and fiber to more Western pattern diets high in sugars, fat, and animal-source food

### nyctophilia

### a love of night or darkness

### "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

### o le ala ole pule ole tautua (Samoan)

### the way to lead is to follow

### obacerate

### to stop someone's mouth before they can finish speaking

### obambulate

### to walk about; to walk like Barack Obama

### obdormition

### numbness in a limb, usually caused by pressure on a nerve (aka falling asleep) (cf. paresthesia)

### obdurate

### stubborn; not easily moved; hard-hearted; resistant to emotions

### obeisance

### a movement of the body expressing deep respect or deferential courtesy, as before a superior; a bow, curtsy, or other similar gesture; deference or homage

### obelus

### a short horizontal line with a dot above and below it; the mathematical symbol for division

### objurgate

### to scold, berate, or rebuke sharply; to reproach or denounce vehemently; upbraid harshly

### oblectation

### the act of pleasing highly; the state of being greatly pleased; delight

### oblique

### neither parallel nor at a right angle to a specified or implied line; slanting; sloping; angled; askew

### obnubilate

### to make unclear; to cloud over, obscure, or darken; becloud

### obrogare (Latin)

### to invalidate, repeal, or weaken a law; to oppose a bill

### obscurantism

### opposition to the spread of knowledge; being deliberately vague or obscure; also a style in art and literature

### obsequious

### servilely compliant or deferential; obedient; dutiful; fawning; behaving in an ingratiating or servile manner

### obsequy

### a funeral rite or ceremony

### observing self

### a version of oneself who is able to observe how one interacts with and experiences the world, rather in the manner of a generously compassionate and gently curious friend who might advise one on how to proceed; a process of decentering to flag the way that it involves the intention to displace the experiential subject from the center of the locus of being; dissociative awareness of self

### obstreperous

### unruly; noisy; boisterous

### obtest

### to invoke as a witness; to implore or beseech; to supplicate earnestly; to make supplication; to protest; to plead

### obtuse

### not quick or alert in perception, feeling, or intellect; not sensitive or observant; dull; not sharp, acute, or pointed; blunt in form; rounded at the extremity; indistinctly felt or perceived

### obviate

### to anticipate and prevent or eliminate (difficulties, disadvantages, etc.) by effective measures; render unnecessary; to avoid or prevent (a need or difficulty); preclude; avert

### ocarina

### an egg-shaped, simple, wind instrument with a protruding mouthpiece and six to eight finger holes, producing an almost pure tone; sweet potato

### Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor)

### the maxim that the simplest of explanations is more likely to be correct; when two or more explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable; the principle of parsimony

### occhiolism

### the awareness of the smallness of one's perspective

### occlude

### to close, shut, or stop up (a passage, opening, etc.); to shut in, out, or off

### occult

### of or relating to magic, astrology, or any system claiming use or knowledge of secret or supernatural powers or agencies; beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding; mysterious; secret; disclosed or communicated only to the initiated; hidden from view; not apparent on mere inspection but discoverable by experimentation; of a nature not understood, as physical qualities; dealing with such qualities; experimental; present in amounts too small to be visible; the supernatural or supernatural agencies and affairs considered as a whole; to block or shut off (an object) from view; hide; to become hidden or shut off from view

### occultation

### an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer

### occupy

### to take or fill up (space, time, etc.); to engage or employ the mind, energy, or attention of; to be a resident or tenant of; dwell in; to take possession and control of (a place), as by military invasion; to hold (a position, office, etc.); to make a bad situation better by seeking policies, situations, and systems that benefit the 99%, not simply the 1%

### ocellus

### a simple eye consisting of a single lens and a small number of sensory cells; an eyelike marking in the form of a spot or ring of color; a small simple eye common to invertebrates; an eyelike colored spot on an animal or on a leaf of a plant

### ocher

### any of a class of natural earths, mixtures of hydrated oxide of iron with various earthy materials, ranging in color from pale yellow to orange and red, and used as pigments; the color of these mixtures

### ochlalogue

### mob manipulator, by means of inflammatory rhetoric

### ochlophobia

### an abnormal or irrational fear of crowds

### octothorpe

### number symbol; pound sign; musical sharp symbol; hashtag; #

### oculus

### an eye; a circular opening, especially one at the apex of a dome

### od

### a hypothetical force formerly held to pervade all nature and to manifest itself in magnetism, mesmerism, chemical action, etc.

### oding

### search for or chasing dragonflies

### odoriferous

### giving off an odor; morally offensive

### Oedipus complex

### in Freudian theory, the complex of emotions aroused in a child by an unconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex, especially the son for the mother

### oenomel

### something combining strength with sweetness; a drink made of wine mixed with honey

### oenophile

### someone who enjoys and appreciates wine, especially as a connoisseur; a lover of wine

### oeuvre

### the works of a writer, painter, or the like, taken as a whole

### offal

### the parts of a butchered animal that are considered inedible by human beings; carrion; the parts of a butchered animal removed in dressing; viscera; dead or decomposing organic matter; refuse; rubbish; garbage; awful

### ogdoad

### the number eight; a group of eight

### ohanami (Japanese)

### the act of gathering with others to appreciate flowers; cf. ikebana

### ohitorisama (Japanese)

### on your own; solo; the philosophy and practice of doing activities by oneself

### oho

### an exclamation expressing surprise, exultation, taunting, or derision

### oime (Japanese)

### the intense discomfort of being indebted

### okagesama (Japanese)

### a phrase to express one's gratitude for others and the world around them

### oleaginous

### rich in, covered with, or producing oil; oily or greasy; exaggeratedly and distastefully complimentary; obsequious

### olein

### the oily or lower-melting fractions of a fat as distinguished from the solid or higher-melting constituents; triolein

### olid

### foul-smelling

### oligography

### writing haiku or other simple though not necessarily simplistic statements

### oligolatry

### worship of the simple life

### olio

### a dish of many ingredients; a mixture of heterogeneous elements; hodgepodge; a medley or potpourri, as of musical or literary selections; miscellany; a specialty act performed downstage while the upstage set is changed; a performance, as a musical number, presented between scenes or acts; drop scene; a program of variety acts

### olitory

### of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden; used for kitchen purposes

### om (Sanskrit)

### the sound and essence of the universe

### ombrifuge

### something that provides protection from the rain, especially an umbrella

### Omega Point

### the purported maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which some believe the universe is evolving

### omnibus

### a volume reprinting several works by one author or works on one theme; a public vehicle designed to carry a large number of people; including or dealing with many things at once

### omnificent

### unlimited power to create

### omnishambles

### a situation, especially in politics, in which poor judgment results in disorder or chaos with potentially disastrous consequences

### omniumgatherum

### for all; universal; a miscellaneous collection

### omoshiroi (Japanese)

### something worth a quick laugh, but not very funny; what someone indicated was interesting

### omotenashi (Japanese)

### spirit of service; Japanese hospitality

### omphalos

### the central point; the navel; umbilicus; a stone in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, thought by Ancient Greeks to mark the center of the Earth

### omphaloskepsis

### contemplation of one's navel as part of a mystical exercise; meditation while gazing at your navel; navel gazing

### onnagata (Japanese)

### a male actor playing a female character or role; oyama

### ondinok (Iroquois)

### benevolent desires of the soul

### oneiric

### of or relating to dreams; dreamy

### oneirology  
the study of dreams

### oneiromancy

### deriving meaning, ascertaining wisdom, predicting the future, or making decisions based upon dreams and their interpretations

### ongepotchket (Yiddish)

### needlessly complicated; cf. Rube Goldberg

### oniomaniac

### a compulsive shopper; someone who shops too much; someone with an uncontrollable desire to buy things; shopaholic

### onism

### the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time

onomastics (or onomatology)  
the study of the origins of people's names; the study of the origin, history, and use of proper names; the branch of lexicology devoted to the study of names and naming, especially the origins of names

### onomatomania  
an obsession with particular words or names and a desire to recall or repeat them

### onomatopoeia  
a word or phrase that imitates the sound it describes

### onsay (Boro)

### to pretend to love

### onsen (Japanese)

### a volcanic hot spring

### onsra (Boro)

### to love for the last time; the feeling that love will not last

### ontogenesis

### the development of an individual organism or anatomical or behavioral feature from the earliest stage to maturity (cf. phylogeny)

### ontology

### the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations; the branch of metaphysics concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences

### onycophagia

### nail biting

### onymous

### bearing the author's name; named

### oodal (Tamil)

### the fake anger lovers display following an argument

### opacus

### a cloud dense enough to obscure the sun or moon

### operculum

### a part or organ serving as a lid or cover

### opia

### the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which feels invasive and vulnerable at the same time

### öppen (Swedish)

### open; receptive; honest; candid; public; undecided (the adjective form of glasnost)

### opportunity cost

### the value of the best alternative forgone, in a situation in which a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives given limited resources; the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen

### opprobrium

### the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy; the state of being abused or scornfully criticized; reproach or censure; a cause of disgrace or ignominy; strong criticism; public disgrace

### opprobrious

### outrageously disgraceful or shameful; conveying or expressing opprobrium, as language or a speaker

### oppugn

### to assail by criticism, argument, or action; to call in question; dispute

### opsimath

### a slow learner; someone who learns late in life

### optopia

### an optimal place; the best possible outcome given current conditions

### opuscule

### a small or minor work; a literary or musical work of small size

### oqqurüm (Khazar)

### I have read it (the only surviving word written by a Khazar in their own language)

### oracular

### ambiguous; obscure; of the nature of, resembling, or suggesting an oracle; giving forth utterances or decisions as if by special inspiration or authority; uttered or delivered as if divinely inspired or infallible; sententious; portentous; ominous

### order of magnitude

### the approximate size of something, especially measured in powers of 10

### ordinal

### of or pertaining to an order, as of animals or plants; of or pertaining to order, rank, or position in a series

### ordure

### dung; manure; excrement

### orectic

### of or pertaining to desire; appetitive

### orenda (Iroquois)

### a spiritual power inherent in people and their environment; a mystical force present in all people that empowers them to affect the world or to effect change in their own lives

### Orgel's First Rule

### whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or too inefficient, a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient

### Orgel's Second Rule

### evolution is cleverer than you are

### ori (Yoruba)

### one's spiritual intuition and destiny; the reflective spark of human consciousness embedded into the human essence; the divine self; literally, head

### orison

### a prayer

### orogeny

### the process of mountain making or upheaval; orogenesis

### oronym

### a word string in which the sounds can be logically divided multiple ways

### orphic

### having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding

### orotund

### characterized by strength, fullness, richness, and clearness of voice; pompous or bombastic speech; resonant; booming

### orrery

### a mechanical model of the solar system that represents the relative motions of the planets around the sun; an apparatus for representing the positions, motions, and phases of the planets, satellites, etc., in the solar system; any of certain similar machines, as a planetarium

### orthogonal

### at right angles; unrelated or independent of each other

### orthography

### the art of writing words with the proper letters, according to accepted usage; correct spelling; good writing

### ort (or orts)

### a scrap or morsel of food left after a meal; bit

### orthogonal

### of or involving right angles; at right angles; statistically independent

### orthorexia

### an unhealthy obsession with healthy food or healthy eating; righteous eating

### oryzivorous

### rice-eating

### os

### a mouth or other orifice (plural: ora); a bone (plural: ossa); an esker; a long, serpentine ridge of gravel formed by a stream flowing in or under a glacial ice sheet

### osculate

### to come into close contact or union; to touch or bring together; to kiss

### ossia

### a musical term for an alternative passage which may be played instead of the original passage

### ossicle

### small bone, especially one of the three bones of the middle ear

### ossify

### to convert into or cause to harden like bone; to become rigid or inflexible in habits, attitudes, opinions, etc.

### ostensible

### outwardly appearing as such; professed; supposed; pretended; apparent, evident, or conspicuous

### ostensive

### clearly or manifestly demonstrative

### osteophyte (also osteophyma)

### a small osseous excrescence or outgrowth on bone; a small abnormal bony outgrowth; a pathological bony outgrowth

### ostracon

### in ancient Greece, a potsherd, especially one used as a ballot on which the name of a person voted to be ostracized was inscribed

### osotua (Maa)

### the invisible umbilical cord that unites us all

### otaku (Japanese)

### people with obsessive interests, commonly the anime and manga fandom; anyone who is addicted to an activity or guilty pleasure, often leading to an unhealthy state of mind; addict; enthusiast

### otic

### of, relating to, or located near the ear; auricular

### otiose

### superfluous; futile; indolent; serving no practical purpose or result

### otium (Latin)

### the joy of being in control of one's own time; time free from activity; idleness; inactivity; peace; quiet

### otsukaresama desu (Japanese)

### thank you for getting tired; good work; you worked hard; a show of appreciation for one's coworkers; gratitude for others' hard work

### ottobrata (Italian)

### an outing, trip, or festival held in October; an Oktoberfest; taking advantage of the October sunshine – and the ripening grapes – to take an excursion into the countryside; a period in October when a recurring patch of high pressure over the Atlantic creates hot, dry conditions in the central Mediterranean; an annual Indian Summer; a spell of warm weather in October

### ouche

### a brooch or clasp for fashioning a piece of clothing together

### oumuamua (Hawaiian)

### a messenger that reaches out from the distant past

### ouroboros

### a symbol of a snake, serpent, or dragon devouring its own tail; cyclicality; infinity; self-reflexivity; creation out of destruction; life out of death; vicious circle; virtuous circle

### outre

### unusual and shocking; conspicuously or grossly unconventional; bizarre; eccentric; freakish

### ovate (also ovoid)

### egg-shaped

### overmorrow

### the day after tomorrow; of or relating to the day after tomorrow; nexterday; next tomorrow

### overskud (Danish)

### extra or excess energy; to have sufficient resources to do something; economic profit

### overslaugh

### to pass over someone in favor of another, as in a promotion, position, etc., to another instead; to bar or to hinder

### Overton window

### the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse; the range of acceptable alternatives; the range of public policies that the mainstream population is prepared to consider at a given time; window of discourse

### ovine

### pertaining to, of the nature of, or like sheep

### oxbow

### U-shaped piece of wood placed under and around the neck of an ox with its upper ends in the bar of the yoke; a bow-shaped bend in a river, or the land embraced by it

### oxter (Scotland and North England)

### the armpit

### oxyphonia

### shrillness or high pitch of the voice

### oy vey iz mir (Yiddish)

### oh, woe is me! (often shortened to oy vey or even simply oy)

### oyez (plural oyesses)

### hear! attend! (a cry uttered usually twice or thrice by a court officer to command silence and attention, as before court is in session, and formerly by public criers) (cf. shema in Hebrew)

### Ozymandian

### suggesting or pertaining to Shelley's Ozymandias, a proud king whose empire and memory have long since crumbled into obscurity

### "Our frames of reference broaden only as we enrich the vocabulary by which we describe, label, and classify what we see."

  * ### Maria Popova

### pabulous

### edible; nourishing to one's body, to a fire, or, by extension, to the intellect or the spirit

### pabulum (also pablum)

### bland intellectual fare: insipid or simplistic ideas, entertainment, writing, etc.; trite, naive, or simplistic ideas or writings; intellectual pap

### Pac-Man defence

### a corporate strategy in which a company targeted for a hostile takeover attempts to turn the tables and purchase the acquirer

### pacate

### peaceful; tranquil; pacified; placated

### packesel (German)

### the person stuck carrying everyone's bags on a trip (literally, a burro)

### paduasoy

### a slightly corded, strong, rich, silk fabric

### paean (also pean)

### an expression of praise, joy, or triumph, traditionally in the form of a song

### pagemeal

### page by page

### pahoehoe

### lava with a smooth, ropy surface (cf. aa)

### paideia (Greek)

### the process of educating humans into their true form for liberty and beauty

### palabra (Spanish)

### a word; speech; talk

### paladin

### a heroic, knightly, or chivalrous supporter of a good cause; a strong supporter of a noble cause; a heroic champion

### palatine

### of or relating to a palace; of or relating to a palate

### palaver

idle talk; talk intended to beguile or deceive; persuasive talk; flattery; cajolery; a conference or discussion; unnecessarily elaborate or complex procedure

### paleoscience

### any scientific discipline that studies the geologic past, especially a division of a study that normally focuses on the present geological state

### palimpsest

### an old page of writing that is written on again; something having diverse layers or an overlay of levels

### palingenesis

### rebirth; regeneration

### palinoia

### the compulsive repetition of an act until it is perfected

### pall

### anything that covers, shrouds, or overspreads, especially with darkness or gloom

### palladian

### pertaining to wisdom, knowledge, or study

### palladium

### anything believed to provide protection or safety; safeguard; a statue of Athena, especially one on the citadel of Troy on which the safety of the city was supposed to depend; a rare metallic element of the platinum group, silver-white, ductile and malleable, harder and fusing more readily than platinum

### palliate

### to ease the symptoms of a problem without fixing its cause; to make an offense appear less severe by excuses or apologies; extenuate

### pallid

### pale; faint or deficient in color; wan; lacking in vitality or interest; lacking intensity of color or luminousness; lacking in radiance; dull

### pallor

### unusual or extreme paleness, as from fear, ill health, or death; wanes

### palmary

### of supreme importance; outstanding; praiseworthy

### palmer

### a pilgrim; an itinerant monk; one who conceals a card or another object in a magic trick or by cheating in a game

### palpable

### readily or plainly seen, heard, perceived, etc.; obvious; evident; capable of being touched or felt; tangible; corporeal; manifest

### palpitate

### to pulsate with unusual rapidity from exertion, emotion, disease, etc.; flutter

### palter

### to talk or act insincerely or deceitfully; lie or use trickery; to bargain with; haggle; to act carelessly; trifle

### panacea

### a remedy for all diseases, ills, evils, or difficulties; an answer or solution for all problems or difficulties

### panache

### dash or flamboyance in manner or style; verve; style; flair; a plume or bunch of feathers

### panchreston

### a proposed explanation intended to address a complex problem by trying to account for all possible contingencies but typically proving to be too broadly conceived and therefore oversimplified to be of any practical use

### pandect

### a complete body of the laws of a country, organization, etc.; a comprehensive treatise on a subject

### pandiculate

### to stretch oneself; to fully stretch the torso and upper limbs, as when fatigued and drowsy or upon waking, typically accompanied by yawning

### panegyric

### writing that praises a character's qualities or achievements; a formal or elaborate oration in praise of someone or something; eulogy

### panentheism

### a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond it

### Panglossian

### characterized by or given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity

### pangram

### sentence that makes use of all the letters of the alphabet

### pang-wangle

### to go along cheerfully in spite of minor misfortunes

### panicle

### any loose, diversely branching flower cluster; a compound raceme; any branched inflorescence

### panjandrum

### an important or self-important person; pretentious official

### panoply

### a wide-ranging and impressive array or display

### panspermia

### the theory that life exists and is distributed throughout the universe in the form of germs or spores that develop in the right environment; the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, comets, planetoids, and also by spacecraft, in the form of unintended contamination by microbes

### panpsychism

### the view that all matter has some associated consciousness; the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness; the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality

### pantechnicon

### a moving van

### pantheism

### a philosophy which asserts that spirituality should be centered on nature

### panvowel

### a word with all the vowels; having all the vowels

### pap

### soft food for infants or those incapacitated, as bread soaked in water or milk; an idea, talk, book, or the like, lacking substance or real value

### para-

### beside; next to; along with

### parabola

### a plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone with a plane parallel to a generator of the cone; the set of points in a plane that are equidistant from a fixed line and a fixed point in the same plane or in a parallel plane; a setting alongside (cf. parable)

### paracosm

### a detailed imaginary world, especially one created by a child

### paradigm

### an example serving as a model; pattern

### parafunctional habit

### the habitual exercise of a body part in a way that is other than the most common use of that body part

### paragnosis

### knowledge that cannot be obtained by normal means

### paragon

### a model of excellence or perfection; a match or an equal; a perfect diamond weighing 100 carats or more; a very large round pearl; a type size of 20 points; to compare, parallel, rival, or surpass

### paralian

### one who lives by the sea

### paralipsis (also paraleipsis)

### making a statement while pretending not to; drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it; the suggestion, by deliberately brief treatment of a topic, that much of significance is being omitted, as in "not to mention other faults"; the rhetorical device of pretending that the point you are about to make is so obvious that you do not need to make it; apophasis

### parallax

### the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in the position of the observer

### paramguru (Sanskrit)

### one's teacher's teacher

### paramnesia

### a distortion of memory in which fact and fantasy are confused; the inability to recall the correct meaning of a word

### paranym

### a euphemistic word or phrase whose literal sense is contrary to the reality of what it refers to, used especially to disguise or misrepresent the truth about something

### parapraxis

### a slip of the tongue (or pen) that reveals the unconscious mind; Freudian Slip

### paraprosdokian

### a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part, frequently used in a humorous way (literally, beyond expectation)

### paranomasia

### wordplay of the punning kind

### parastatal

### a company or agency owned wholly or partly by the government; relating to such an organization

### parataxis

### the placing together of sentences, clauses, or phrases without a conjunctive word or words

### parazontal

### the blend of paralyzed and horizontal; someone who is blacked out, injured, or sleeping very soundly

### parboil

### to boil partially; to cook partly by boiling

### parbuckling

### the righting of a sunken vessel using rotational leverage

### paregmenon

### the juxtaposition of words that have a common derivation, as in "sense and sensibility"

### parergon

### a piece of work that is supplementary to or a byproduct of a larger work

### paresthesia

### a sensation of pricking, tingling, burning, etc. on the skin, especially after numbness (aka pins and needles) (cf. obdormition)

### Pareto efficiency (or Pareto optimality)

### a state of allocation of resources in which it is impossible to make any one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off

### Pareto principle

### for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes; 80–20 rule; the law of the vital few; the principle of factor sparsity

### pari passu

### at an equal pace or rate

### parikrama (or pradakshina) (Sanskrit)

### circumambulation of sacred places or sacred objects in a Hindu, Jain, Sikh, or Buddhist context

### Paris syndrome

### a transient psychological disorder encountered by some individuals visiting or vacationing in Paris, France, characterized by a number of psychiatric symptoms such as acute delusional states, hallucinations, feelings of persecution (perceptions of being a victim of prejudice, aggression, or hostility from others), derealization, depersonalization, anxiety, and also psychosomatic manifestations such as dizziness, tachycardia, sweating, and others

### Parkinson's law

### work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

### parkour

### using only the human body and the surroundings for propulsion (obstacle courses, running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling, quadrupedal movement, and the like, depending on what movement is deemed most suitable for the given situation) with a focus on maintaining as much momentum as possible while still remaining safe

### parley

### to have a discussion, especially with an opposing party; a discussion, especially between opposing groups

### parlous

### perilous, dangerous, or difficult; cunning; extremely

### Parnassian

### pertaining to poetry; pertaining to Mount Parnassus; of, pertaining to, or noting a school of French poets of the latter half of the 19th century, characterized chiefly by a belief in art for art's sake, by an emphasis on metrical form, and by the repression of emotive elements

### paronomasia

### pun

### paronym

### a word which is derived from another word or from a word with the same root, and having a related or similar meaning; a derivative or cognate word; a word from one language which translates into another with only minor changes in form, or with no change at all; a word formed by adaptation of a foreign word; a word similar in sound or appearance to another; a near homonym (cf. paranym)

### paroxysm

### a sudden outburst of emotion or action; eruption

### parrhesia

### boldness or freedom of speech

### parsec

### a unit of distance approximately 3.26 light-years

### parsimonious

### succinct; frugal; stingy; miserly; tight; sparing

### parthenogenesis

### a form of reproduction in which an animal produces offspring from an unfertilized egg; reproduction without fertilization; asexual reproduction

### parturition

### the process of bringing forth young

### parvenu

### one who has newly-acquired wealth or status, but has not yet gained acceptance by others in that class or acquired the culturally-appropriate manners for that status

### pas de deux

### a dance for two people; a close relationship between two people or things involved in an activity; dialectical relationship

### Pascal's Wager (also Pascal's Gamble)

### an argument in apologetic philosophy that there's more to be gained from wagering on the existence of God than from atheism, and that a rational person should live as though God exists, even though the truth of the matter cannot actually be known

### paseo

### a leisurely stroll; a place or path designed for walking; a street or boulevard

### pash

### an infatuation for another person; crush; the object of such a passion

### passeggiata (Italian)

### a leisurely walk or stroll, especially one taken in the evening and after the final meal of the day; a promenade (used with reference to the tradition of taking such a walk in Italy or Italian-speaking communities); an evening promenade; time spent taking a stroll; the hours of the evening, around dusk, where people in the town may go for a walk in the main streets; volta (Greek)

### passel

### a large group or a large number

### passe-partout

### something, such as a master key, that enables unrestricted access (also certain material for framing a picture)

### pastiche

### a work of visual art, literature, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists, yet unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates; an incongruous combination of material from various sources; hodgepodge

### pathography

### a biography that focuses on the negative

### pathos

### the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion; pity (cf. bathos)

### patrocliny (patricliny)

### inheritance of traits primarily from the father

### paucal

### characterized by having a small number, greater than two, of (usually equivalent) components; pertaining to a language form referring to a few of something (three to around ten) (cf. several)

### Pauli effect

### a term referring to the apparently mysterious anecdotal failure of technical equipment in the presence of certain people

### paughty

### haughty

### Pavlovian

### of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Pavlov or his work, especially of experiments in which he elicited predictable responses from laboratory animals

### pavonine

### of or resembling a peacock; vain; showy; resembling the feathers of a peacock, as in coloring

### peace

### wholeness; calmness; equanimity; harmony; serenity; absence of fighting, strife, or violence

### peak experience

### a kind of transpersonal and ecstatic state, particularly one tinged with themes of euphoria, harmonization, and interconnectedness, often characterized as possessing an ineffably mystical and spiritual (or overtly religious) quality or essence

### peccadillo

### a very minor or slight sin or offense; a trifling fault

### peccavi

### an admission of guilt or sin

### peckish

### somewhat hungry; having an appetite; rather irritable

### pecksniffian

### hypocritically and fervently affecting kindness or high moral principles

### peculate

### to steal or take dishonestly (money, especially public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); to steal or misuse money or property entrusted to one's care; embezzle

### pecuniary

### relating to money; involving a monetary fine

### pedant

### a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning; a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details; a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense or wisdom

### pederasty

### sexual relations between two males, especially when one of them is a minor; homosexual relations between men and boys

### pedunculation

### a stalk on an organism, like that which holds a stalk eye; something that sticks out of something else

### peevish

### showing annoyance, irritation, or bad mood; cross, querulous, or fretful, as from vexation or discontent; perverse or obstinate

### peiskos (Norwegian)

### sitting in front of a crackling fire enjoying its warmth

### pejorative

### tending to make or become worse; tending to disparage or belittle; a belittling or disparaging word or expression

### pelagic

### of or pertaining to the open seas or oceans; living or growing at or near the surface of the ocean, far from land

### pelf

### money; riches; gain, especially when dishonestly acquired (cf. lucre)

### pelitic

### coming from or relating to mud or dirt

### pellucid

### transparent; shining through; admitting the maximum passage of light; clear; easy to understand

### peltate

### having the stalk or support attached to the lower surface at a distance from the margin, as a leaf; shield-shaped

### Peltzman effect

### the reduction of predicted benefit from regulations that intend to increase safety because people respond byacting in riskier ways

### peneplain

### an area reduced almost to a plain by erosion

### penetralia

### the innermost parts or recesses of a place or thing; the most private or secret things; secret matters

### penna

### a contour feather, as distinguished from a down feather, plume, etc.

### pensée

### a reflection or thought

### pentamerism

### consisting of or divided into five parts

### penultimate

### next to the last

### penumbra

### the partial or imperfect shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the light from the source of illumination is only partly cut off; a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area

### penurious

### extremely frugal or stingy

### per se

### in or by itself; intrinsically

### perambulation

### to walk through, about, or over; travel through; traverse; to traverse in order to examine or inspect

### perbacco

### to accentuate positive comments

### percipient

### someone with direct knowledge from having seen, heard, smelled, or felt something firsthand; having a good understanding of things; perceptive

### percolate

### to pass through; permeate; brew; to become active, lively, or spirited; to show activity, movement, or life; to grow or spread gradually

### perdition

### a state of final spiritual ruin; loss of the soul; damnation; the future state of the wicked; hell; utter destruction or ruin

### perdu

### hidden; concealed; obscured; lost

### perdure

### to continue to exist; endure

### peregrination

### travel from one place to another, especially on foot; course of travel; journey; excursion; traverse

### peremptory

### leaving no opportunity for denial or refusal; imperative; imperious or dictatorial; positive or assertive in speech, tone, manner, etc.; that precludes or does not admit of debate, question, etc.; decisive or final; in which a command is absolute and unconditional

### perendinate

### to put off until the day after tomorrow; to stay at a college for an extended time

### perfervid

### extremely or excessively passionate

### perfidious

### deliberately faithless; treacherous; deceitful

### perfidy

### deliberate breach of faith or trust; faithlessness; treachery

### perforce

### of necessity; necessarily; by force of circumstance; unavoidably

### performative

### relating to a statement that functions as an action by the fact of its being uttered

### perfunctory

### performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial

### pergola

### an arbor formed of horizontal trelliswork supported on columns or posts, over which vines or other plants are trained; a colonnade having the form of such an arbor

### peristeronic

### relating to pigeons

### perka (Classical Syriac)

### easily broken open or picked out of a shell

### pericope

### a selection or extract from a book; a portion of sacred writing read in a divine service; lesson; lection

### peripatetic

### itinerant; walking or traveling about

### peripeteia

### a sudden turn of events or an unexpected reversal, especially in a literary work

### periphrastic

### using a roundabout form of expression; verbose; wordy; given to circumlocution

### peristalsis

### the progressive wave of contraction and relaxation of a tubular muscular system, especially the alimentary canal, by which the contents are forced through the system

### permaculture

### a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem (cf. agroecology)

### pernancy

### a taking or receiving of rent, profit, etc

### pernicious

### causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful

### pernoctate

### to stay up all night; to pass the night somewhere

### perorate

### to speak at length; make a long, usually grandiloquent speech; to bring a speech to a close with a formal conclusion; to sum up or conclude a speech

### peroration

### the concluding part of a speech, typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience

### perreptation

### a creeping through

### perse

### of a grayish blue or purple color

### persiflage

### frivolous, light-hearted talk

### persnickety

### overparticular; fussy; snobbish or having the aloof attitude of a snob; requiring painstaking care

### personhood

### someone or something with (some of) the rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability of a person

### perspicacious

### having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning

### perspicuous

### clearly expressed; easy to understand

### pertinacious

### holding resolutely to a purpose

### pervicacious

### very stubborn

### Peter Principle

### the selection of a candidate for a position is based on their performance in their current role rather than on their abilities relevant to the intended role, meaning that people will tend to be promoted until they reach their "position of incompetence"

### petiole

### a stalk of a leaf

### Peto's paradox

### the observation that at the species level, the incidence of cancer does not appear to correlate with the number of cells in an organism

### petta reddast (Icelandic)

### it will all work out okay; it'll all work out in the end

### pettifog

### to bicker or quibble over trifles or unimportant matters; to carry on a petty, shifty, or unethical law business; to practice chicanery of any sort

### pettifogger

### a petty, unscrupulous lawyer; one who quibbles over trivial matters

### petrichor

### the fresh scent of the Earth after the first rains following a dry period

### petulant

### moved to or showing sudden, impatient irritation, especially over some trifling annoyance; irritable, impatient, or sullen in a peevish or capricious way; bad tempered; cranky

### phage

### a virus that parasitically reproduces itself in bacteria

### phalanx

### a group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep, with shields joined and long spears overlapping; any body of troops in close array; a number of individuals, especially persons united for a common purpose; a compact or closely massed body of persons, animals, or things

### phantasmagoria

### a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination; a changing scene made up of many elements; an optical illusion produced by a magic lantern or the like in which figures increase or diminish in size, pass into each other, dissolve, etc.; sequence of fantastic imagery, illusions, etc.; surrealism

### pharisaical

### characterized by hypocritical self-righteousness; putting emphasis on strict observance of rituals unrelated to the spirit or meaning of the ceremony

### pharmakon (Greek)

### medicine; remedy; poison

### phat

### great; excellent

### phatic

### relating to a communication meant to generate an atmosphere of social relationship rather than to convey some information

### phenology

### the science dealing with the influence of climate on the recurrence of such annual phenomena of animal and plant life as budding and bird migrations

### philippic

### a jeremiad; a bitter condemnation, usually in a speech

### philocalast

### to be a lover of all things beautiful or to find the beauty in all things; a lover of beauty

### philology

### the study of literary texts and of written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning; the study of language in written historical sources, combining literary studies, history, and linguistics; historical and comparative linguistics; the love of learning and literature

### philomath

### a lover of learning

### philoneism

### an embrace or love of change or innovation

### philosophunculist

### one who pretends to know more than they do to impress

### philtrum

### the vertical groove below the nose and above the upper lip

### phlegmatic

### not easily excited to action or display of emotion; having a stolid or unemotional disposition; apathetic; sluggish; self-possessed, calm, or composed; of the nature of or abounding in the humor phlegm

### phobophobia

### a fear of fear itself

### phoenix

### someone or something that regenerates after disaster, or a mythical bird that does the same

### phonaesthetics

### the study of the euphony and cacophony of words without regard for semantics

### phoneme

### a basic unit of a language's phonology, which is combined with other phonemes to form meaningful units such as words or morphemes; the smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning

### phosphenes

### the phenomenon of seeing light without light actually entering the eye; seeing "stars"

### phosphorescence

### the property of being luminous at temperatures below incandescence, as from slow oxidation in the case of phosphorus or after exposure to light or other radiation; a luminous appearance resulting from this; any luminous radiation emitted from a substance after the removal of the exciting agent

### photic sneeze reflex

### a condition that causes sneezing in response to numerous stimuli, such as looking at bright lights, especially the sun; photoptarmosis; Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome (ACHOO); sun sneezing

### phthisis

### a wasting away; pulmonary tuberculosis; consumption

### phronesis

### the practical wisdom of living virtuously and promoting human flourishing; the wisdom of in determining ends and the means of attaining them; practical wisdom

### phrontistery

### a place for thinking; an establishment devoted to education or study; a school or other educational institution; the toilet or lavatory (humorous)

### phylogeny

### the evolutionary history of a kind of organism; the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms as distinguished from the development of the individual organism; phylogenesis (cf. ontogeny)

### physiognomy

### the art of discovering temperament and other characteristic qualities of the mind from the outward appearance, especially by the features of the face; the face or facial features, especially when regarded as indicating character; the general appearance or aspect of a thing

### physis

### something that grows, changes, or becomes

### pi

### a confused mixture, originally a jumble of printing types (also spelled as pie); the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet; a mathematical constant (approximately 3.141592653589793), representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter

### piacular

expiatory; atoning; reparatory; requiring expiation; making or requiring atonement; sinful or wicked

### pibloktoq (Inuit)

### arctic hysteria, in which one strips off all their clothes and runs out into the subzero Arctic tundra

### pica

### an abnormal appetite or craving for substances that are not fit to eat; a unit of type size, equal to about 1/6 of an inch; a 12-point type of a size between small pica and English, widely used for typewriters, having 10 characters to the inch; a brown-speckled European lark, Alauda arvensis, famed for its melodious song

### picara

### a woman who is a rogue or vagabond; a female adventurer

### picaresque

pertaining to, characteristic of, or characterized by a form of prose fiction, originally developed in Spain in the 16th century, in which the adventures of an engagingly roguish hero are described in a series of usually humorous or satiric episodes that often depict, in realistic detail, the everyday life of the common people; of or involving rogues or picaroons

### picaro

### rogue; adventurer; picaroon

### picaroon

### a rogue, thief, or pirate; a pirate ship; to act as a pirate

### picayune

### small; trifling; insignificant; petty

### picric

### yellowish

### piebald

### having patches of black and white or of other colors

### Pierian

### of or relating to poetry or poetic inspiration; of or relating to the Muses; of or relating to Pieria

### piffle

### nonsense; foolishness; trivial or senseless talk

### pigsney

### a darling; an eye

### pilgarlic

### a bald-headed person; a person regarded with mild or pretended contempt or pity

### pillory

### to expose to public derision, ridicule, or abuse

### pilose

### covered with hair, especially soft hair; furry; hirsute

### pilot wave

### the phenomenon whereby the effects of a stimulus also affect each other, often referred to as hidden variables; causal interpretation; cf. de Broglie–Bohm theory

### pilpul (Hebrew)

### a method of disputation among rabbinical scholars regarding the interpretation of Talmudic rules and principles or Scripture that involves the development of careful and often excessively subtle distinctions; the sharp questioning of all assumptions, often involving answering questions with questions; loosely meaning "sharp analysis", referring to a method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various halakhic rulings or to reconcile any apparent contradictions presented from various readings of different texts; extreme disputation; casuistic hairsplitting

### pince-nez

### a style of spectacles, popular in the 19th century, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose

### pintle

### a pin or bolt, especially one on which something turns, as the gudgeon of a hinge; a pin, bolt, or hook by which a gun or the like is attached to the rear of a towing vehicle; a cast iron or steel base for a wooden post, often cast in a single piece with a cap for a lower post

### pip

### the small seed of a fruit; something or someone wonderful; one of the dots or symbols on a die, playing card, or domino; any of the diamond-shaped segments on the surface of a pineapple; an insignia on the shoulder indicating an officer's rank; any minor, nonspecific ailment; the smallest change in the exchange rate for a given currency pair; 1/100 of one percent (.0001); to defeat, especially by a narrow margin or at the last moment; to hit with a gunshot; to peep or chirp; to break through the shell of an egg when hatching

### piquant

### pleasantly pungent; agreeably stimulating; appealingly provocative; deliciously spicy; delightfully stinging; charmingly brash

### pique

### to arouse an emotion or provoke to action; to excite interest, curiosity, etc.

### pirogue

### any of various kinds of dugout canoes (cf. piragua)

### pisanthrophobia

### the fear of trusting people due to bad past experiences

### piseog

### a bit of sorcery, often black magic, now often used to mean a tall tale's contents

### pisher

### a bedwetter; a young, inexperienced person; an insignificant person; a nobody

### pissoir

### a public urinal; a structure that provides support and screening of urinals in public space; vespasienne

### pitch deck

### a short presentation that tells a passionate story with a problem, a solution, opportunities and advantages despite the risks and threats, benefits, and an exit strategy, usually for the purpose of obtaining venture capital

### piyut (Hebrew)

### a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services; Jewish devotional poetry; a spiritual poem

### pizmotality

### words of such secrecy that they could only be spoken to the one you love

### pizza effect

### the phenomenon of elements of a nation or people's culture being transformed or at least more fully embraced elsewhere, then re-imported back to their culture of origin, often in slightly different form; the way in which a community's self-understanding is influenced by (or imposed by, or imported from) foreign sources (cf. looking-glass self)

### pizzazz (or pizazz)

### energy; vitality; vigor; attractive style; dash; flair

### pizzicato

### a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument

### placebo

### an inactive substance or other sham form of therapy administered to a patient usually to compare its effects with those of a real drug or treatment, but sometimes for the psychological benefit to the patient through his believing he is receiving treatment; something said or done to please or humor another (cf. nocebo; Dodo Bird Effect)

### placentious

### pleasing or inclined to please

### plage

### a sandy bathing beach at a seashore resort; a bright patch in the sun's chromosphere; the gaseous envelope surrounding stars

### plaintive

### expressing sorrow or melancholy; mournful; wistful

### plámás (Irish)

### the art of flattery; flattering; soft talk; cajolery

### plangent

### beating with a loud or deep sound; expressing sadness; mournful; plaintive

### planimal

### a hybrid organism of both plant and animal nature

### plantigrade

### walking on the whole sole of the foot, as humans and bears

### plash

### a gentle splash; a pool or puddle; to splash gently; a sound produced by liquid striking something or being struck

### plashy

### wet or marshy; splashing or splashy

### platonic

### relating to Plato or his ideas; relating to a love free of sensual desire; confined to words or theories, and not leading to action

### platyrrhine

### having a broad, flat nose

### plaudit

### an expression of enthusiastic approval or approbation

### plausible deniability

### the denial of blame in formal or informal chains of command, where senior figures assign responsibility to the lower ranks, and records of instructions given do not exist or are inaccessible, meaning independent confirmation of responsibility for the action is nearly impossible

### pleach

### to interweave or braid; to make or renew by such interweaving

### pleasure trap

### an interaction between our biological processes and external stimuli that hijack our natural biological processes

### pleiad

### a group of (usually seven) brilliant persons or things

### plenary

### full; complete; absolute; having all members of a meeting in attendance

### pleniloquence

### talking or tending to talk much or freely; talkative; chattering; babbling; garrulous; characterized by excessive talk; wordy; verbose, voluble; characterized by or showing a tendency to talk a great deal; loquatious

### plenipotentiary

### a person, especially a diplomatic agent, invested with full power or authority to transact business on behalf of another; invested with full power or authority, as a diplomatic agent; conferring or bestowing full power, as a commission; absolute or full, as power

### plenitude

### fullness or adequacy in quantity, measure, or degree; abundance; state of being full or complete

### pleonasm

### the use of more words than those necessary to express an idea, either as a fault of style or for emphasis; verbosity; superfluous; redundancy; redundancy

### plethora

### overabundance; excess; surfeit; superfluity; nimiety; too much

### plewds

### flying sweat droplets that appear around a character's head when working hard or stressed

### ploce

### repetition of a word or phrase for rhetorical emphasis or for extended meaning

### plogging

### a combination of jogging with picking up litter

### plonk (British)

### inferior or cheap wine

### plotz (yiddish)

### to burst, as from strong emotion

### plummy

### of or relating to plums; choice; desirable; a rich and mellow voice; a carefully articulated and affected accent

### pluperfect

### better than perfect; ideal

### pluralistic ignorance

### a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but incorrectly assume that most others accept it, and therefore go along with it

### pluripotent

### capable of giving rise to several different cell types; the ability of certain substances to produce several distinct biological responses

### plurisignification

### the use of a word to convey multiple meanings at the same time

### plutocracy

### rule by and for the wealthy; plutarchy; chrysocracy

### plutogenic

### generated by radioactive decay or fission of plutonium; relating to generation of plutonium, typically from uranium-238

### pluto-populism

### a doctrine that imposes policies that benefit plutocrats, justified by populist rhetoric

### pluviophile

### any organism that thrives in conditions of heavy rainfall; one who loves rain; a rain-lover

### pluvious

### of or pertaining to rain

### pneuma

### spirit; soul; life force

### pneumatic

### of or pertaining to air, gases, or wind; spiritual; buxom; zaftig

### pneumonic

### of or relating to the lungs; relating to or affected by pneumonia

### pochemuchka (Russian)

### a person, especially a child, who asks too many questions

### pochismo

### an English word or expression borrowed into Spanish; a form of speech employing many such words; an adopted U.S. custom, attitude, etc.

### pococurante

### caring little; indifferent; nonchalant; a careless or indifferent person

### poecilonym

### a synonym (antonym: antonym)

### Poe's law (poetry)

### the unit of poetry must be fixed by the reader's capacity of attention, and ... the limits of a poem must accord with the limits of a single movement of intellectual apprehension and emotional exaltation

### Poe's law

### without a clear indicator of an author's intention, it is often impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of such extremism

### poesy

### the work or the art of poetic composition; poetry in general; verse or poetry in metrical form; a poem or verse used as a motto; archaic term used for a poem

### poetaster

### an inferior poet

### pogonophile

### a lover of beards or bearded persons; an admirer of beards; a student of beards

### pogrom

### an organized massacre, officially tolerated or encouraged, against a particular group, especially the Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe

### Pohl's Law

### nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it; no one is ever ready for anythin

### -poiesis

### a combining form indicating the act of making or producing something specified

### pokelogan (Northeastern U.S.)

### marshy or stagnant water that has branched off from a stream or lake

### polderen (Dutch)

### pragmatic cooperation despite differences; to solve problems using dialogue and negotiation

### pole (Kiswahili)

### I recognize your suffering

### polemic

### a controversial argument, as one against some opinion, doctrine, etc.

### polezniye duraki (Russian)

### useful idiot; useful fool

### politesse

### formal politeness or courtesy

### pollulate

### to exist abundantly; swarm; teem; to send forth sprouts, buds, etc.; to increase rapidly; multiply

### Pollyanna principle

### the tendency for people to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones; Pollyannaism; positivity bias (cf. valence effect)

### polyglot

### able to speak or write several languages; multilingual; containing, composed of, or written in several languages; a mixture or confusion of languages; a person who speaks, writes, or reads a number of languages; book, especially a Bible, containing the same text in several languages

### polyhistor

### someone gifted or learned to a great extent or in multiple disciplines; a great scholar; polymath, renaissance person

### polymath

a person of great learning in several fields of study; a person of great and varied learning; polyhistor; polyhistorian

### polymathy

### learning in many fields; encyclopedic knowledge

### polyphiloprogenitive

### extremely prolific; generating abundantly

### polypoly-polysony

### a market with many sellers and many buyers

### polysemy

### the condition of a word having several meanings; diversity of meanings

### polysyndeton

### repetition of conjunctions in close succession (cf. asyndeton)

### polytropic

### turning many ways; wily; versatile; much traveled

### pomade

### a scented ointment, especially one used for the scalp or for dressing the hair

### pompatus

### fantasy; ideal; puppetute; paper-doll version; one who is pompous or splendid; pomp, ostentatiousness, or spectacle; a nonce word

### ponceau

### a bright red color; of bright red color

### ponderous

### having great weight; awkward or unwieldy; dull or laborious

### poozle

### to scavenge for collectable or useful items

### populism

### a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite

### porcine

### resembling or relating to pigs; pig-like

### portend

### to indicate in advance; to foreshadow or presage, as an omen does; to signify; auger; be a sign or warning that something, especially something momentous or calamitous, is likely to happen

### portentous

### foreboding; foreshadowing, especially foreshadowing ill; ominous; marvelous; prodigious; wonderful

### portmanteau

### a word coined by blending two or more words; blend word; mot-valise (French)

### poseur

### one who behaves in an affected manner to impress others

### poshlost' (Russian)

### a mixture of banality, commonality, and vulgarity

### positive-sum

a situation in which both, or all, sides gain (cf. zero-sum and negative-sum)

### posology

### the study of the dosages of drugs, especially the determination of appropriate dosages; dosology

### postliminiage

### the return of someone thought dead; postliminy

### post-prandial

### done after dinner

### posy

### a flower, nosegay, or bouquet; a brief motto or the like, as one inscribed within a ring

### pot-valor

### boldness or courage induced by the consumption of alcohol; liquid courage

### potation

### the act of drinking; a drink, especially of an alcoholic beverage

### Potemkin village

### a fabrication or facade built to impress others; an impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts

### pother

### a commotion or fuss; a heated discussion, debate, or argument; mental turmoil; a commotion; uproar; a smothering cloud of dust or smoke; to confuse or worry someone; to worry or fuss

### potlatch

### a ceremonial festival at which gifts are bestowed on the guests and property is destroyed by its owner in a show of wealth that the guests later attempt to surpass; a party or celebration

### potluck

### food or a meal that happens to be available without special preparation or purchase; a meal, especially for a large group, to which participants bring various foods to be shared; whatever is available or comes one's way

### poultice

### a soft, moist mass of cloth, bread, meal, and/or herbs, etc., often applied hot, as a medicament to the body

### powaqatsi (Hopi)

### life in transformation

### pozzi-walla

### a person inordinately fond of jam

### prajna (Sanskrit)

### wisdom, understanding, discernment or cognitive acuity (synonym: panna in Pali)

### prana (Sanskrit)

### lifeforce

### prandial

### of or relating to a meal (cf. precibal and postcibal)

### pransorious

### of or relating to dinner

### prasadam (also prasad and prasada) (Sanskrit)

### a material substance of food that is a religious offering in both Hinduism and Sikhism and normally consumed by worshippers after worship; sanctified vegetarian food; literally, mercy

### prate

### to talk excessively and pointlessly; babble; empty or foolish talk

### praxis

### application or use of knowledge or skills; putting theory into practice; translating ideas into action; the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practiced, embodied, or realized; the ability to sequence movements together in a purposeful way; to perform an act or achieve a goal

### preantepenultimate

### fourth from the last

### prebuttal

### an argument in anticipation of a criticism; a preemptive rebuttal

### precatory

### expressing a request; non-binding; only expressing a wish or giving a suggestion

### précis

### a concise summary; a summary of the essentials of a text; abstract

### precocious

### unusually advanced or mature in development, especially mental development

### precrastination

### doing a task early so as to have free time afterwards without the anxiety

### pree

### a test, trial, or taste; a test by sampling; to try, test, or taste

### prefect

### a person appointed to any of various positions of command, authority, or superintendence

### prego (Italian)

### you're welcome; don't mention it; yes, of course; etc.

### pregustator

### a person whose job is to taste food or drink before it's served

### prelapsarianism

### the desire to return to the utopia enjoyed before Adam and Eve's Biblical lapse

### premorse

### pertaining to the end of something irregularly shortened, as if bitten or broken off

### presbycusis

### age-related hearing loss

### presbyopia

### the gradual loss of the eyes' ability to focus on nearby objects; a visual condition which becomes apparent especially in middle age and in which loss of elasticity of the lens of the eye causes defective accommodation and inability to focus sharply for near vision

### prescience

### knowledge of events before they take place; foreknowledge; foresight

### presentiment

### a sense that something is going to happen, especially something bad

### prestidigitation

### sleight of hand; magic; deceit; trickery

### prestissimo (Italian)

### in the most rapid tempo

### preterition

### the rhetorical act of emphasizing a topic by claiming not to discuss it

### pretermit

### to let pass without mention; to suspend or to leave undone

### preternatural

### extraordinary; transcending the natural or material order

### pretoogjes (Dutch)

### the twinkling eyes of someone engaged in benign mischief

### prevaricate

### to depart from or evade the truth; to avoid telling the truth by being ambiguous, evading, or misleading

### previse

### to foresee; to forewarn

### prex(y)

### a president, especially of a college or university

### priggish

### fussiness about trivialities

### prill

### to convert a material into a granular free-flowing form

### prima donna

### a self-important and temperamental person

### primeval (or primaeval)

### of or relating to the first age or ages, especially of the world

### priming

### the use of background factors to put someone in a psychological state that affects their actions without their conscious knowledge; Florida effect

### primordial

constituting a beginning; giving origin to something derived or developed; original; elementary; first formed; pertaining to or existing at or from the very beginning

### primrose path

### an easy life, especially devoted to sensual pleasure; a path of least resistance, especially one that ends in disaster

### princox

### a conceited person; a coxcomb; princock

### prink

### to dress up; to dress or arrange oneself for show; to primp; to fuss over one's dress, especially before the mirror

### prise

### to force open with a lever; to extract information with difficulty

### prius (Latin)

### something preceding, especially a necessary prior condition

### privish

### to publish a book only to have its distribution fully and intentionally cancelled

### probative

### serving to test something or providing a proof

### probity

### complete and confirmed integrity; uprightness; integrity and honesty

### proboscis

### an elongated tube from the head or connected to the mouth, of an animal; the tubular feeding and sucking organ of certain invertebrates like insects, worms, and molluscs; the trunk of an elephant; a big nose

### proclitic

### a word closely connected in pronunciation with the following word and not having an independent accent

### proclivity

### natural or habitual inclination or tendency; propensity; predisposition

### Procrustean

### tending to produce conformity by ruthless, violent, or arbitrary means

### procumbent

### leaning forward or lying on the face; prone; prostrate; lying along the ground, but not putting forth roots (cf. recumbent; supine)

### prodigal

### wastefully or recklessly extravagant; giving or yielding profusely; lavishly abundant; a person who spends, or has spent, his or her money or substance with wasteful extravagance; spendthrift

### prodigious

### remarkable in size, quantity, strength, etc.; marvelous; abnormal; monstrous

### proem

### introduction; preamble; prologue; preface

### profligate

### utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute; recklessly wasteful, prodigal, or extravagant; a wastrel

### profluent

### flowing smoothly or abundantly forth

### progeny

### a descendant or offspring, as a child, plant, or animal; such descendants or offspring collectively; something that originates or results from something else; outcome; issue

### prognathous

### protruding outwards; having a jaw that protrudes outwards

### prolapse

### a falling down of an organ or part from its normal position; to fall or slip down or out of place

### prolix

### extending to a great length; unnecessarily long; wordy; tending to speak or write at excessive length

### Promethean

### boldly creative; defiant; audacious

### promulgate

### to make a law, rule, etc. known by public declaration; to make publicly known an idea, belief, etc.

### pronoia

### the suspicion that the universe is conspiring on your behalf; the delusion that people like you; a psychological term for a strange, creeping feeling that everyone is out to help you (antonym: paranoia)

### prophylactic

### preventing or guarding, especially from disease; protective

### propinquity

### nearness in space, time, or relationship; closeness

### propitiate

### to gain the favor of someone; to make favorably inclined; to appease or make well disposed; conciliate

### propitious

### giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorable; auspicious; presenting favorable conditions

### proprioception

### the ability to sense the position and location and orientation and movement of the body and its parts

### props

due respect; an expression of approval or regard; sticks, rods, poles, beams, or other rigid supports; people or things serving as supports or stays; property; propeller; articles used on stage or in a film

### prorogue

### to defer; postpone; to discontinue a session of; to be in support of a rogue

### prosaic

### commonplace or dull; matter-of-fact or unimaginative; of or having the character or form of prose rather than poetry; ordinary

### prosbul (Hebrew)

### a direct contradiction of the letter of the law to uphold the spirit of the law

### proscenium

### the area of a theatre surrounding the stage opening

### prosody

### the musicality of words or speech

### prosopagnosia

### the inability to recognize faces

### prosopography

### a study of people in a group, identifying patterns, connections, etc.: a collective biography; a description of a person's appearance, career, personality, etc.

### prosopopeia

### a figure of speech in which an imaginary or absent person is represented as speaking or acting; a figure of speech in which an inanimate object or something abstract is represented as possessing human form; personification

### prosopopesis

### a sudden turnaround of a person's personality

### prospective retrospection

### envisioning ourselves toward the end of life, or even after death, reflecting back for better perspective; regret minimization

### prospicient

### having foresight

### protandry

### the condition in which an organism begins life as a male and then changes into a female; the condition of flowers whose male parts mature before the female ones (cf. dichogamy; sequential hermaphrodism)

### protean

### readily assuming different forms or characters; extremely variable; changeable in shape or form; versatile; able to play many kinds of roles

### protogyny

### the condition in which an organism begins life as a female and then changes into a male; the condition of flowers whose female parts mature before the male ones (cf. dichogamy; sequential hermaphrodism)

### protoplasm

### the entire contents of a cell comprising the nucleus and the cytoplasm; the semi-fluid, transparent substance that is the living matter of plant and animal cells; the colorless living content of a cell that is surrounded by a plasma membrane; the living parts of a cell

### prow

### the front of a ship or a boat above the water; the bow; the projecting front part of something, as a building; valiant

### prowess

### superior skill, ability, strength, etc.

### proxemics

### the study of physical proximity between people; the spatial relations between and among people, animals, and their natural and built environment

### prozvonit (Czech)

### to call a cell phone and let it ring once so the other person will call back, saving the first caller money

### prude

### a person who is or claims to be easily shocked by matters relating to sex or nudity

### psephology

### the predictive or statistical study of elections; the study of the patterns of voting in elections; an ancient Greek method of numerology, similar to gematria

### pseudology

### lying considered as an art

### pseudoword

### a unit of speech or text that appears to be an actual word in a certain language (at least superficially), while in fact it has no meaning in the lexicon; a kind of non-lexical vocable (cf. logatome)

### pshaw

### used to express irritation, disapproval, contempt, or disbelief

### psithurism

### the sound of wind in the trees and rustling of leaves; wuther

### pshot (Hebrew)

### a plain and simple reading and understanding, without speculation or analysis, of what a text says

### psittacism

### mechanical, repetitive, and meaningless speech

### psychokinesis

### the power to locate objects by determining the time it takes for an echo to return and the direction from which it returns, as by radar or sonar; the ability to move or deform inanimate objects through mental processes; literally "mind movement"; paranormal perception, as clairvoyance or clairaudience; the intentional act of separating the astral body (spirit or consciousness) from the physical body and thus traveling through spiritual dimensions

### psychological safety

### being able to show and employ one's self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career; a condition in which you feel (1) included, (2) safe to learn, (3) safe to contribute, and (4) safe to challenge the status quo, all without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished in some way; a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking

### psychopomp

### a guide of souls; one who escorts the soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife

### puce

### a dark red or brownish purple color; of this color

### puckish

### mischievous; impish; whimsical

### puerile

### immature; silly; childish; relating to childhood

### pugnacious

### inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative

### pugree

### a light turban worn in India; a scarf of silk or cotton, usually colored or printed, wound round a hat or helmet and falling down behind as a protection against the sun

### pulchritude

### physical beauty or appeal; loveliness

### pullulate

### to sprout or breed; to swarm or teem; to increase rapidly

### pulverulent

### covered with dust or powder; consisting of dust or fine powder; crumbling to dust or powder

### puna (Sanskrit)

### positive karmic force

### punalua

### a group of brothers marrying a group of sisters; spouses sharing a spouse

### punctilious

### strict or exact in the observance of the formalities or amenities of conduct or actions; paying scrupulous attention to correctness in etiquette; attentive to detail; precise

### pungle

### to make a payment; to shell out

### punim (Yiddish)

### face

### punnet

### a small container or basket for berries or other fruit; a pun-filled sonnet

### pupik (Yiddish)

### navel; belly button

### pur sang (French)

### pure; genuine; genuinely; in all respects

### pura vida (Spanish)

### pure life

### purblind

### partially blind; lacking in understanding, insight, or vision

### purlicue

### the space between the extended forefinger and thumb; a flourish or curl at the end of a handwritten word, also known as a curlicue; a discourse, especially its summarizing part

### purlieu

### a place where one may range at large; confines or bounds; a person's haunt or resort; a place that one frequents or has control; an outlying district or region, as of a town or city; a piece of land on the edge of a forest, originally land that, after having been included in a royal forest, was restored to private ownership, though still subject, in some respects, to the operation of the forest laws

### purloin

### to take dishonestly; steal

### purple

### a color made from mixing red and blue; elaborate; ornate; royal

### purulent

### full of, containing, forming, or discharging pus; suppurating: a purulent sore; attended with suppuration

### pusillanimous

### lacking courage or resolution; cowardly; faint-hearted; timid

### putative

### commonly regarded as such; reputed; supposed; claimed to be

### putrefaction

### the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter by bacteria and fungi that results in obnoxiously odorous products; rotting; to decompose or rot with an offensive smell

### putsch

### a violent attempt to overthrow a government

### pygalgia

### pain in the buttocks

### pygmachy

### fighting with hands, clubs, or bats; boxing

### Pygmalion effect (or Rosenthal effect)

### the phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophesy whereby the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform

### Pygmalionism

### the state of being in love with an object of one's own making; the condition of loving an inanimate object such as a statue or image

### pyknic

### having a rounded build or body structure

### pyrogen

### a fever inducing substance; a pyrotechnic composition producing flame when heated

### pyromania

### an irresistible impulse to set things on fire

### pyt (Danish)

### an interjection in reaction to a minor hassle, frustration or mistake that suggests that it should not be worried about or taken too seriously

### "My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences."

— Tahereh Mafi

### qanat

### a water management system used to provide a reliable supply of water to human settlements and for irrigation in hot, arid, and semi-arid climates

### qiviut

### the underwool of the Arctic muskox, used as a fibre

### quadrennium

### a period of four years

### quaff

### to drink something heartily, especially an alcoholic beverage

### quag

### a marshy or boggy place; a quagmire

### quaggy

### marshy; flabby; spongy

### quagmire

### a soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot; an awkward, complex, or hazardous situation; quag

### quale

### a quality, such as bitterness, regarded as an independent object; a sense-datum or feeling having a distinctive quality; an essential property or quality

### qualia

### individual instances of subjective, conscious experience; a quality regarded as an independent object; a sense-datum or feeling having a distinctive quality

### qualunquismo (Italian)

### an attitude of distrust, skepticism, and apathy towards politics

### quantum

### a quantity or amount; a portion; a large amount; the smallest amount of something that can exist independently; a sudden major change

### quaquaversal

### going off in all directions from the center quotations; dipping towards a center in all directions; moving or happening simultaneously in all directions

### quark

### an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter; any of the hypothetical particles with spin 1/2, baryon number 1/3, and electric charge 1/3 or −2/3 that, together with their antiparticles, are believed to constitute all the elementary particles classed as baryons and mesons; they are distinguished by their flavors, designated as up (u), down (d), strange (s), charm (c), bottom or beauty (b), and top or truth (t), and their colors, red, green, and blue; a type of low-fat soft cheese

### quaver

### to sound, speak, sing, or shake tremulously; quiver or tremble

### quay

### a landing place, especially one of solid masonry, constructed along the edge of a body of water; wharf; pier; dock

### queem

### close-fitting or well-fitting; snug; exactly, neatly, snugly; smoothly, pleasantly, without snags or hitches; to fit snugly, fall into place, coincide with; to make something fit; fall into place; to be pleasing, acceptable, or agreeable to

### queesting (Dutch)

### to allow a lover access to one's bed for chitchat

### querencia (Spanish)

### a secure place from which one draws strength

### querulous

### full of complaints; complaining; characterized by or uttered in complaint; peevish

### queue

### a line; the tail of a beast in medieval pictures and designs

### quey (Scottish)

### a heifer

### quid

### a portion of something that is to be chewed but not swallowed

### quiddity

### the quality that makes a thing what it is; essential; a trifling nicety of subtle distinction; trivial

### quidnunc

### a nosy person

### quiescence

### a state of rest, inactivity, or quietness

### quiff

### a promiscuous woman; a lock or curl of hair over the forehead

### quillet

### a subtlety or quibble

### quin (Latin)

### why not?

### quinary

### relating to five; fifth in a series; having five things or arranged in five

### quincunx

### an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle; an overlapping arrangement of five petals or leaves, in which two are interior, two are exterior, and one is partly interior and partly exterior

### quintain

### something used as a target or punching bag

### quintal

### a historical unit of mass in many countries which is usually defined as 100 base units of either pounds or kilograms; center

### quinary

### relating to the number five; having fifth rank; having five parts or things

### quintessence

### the pure, highly concentrated essence of something; spirituality, the fifth essence (after the four elements) called physis

### quintile

### any of the quantiles which divide an ordered sample population into five equally numerous subsets; a subset thus obtained; an aspect of planets that are distant from each other by one fifth of a zodiac (72°); fifth

### quire

### a set of 24 or 25 sheets of paper; a twentieth of a ream; four sheets of paper folded once to form a section of 16 pages; a section of printed leaves in proper sequence after folding; gathering; a set of all the sheets in a book

### quisling

### a traitor, especially one who aids an invading enemy; Benedict Arnold

### quisquilian

### trifling; unimportant

### quixotic

### extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary; impractical; unpredictable; impulsive; capricious; caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals

### quodlibet

### a subtle argument, especially on a theological or philosophical issue; a musical medley; a whimsical combination of popular tunes

### quoin

### an external solid angle of a wall or the like; one of the stones forming it; cornerstone; any of various bricks of standard shape for forming corners of brick walls or the like; a wedge-shaped piece of wood, stone, or other material, used for any of various purposes; a wedge of wood or metal used in printing for securing type in a chase

### quomodocunquize

### to make money by any means possible

### quondam

### having been formerly; former; sometime; one-time

### quorum

### the number of members of a group or organization required to be present to transact business legally, usually a majority; a particularly chosen group; minyan

### quotha

### indeed! (used ironically or contemptuously in quoting another)

### quotidian

### usual; commonplace; ordinary

### quotus (Latin)

### which in order of number? (which-th?)

### quoz

### an odd person or thing

### "Words do not fall in the void."

— Rumi

### raaskia (Finnish)

### to have the heart and courage to do something

### raconteur

a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly; storyteller; bard (cf. troubadour and trouvère)

### radiculitis

### inflammation of a spinal nerve root

### raffish

### mildly or sometimes engagingly disreputable or nonconformist; rakish; gaudily vulgar or cheap; tawdry

### ragamuffin

### a ragged often disreputable person, especially a poorly clothed often dirty child

### raguly

### having a row of oblique notches

### railbird

### a horse-racing fan who watches races or workouts from the railing along the track; a spectator at a contest; an observer who offers uninvited advice or criticism; any kibitzer or self-styled critic or expert

### raiment

### clothing; apparel; attire

### rakish

### dashingly, carelessly, or sportingly unconventional or stylish; having a somewhat disreputable quality or appearance; characterized by unconventionality; smart; jaunty; dashing; having an appearance suggesting speed; like a rake; dissolute

### ramé (Balinese)

### something both chaotic and joyful

### ramify

### to divide into branches or subdivisions; to spread or diversify into multiple fields or categories

### rantipole

### an unruly, rude young person; a rakish person

### rapproachment

### a coming or bringing together; an establishment or resumption of harmonious relations, especially between nations

### rapscallion

### rascal; a mischievous person; scamp; rogue; scoundrel

### rasasvada (Sanskrit)

### the perception of pleasure; the feeling of bliss in the absence of all thoughts; the taste of bliss in the absence of all thought which is an obstacle in the path leading to samadhi; aesthetic consciousness

### rasputista (Russian)

### the time in spring and fall when roads are impassable due to rain, wetness, etc.

### ratiocination

### the process of logical or methodical reasoning

### ratty

### of, relating to, or full of rats; shabby; irritable; angry

### ravel

### to unravel; to tangle; to untangle; to entangle; to become tangled; to make clear; to confuse

### ravelment

### entanglement; confusion

### rax (Scottish/Northern England)

### to stretch oneself, as after sleeping; to extend the hand; to elongate; stretch

### razbliuto (Russian)

### an empty, sentimental feeling one has for someone once loved, but no longer love; the bittersweet feeling of falling out of love

### razoo

### the smallest unit of anything, especially money; a penny; a whit

### razzle-dazzle

### noisy excitement, showy display, or extravagant actions, especially when executed in an effort to distract or confuse

### reactionary

### opposed to change, progress, or reform; extremely conservative; an opponent of change, progress, or reform

### real

### actual; factual

### reave

### to take away by or as by force; plunder; rob

### Reb

### an honorific title in Judaism usually reserved for individuals who are learned, pious, involved in community matters, or otherwise acting in a rabbinic way

### rebarbative

### causing annoyance or irritation; serving or tending to irritate or repel

### rebus

### a representation of a word or phrase by pictures, symbols, letters, etc.

### rebut

### to refute by evidence or argument; to oppose by contrary proof

### recalcitrant

### resisting authority or control; not obedient or compliant; refractory; hard to deal with, manage, or operate

### recapitulate

### to summarize or to repeat; to give in yet again

### reciprocation anxiety

### a specific kind of social anxiety of feeling the need to reciprocate, especially as the favor is bigger and more public

### reck

### to have care, concern, or regard; to take heed

### recompense

### to repay; remunerate; reward, as for service, aid, etc.; to pay or give compensation for; make restitution or requital for damage, injury, or the like

### recondite

### dealing with very profound, obtuse, or difficult subject matter; beyond ordinary knowledge or understanding; esoteric; little known; obscure

### reconnoiter

### to make an inspection or observation; to inspect, observe, or survey (the enemy, the enemy's strength or position, a region, etc.) to gain information for military purposes; to examine or survey a region or area for engineering, geological, or other purposes; to scout

### recrudescence

### a renewed activity after a period of dormancy; the revival of material or behavior that had previously been stabilized, settled, or diminished

### rectitude

### morally correct behavior or thinking; righteousness; moral uprightness; correctness; straightness

### recto

the front side of a page (cf. verso)

### recumbent

### lying down; reclining; leaning; inactive; idle

### recursive

### pertaining to or using a rule or procedure that can be applied repeatedly; the act or process of returning or running back

### Red Queen Effect

### an evolutionary hypothesis which proposes that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate not merely to gain reproductive advantage, but also simply to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms in an ever-changing environment (cf. arms race)

### redamancy

### the act of loving the one who loves you; mutual love; the act of loving in return

### redivivus

### revived; reborn

### redolent

### fragrant; odorous; aromatic; odoriferous; having a pleasant odor; suggestive; reminiscent

### redoubt

### a small, temporary, military fortification; reinforced refuge; a fort; a place of safety or refuge

### redound

### to have a good or bad effect or result, as to the advantage or disadvantage of a person or thing; to result or accrue, as to a person; to come back or reflect upon a person as to honor or disgrace; to recoil

### redowa

### either of two popular Bohemian ballroom dances of the 19th century, one resembling the waltz or the mazurka, the other resembling the polka; a dance in triple time resembling a waltz; a dance in ²/₄ time resembling a polka

### redshift

### when light or other electromagnetic radiation from an object moving away from the observer is increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the light spectrum

### reductio ad absurdum

### demonstration of the falsity of a premise by showing an absurdity to which it would logically lead

### redux

### brought back; resurgent

### reechy

### smoky, dirty, or rancid

### refection

### refreshment with food or drink; a light meal; the reingesting of fecal pellets, as practiced by rabbits

### reference point

### a salient, but often irrelevant, standard against which all subsequent information is compared (cf. social comparison)

### refulgent

### shining brilliantly

### refute

### to prove to be false or erroneous, as an opinion or charge (cf. rebut)

### regnant

### ruling; predominant; widespread

### regnosis

### looking back from the future to the present (cf. prognosis)

### regression to the mean

### the phenomenon that if a variable is extreme on its first measurement, it will tend to be closer to the average on its second measurement

### reification

### making into a thing; objectification

### reisemalheurs (German-French, coined by Freud)

### travel woes

### rejectamenta

### things or matter rejected as useless or worthless

### relict

### a species or community living in an environment that has changed from that which is typical for it; a remnant or survivor; a widow

### remonstrate

### to reason or plead in protest, objection, or disapproval

### remora

### an obstacle, hindrance, or obstruction; any of several fishes of the family Echeneididae, having on the top of the head a sucking disk by which they can attach themselves to sharks, turtles, ships, and other moving objects

### rén (Mandarin)

### the positive feeling enjoyed by a virtuous person through altruistic behavior; benevolence

### renewal

### the refashioning of something traditional for the present time to enhance its impact and meaning

### reniform

### kidney-shaped or resembling a kidney

### rentier

### a person who receives income from rent, interest, dividends, bonds, etc.

### repast

### a meal

### repine

### to fail; to wane; to complain; to regret; to feel or express discontent; fret

### replevy

### to recover goods or chattels wrongfully taken or detained

### response threshold

### the degree of disorder that must exist before someone is sufficiently bothered to perform a task that's not being done

### repose

the state of reposing or being at rest; rest; sleep; peace; tranquility; calm; dignified calmness, as of manner; composure; to lie or be at rest, as from work, activity, etc.; to lie dead; to be peacefully calm and quiet; to lie or rest on something; to lay to rest; rest; refresh by rest (often used reflexively); to put (confidence, trust, etc.) in a person or thing; to put under the authority or at the disposal of a person

### reprobate

### a depraved, unprincipled, or wicked person; a person rejected by God and beyond hope of salvation; morally depraved; unprincipled; rejected by God and beyond hope of salvation; to disapprove, condemn, or censure

### resfeber (Swedish)

### the restless race of the traveller's heart before the journey begins, when anxiety and anticipation are tangled together

### resect

### to surgically excise of all or part of an organ or tissue

### resipiscent

### having returned to a saner mind

### resistentialism

### the theory or belief that inanimate objects have hostile thoughts or engage in hostile behavior against us

### resonance

### the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating; the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object; synchronized vibrations

### resplendent

### shining; brilliant; radiant; splendid; gleaming

### ressentiment (French)

### a feeling of resentment and hostility accompanied by the lack of means to express or act upon it

### resumptive

### tending to resume, repeat, or summarize

### ret

### to soak in water or expose to moisture, as flax or hemp, to facilitate the removal of the fiber from the woody tissue by partial rotting; to moisten or soak (flax, hemp, jute, etc.) to promote bacterial action in order to facilitate separation of the fibres from the woody tissue by beating

### reticent

### reluctant to share one's thoughts and feelings; restrained or unwilling

### reticulate

### to distribute by means of a network; covered with a network; netlike; having the veins or nerves disposed like the threads of a net

### retral

### located at the back; backward

### retrouvailles (French)

### the feeling of joy from being reunited with a loved one after a separation

### revanche

### the policy of a state intent on regaining areas of its original territory that have been lost to other states as a result of war, a treaty signed under duress; the act of retaliating; revenge

### revenant

### one who returns after death or after a long absence

### rhadamanthine

### inflexibly just or severe

### rhapsode

### a professional reciter of poems

### rhapsoidia (Greek)

### recitation of epic poetry

### rhetoric

### the study and the use of language with persuasive effect

### rheum

### a thin discharge of the mucous membranes, especially during a cold; catarrh

### rhinotillexomania

### habitual nose picking; obsessive picking of the nose

### rhizosphere

### the area of soil that surrounds the roots of a plant and is altered by the plant's root growth, nutrients, respiration, etc.

### rhotacism

### the inability/difficulty in pronouncing the sound "r"

### rhwe (Tsonga)

### to sleep on the floor without a mat, especially while drunk and naked

### rhypophagy

### the eating of filth or disgusting matter

### riant

### smiling; cheerful

### rident

### laughing; smiling; cheerful

### riffle

### to turn hastily; flutter and shift; to riffle through a book; to shuffle cards by dividing the deck in two, raising the corners slightly, and allowing them to fall alternately together

### rime

### an opaque coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of supercooled water droplets on impact with an object

### rimple

### to wrinkle; crumple; crease; a wrinkle

### ripost(e)

### a quick, clever reply; to make a quick, clever reply; a quick return thrust; to make a quick return thrust

### ripsnorter

### something or someone remarkable in excellence, intensity, strength, etc.

### risible

### laughable; capable of laughing; inclined to laugh; relating to laughter; ludicrous

### ristra

### an arrangement of drying chili pepper pods, garlic bulbs, or other vegetables to aid drying for later consumption and sometimes to serve as a decoration

### rive

### to tear or rend apart; to separate by striking; to break into pieces; split; cleave; to rend, harrow, break, or distress (the feelings, heart, etc.); to split wood radially from a log; to be or become split

### rivulose

### marked with irregular, narrow, sinuous, or crooked lines

### roan

### horses of the color sorrel, chestnut, or bay, sprinkled with gray or white; prepared from leather of this color; a horse or other animal with a roan coat; a roan color; a soft, flexible sheepskin leather, used in bookbinding, often made to imitate morocco

### roborant

### strengthening; tending to fortify or increase strength; a tonic

### robustious

### strong and sturdy; boisterous; coarse or crude

### roc

### a bird of enormous size, strength, and power in Arabian mythology

### rodomontade

### a speech full of empty bragging and boasting; a braggadocio speech

### roister

### to act in a swaggering, boisterous, or uproarious manner; to revel noisily or without restraint

### rollick

### to move or act in a playful, carefree manner; frolic

### Rongoā (Maori)

### a system of traditional Māori medicine, passed on orally, that was promotes healing through diverse practices, with an emphasis on the spiritual dimension of health, using herbal remedies, physical therapies such as massage and manipulation, and spiritual healing

### ronin

### a freelance samurai; a worker between jobs; a student between schools; a high school graduate not yet admitted to university; someone who assumes full responsibility for their own training and survival

### rort

### a rowdy, usually drunken party; a wild or rowdy party or celebration; a dishonest scheme; a fraudulent scheme or practice; to take unfair advantage of something

### rort

### rote

### a mechanical or unthinking way of doing something; the sound of surf; a medieval stringed instrument or Celtic origin, also known as crowd or crwth

### Rothbard's law

### people specialize in their own area of weakness

### roue

### a debauched man, especially an elderly man from a wealthy or aristocratic family

### rounceval (or rouncival)

### big or strong; someone or something that is large

### roustabout

### a worker in an oil field, at a circus, etc., whose job requires strength but little skill

### rowel

### a small spiked wheel at the end of a spur attached behind the shoes of a horse rider; used to goad a horse; to prick; to vex

### rubatosis

### the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

### Rube Goldberg

### a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation

### Rubicon

### a point of no return, one where an action taken commits a person irrevocably

### rubricate

### to mark or color with red; to furnish with or regulate by rubrics

### ruck

### a large number or quantity; a large mass, especially of ordinary people or things; a crease or wrinkle; to make a crease or to become creased

### rufescent

### somewhat reddish; tinged with red; rufous

### Ruinenlust (German)

### the feeling of being irresistibly drawn to crumbling buildings and abandoned places; taking pleasure in ruins

### rumbustious

### rambunctious; robustious; difficult to control or handle; wildly boisterous; turbulently active and noisy

### rumspringa (Pennsylvania German/Pennsylvania Dutch)

### running around, generally referring to a period of adolescence for some members of the Amish that begins around the age of sixteen and ends when a youth chooses baptism within the Amish church or instead leaves the community and is shunned

### run

### the word with the most number of definitions (set and up also have many)

### runcible

### a nonsense word coined by Edward Lear used as an adjective to describe an unusual variant of a typical object

### runic

### having some secret or mysterious meaning; consisting of or set down in runes

### runnel

### a small stream; brook; rivulet; a small channel for water

### runt

### an animal that is small or stunted as compared with others of its kind; the smallest or weakest of a litter, especially of pigs or puppies; a person who is small and contemptible; an old or decayed tree stump

### Ruritanian

### relating to an imaginary place characterized by romance, adventure, and intrigue

### ruska (Finnish)

### Autumn colors

### russet

### yellowish brown, light brown, or reddish brown; a brownish, roughened area on fruit, resulting from diseases, insects, or spraying

### rusticate

to go to the country; to stay or sojourn in the country; to send to or domicile in the country; to make rustic, as persons or manners; to finish a wall surface so as to produce or suggest rustication; to suspend a student from a university as punishment; to be expelled temporarily, or, in more recent times, to temporarily leave a university for welfare or health reasons

### ruth

### strong compassion

### rutilant

### glowing or glittering with ruddy or golden light

### "Words mean. Words point. They are arrows. Arrows stuck in the rough hide of reality."

— Susan Sontag

### sabai sabai (Thai)

### very happy, comfortable, and/or relaxed; very enjoyable; chill

### sabsung (Thai)

### being revitalized through something that livens up one's life; to be profoundly or deeply touched and impressed; to appreciate, be grateful

### sabulous

### sandy

### saccade

### the movement of the eye when it makes a sudden change, as in reading; the act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins

### sacerdotal

### of, relating to, or characteristic of priests; priestly

### sachem

### a chief; a leader; sagamore

### sacrament

### a religious symbol or rite that is believed to transfer spiritual power to the participant

### sacristy

### a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records

### sacrosanct

### extremely sacred or inviolable; not to be entered or trespassed upon; above or beyond criticism, change, or interference

### saeculum (Etruscan)

### a time span from a given moment until the last people who lived through that moment have died; firsthand memory for human events; a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a human population; the period of time from the moment that something major happened until the point in time that all people who had lived at the first moment had died; about 90 years; a century

### sagacious

### having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd; wise

### sagamore

### a chief; a leader; sachem

### sagan

### a unit of measurement equal to at least four billion

### Sagan Standard

### extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

### sahaja (Sanskrit)

### co-emergent

### sajeonogi (Korean)

### knocked down four times, rising up five

### salacious

### lustful or lecherous; obscene; grossly indecent; having an excessive interest in sex; lustful; erotic, bawdy, or lewd

### sallow

### of a sickly, pale, yellowish color

### salmagundi

### a heterogeneous mixture; a mixed salad of various ingredients (cf. olla padrida)

### salsamentarious

### salty

### salubrious

### promoting health and well-being; wholesome

### salutary

### favorable to or promoting health; healthful; promoting or conducive to some beneficial purpose; wholesome

### salutation

### an act, phrase, gesture, etc, that serves as a greeting; a form of words used as an opening to a speech or letter; the act of saluting (antonym: valediction)

### samadhi (Pali/Sanskrit)

### mental concentration or composing the mind

### samar (Arabic)

### to sit together in conversation at sunset or in the evening

### samatha (Pali)

### calm abiding, which steadies, composes, unifies, and concentrates the mind

### sambo (Swedish)

### bunking with a lover

### samizdat

### an underground publishing system used to print and circulate banned literature clandestinely; an underground piece of literature; zine

### samsara (Sanskrit)

### the cycle of life and death; cycle of reincarnation and rebirth

### sàn xīn (Mandarin)

### to drive away one's cares; relieve boredom; ease up; enjoy a diversion; be carefree; literally, to loosen the heart

### sanative

### conducive to physical or spiritual health and well-being; healing

### sanction

### authoritative permission or approval, as for an action; something that serves to support an action, condition, etc.; something that gives binding force, as to an oath, rule of conduct, etc.; a provision of a law enacting a penalty for disobedience or a reward for obedience; the penalty or reward; action by one or more states toward another state calculated to force it to comply with legal obligations; to authorize, approve, or allow; to ratify or confirm; to impose a sanction on; penalize, especially by way of discipline

### sangfroid

### calmness, especially under stress

### sanguinary

### relating to blood; blood-red; involving bloodshed; bloodthirsty

### sanguine

### cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident; bloody; blood-red

### sankofa (Akan, West African)

### looking back to better envision what is ahead

### sansculotte (or sans-culotte)

### an extreme radical republican during the French Revolution; a radical or revolutionary

### santosha (Sanskrit)

### the practice of finding contentment or happiness, regardless of the external circumstances; contentment arising from personal interaction

### sanuk (Thai)

### enjoyment; to enjoy; enjoyable; fun; the Thai philosophy of striving to achieve satisfaction and pleasure from whatever you do (as in, everything worth doing should be enjoyed)

### sapere aude (Latin)

### have the courage to think for yourself

### sapid

### having taste or flavor, especially having a strong pleasant flavor; agreeable to the mind; to one's liking

### sapience

### wisdom; the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgment; a mental faculty which is a component of intelligence or alternatively may be considered an additional faculty, apart from intelligence, with its own properties

### sapiosexual

### one who finds intelligence the most sexually attractive feature; attracted to intelligence or the human mind; behavior of becoming attracted to or aroused by intelligence and its use

### Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (or Whorfianism)

### the strong version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, while the weak version says only that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behavior; linguistic relativity

### saponaceous

### resembling soap; soapy

### saprogenic

### caused or produced by decay

### sarang (Korean)

### the wish to be with someone until death

### sarbo (Swedish)

### living apart from your romantic partner

### sardonic

### mocking; disdainfully humorous; characterized by scornful derision; cynical; sneering

### sastruga (sastrugi)

### ridges of snow formed on a snowfield by the action of the wind

### satisfice

### to be content with choices as long as they pass a basic threshold of acceptability; to satisfy the minimum requirements in a given situation (antonym: maximize)

### satori

### the experience of enlightenment; sudden spiritual awakening; the highest level of enlightenment; buddhahood (cf. kensho)

### sartorial

### of or pertaining to tailors, their trade, clothing, or style of dress

### satiety

### the state of being satiated; surfeit

### satisfice

### to accept something as good enough; chabuduo (Chinese)

### satsang (Sanskrit)

### spiritual talk

### saturnine

### sluggish in temperament; gloomy; taciturn; cold

### satya (Sanskrit)

### absolute truth; reality; unchangeable; that which pervades the universe in all its constancy; that which has no distortion

### satyagraha (Sanskrit)

### truth-force; soul-force; a movement and struggle for truth

### satyam (Sanskrit)

### truthfulness that doesn't hurt

### satyriasis

### excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire in a male (cf. nymphomania)

### satoshi

### the smallest unit of bitcoin (BTC), equal to 1 one hundred millionth of a bitcoin (0.00000001 bitcoin)

### saturnalia

### a time of unrestrained revelry

### saudade (Portuguese)

a melancholic longing for better times; a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist; nostalgia; joyful sadness; ambivalence about the past; mawkish; mixed feelings; cf. charmolypi (Greek), dor (Romanian); hiraeth (Welsh), sehnsucht (German), natsukashi (Japanese); tizita (Amharic)

### saurian

### resembling a lizard; belonging or pertaining to the Sauria, a group of reptiles originally including the lizards, crocodiles, and several extinct forms but now technically restricted to the lizards

### savoir-faire (French)

### the ability to say or do the right thing in any situation; tact; grace

### savoir-vivre (French)

### knowledge of the world and the ways or usages of polite society; familiarity with the customs of good society

### sawai (Urdu, Hindi, or Arabic?)

### one and a quarter (1¼); genius

### Say's law

### supply creates its own demand

### sbagliare (Italian)

### to make a mistake; to mess up; to get something wrong

### scabrous

### full of difficulties; having a rough surface because of minute points or projections; indecent or scandalous; risqué; obscene; salacious; difficult to deal with; knotty

### scabulous

### proud of a scar on your body

### scaevity

### unluckiness

### scallywag (or scalawag)

### rascal; mischievous person; someone who goes against the dominant paradigm in their environment to fight for the greater good of society

### scansion

### the metrical analysis and emphasis of verse

### scansorial

### related to climbing

### scaramouch

### a rascal or scamp; a stock character in commedia dell'arte and farce who is a cowardly braggart, easily beaten and frightened

### 1scarify

### to make scratches, punctures, or superficial incisions in (the skin, a wound, etc.), as in vaccination; to lacerate by severe criticism; to loosen (the soil) with a type of cultivator; to hasten the sprouting of (hard-covered seeds) by making incisions in the seed coats; to break up (a road surface)

### scarp

### a line of cliffs formed by the faulting or fracturing of the earth's crust; an escarpment; to form or cut into a steep slope (cf. escarp)

### scarper

### to flee, especially without paying one's bills

### schadenfreude

taking pleasure in another's misfortune (leedvermaak in Dutch, skadeglädje in Swedish, vighnasantosh in Marathi, kröröm in Hungarian, xing zai le huo in Chinese) (antonym: firgun (Hebrew) and mudita (Sanskrit))

### scherzo (Italian)

### a musical movement or passage of light and playful character; a lively movement

### schiller

### a bronze-like luster, sometimes with iridescence, occurring on certain minerals

### schlamazel (Yiddish)

### a chronically unlucky person

### schlemiel (Yiddish)

### an inept, clumsy person; a bungler (classic aphorism: "A schlemiel is somebody who often spills his soup; a schlamazel is the person the soup lands on.")

### schlep

### to drag, traditionally something you don't really need; to carry unwillingly; to make a tedious journey

### schlock (Yiddish)

### cheap, shoddy, or inferior

### schmear (also shmear, shmeer, schmeer)

a spread that goes on a bagel or the like; to spread something; a batch of things that go together; an aggregate

### scholia

### grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments, either original or extracted from pre-existing commentaries, which are inserted on the margin of the manuscript of an ancient author, as glosses

### scholiast

### a commentator on ancient or classical literature

### Schrödinger's cat

### a paradoxical thought experiment in quantum mechanics involving a box containing a cat, poison, and radioactivity that serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level (that the cat is, at a certain moment, both alive and dead) and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level \--- everything visible to the unaided human eye (the cat is either alive or dead)

### schwellenangst (German)

### a fear of, or aversion to, crossing a threshold or entering a place, especially of a potential customer; a fear of crossing a threshold to embark on something new

### sciamachy

### sham fighting for exercise or practice; argument or conflict with an imaginary opponent; a battle against imaginary enemies

### scientific method

### a body of techniques based on empirical and measurable evidence for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge

### sciolism

### pretentious display of superficial knowledge

### scofflaw

### one who displays contempt for the law, especially in minor violations

### scoria

### a rough cindery crust on top of solidified lava flows containing numerous vesicles; refuse obtained from smelted ore; slag

### schmendrik

### a jerk; an idiot

### schmaltzy

### excessively sentimental, gushing, flattering, over-the-top, corny; literally, chicken fat

### schmooze

### chat; make small talk; converse about nothing in particular

### schmutz

### dirt, filth, or any undesirable substance

### schnapsidee (German)

### a plan which is hatched when drunk; a plan so ridiculous one must have been drunk when it was thought it up

### schwa

### the unstressed central vowel, represented by the symbol ə in the International Phonetic Alphabet

### schwarmerei

### extravagant enthusiasm; excessive sentimentality.

### schweinehund (German)

### pig dog

### schwerpunkt (German)

### the point of focus; an area of concentrated effort

### scienter

### a mental state in which one has knowledge that one's action, statement, etc. is wrong, deceptive, or illegal; trdeliberately; knowingly

### scintilla

a tiny trace or spark of a specified quality or feeling; a small or trace amount

### scion

### descendant; child; issue; offshoot; progeny

### sclerotic

### hard; rigid; slow to adapt or respond; relating to or affected with sclerosis, an abnormal hardening of a tissue or part; of or relating to the sclera, the white fibrous outer layer of the eyeball

### sclerotium

### a vegetative, resting food-storage body in certain higher fungi, composed of a compact mass of hardened mycelia

### scorn

### open or unqualified contempt; disdain; an object of derision or contempt; a derisive or contemptuous action or speech; to treat or regard with contempt or disdain; to mock; jeer

### scow

### any of various vessels having a flat-bottomed rectangular hull with sloping ends, built in various sizes with or without means of propulsion, as barges, punts, rowboats, or sailboats; a barge carrying bulk material in an open hold; an old or clumsy boat; hulk; tub

### scrax

### the silver foil coating on scratch cards

### scree

### a pebble or a field of pebbles

### screeve

### to write in order to beg

### scrim

### a durable, loosely woven cotton or linen fabric used for curtains or upholstery lining or in industry; a transparent fabric used as a drop in the theater to create special effects of lights or atmosphere

### scrimmage

### an informal sports contest, exhibition game, or practice match engaged in for practice purposes and which does not go on the regular season record

### scripturient

### having a consuming passion to write

### scrofulous

### morally tainted or degraded; having a type of tuberculosis

### scroop

### to emit a harsh, grating sound; to make a scraping or grating sound; a scraping sound, especially the rustle of a silk fabric

### scrouge

### to squeeze, press, or crowd

### scrum (British English)

### a place or situation of confusion involving a group of people

### scrutable

### capable of being understood through study and observation; capable of being deciphered; comprehensible

### scrutator

### one who investigates

### scud

### to run or move quickly or hurriedly; to move along swiftly and smoothly; (of an arrow) to fly too high and wide of the mark; clouds, spray, or mist driven by the wind; a driving shower or gust of wind; low-drifting clouds appearing beneath a cloud from which precipitation is falling; to cleanse (a trimmed and roughly depilated skin or hide) of remaining hairs or dirt; the hairs or dirt removed by scudding

### scugnizzi (Italian)

### street kids, especially derogatorily applied to Neapolitan kids who scrape by on the streets; street urchins; gutter snipes

### scupper

### a drain at the edge of a deck exposed to the weather, for allowing accumulated water to drain away into the sea or into the bilges; a drain, closed by one or two flaps, for allowing water from the sprinkler system of a factory or the like to run off a floor of the building to the exterior; any opening in the side of a building, as in a parapet, for draining off rain water; to overwhelm; surprise and destroy, disable, or massacre; to prevent from happening or succeeding; ruin; wreck; to deliberately sink one's ship

### scurf

### the scales or small shreds of epidermis that are continually exfoliated from the skin; any scaly matter or incrustation on a surface

### scurrilous

### grossly or obscenely abusive; characterized by or using low buffoonery

### scurvy

### mean or contemptible; a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency, characterized by swollen and bleeding gums, bleeding under the skin, and weakness

### scythe

### an agricultural implement consisting of a long, curving blade fastened at an angle to a handle, for cutting grass, grain, etc., by hand

### seasonal forcing

the change of behavior in an organism due to the changing of seasonal weather; a pervasive source of environmental variability that has been shown to be important in generating the cycles observed in many ecological and epidemiological systems; the premise that ecological and epidemiological phenomena tend to follow the course of temperature, humidity, and other seasonal variations

### sebum

### an oily substance secreted by the sebaceous glands in mammalian skin, composed of fat and epithelial debris

### sechi (Japanese)

### worldly wisdom

### second arrow

### in Buddhism, the second arrow is the mental pain in reaction to the first arrow of physical pain; suffering in response to a stimulus; one's optional reaction to life

### second line

### in New Orleans, those who follow the band just to enjoy the music, behind the first line, or main section, of the parade

### secondary world

### a term used by Tolkien to refer to a consistent, fictional world or setting, created by a person; subcreation

### secretory

### relating to the release of a substance from a cell, gland, or organ

### secund

### arranged or turned toward only one side of an axis

### sedulous

### involving great care, effort, and persistence; diligent in application or attention; persevering; assiduous; persistently or carefully maintained

### sef

### an emphatic marker added to the end of statements or rhetorical questions, often to express irritation or impatience, especially in Nigeria

### Segal's law

### a person with one watch knows what time it is, but a person with two watches is never sure

### segue

### to transition smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another; any smooth, uninterrupted transition from one thing to another

### sehnsucht

an obsessive yearning for something; an inconsolable yearning for happiness and the unattainable; intensely missing something or someone; a longing for a far-off place; tender, wistful, and/or melancholic desire

### seijaku (Japanese)

### serenity in the midst of chaos

### seism

### earthquake

### selcouth

### strange; unusual; rare; unfamiliar; marvelous; wondrous; strange yet marvellous

### selenelion (or selenehelion)

### an occurrence when both the Sun and the eclipsed Moon can be observed at the same time

### selenophile

### one who loves the moon; a moon-lover

### self-serving bias

### when good things happen to us, we are more likely to attribute them to something we did, but when bad things happen, we are more likely to blame other people or circumstances

### semantics

### the study of meaning

### semaphore

### an apparatus for conveying information by means of visual signals, as a light whose position may be changed; any of various devices for signaling by changing the position of a light, flag, etc.; a system of signaling

### semasiology

### the study of meanings in a language, especially the study of semantic change

### sematic

### serving as a warning or signal of danger

### semblable

### appearing real; apparent; that which closely resembles something else

### semiotics

### the study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior; the analysis of systems of communication, as language, gestures, or clothing; a general theory of signs and symbolism, usually divided into the branches of pragmatics, semantics, and syntactics

### semiquaver

### in music, a note having the time value of one-sixteenth of a whole note

### senary

### relating to the number six; having sixth rank; having six parts or things

### senbazuru (Japanese)

### one thousand cranes; one thousand paper cranes strung together, especially when trying to make a wish come true (cf. orizuru)

### senectitude

### the last stage of life; old age; dotage

### senesce

### to grow old or decay

### senescent

### aging; growing old

### senpai (Japanese)

### a student in a higher grade than one's own (antonym: kouhai)

### senryu

### a type of haiku that tends to be focused on humans rather than nature and is either cynical or humorous instead of serious

### sensorium

### a part of the brain or the brain itself regarded as the seat of sensation; the sensory apparatus of the body

### sentience

### the ability to feel, perceive and experience

### sentinel

### a soldier or guard who keeps watch; to keep guard or watch

### sententious

### abounding in pithy aphorisms or maxims; given to excessive moralizing; self-righteous; tending to indulge in pompous moralizing; preachy

### seny (Catalan)

### a blend of common sense and wisdom; a practical and even-keeled judiciousness; insight, awareness, and integrity

### sepia

### a reddish brown color; a brown pigment originally made from the cuttlefish ink; a drawing made with this pigment; a monochrome photograph in this color; of a reddish-brown color

### septentrional

### northern

### septum

### a dividing wall, membrane, or the like, in a plant or animal structure; dissepiment

### sepsis

### local or generalized invasion of the body by pathogenic microorganisms or their toxins

### sequela

### an abnormal condition resulting from a previous disease

### sequacious

### intellectually servile; lacking independence or originality of thought; following, imitating, or serving another person, especially unreasoningly; following with smooth or logical regularity

### ser de casa (Brazilian Portuguese)

### to be intimate enough that one can go to another's house and make oneself at home without permission

### sere

### an intermediate stage in an ecosystem prior to becoming a climax community; an intermediate stage or a series of stages in the ecological succession of a community; without moisture; dry; withered

### serein

### fine rain falling from an apparently cloudless sky, typically observed after sunset; light rainfall from a cloudless sky after sunset

### serendipity

### an unexpected discovery of something wonderful (antonym: zemblanity)

### seriatim

### in a series; one after another

### serotinal

### pertaining to or occurring in late summer

### serotiny

### the process of seeds using the destructive power of fire to trigger the germination of new growth; an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation

### serry

### to crowd closely together

### sesquipedalian

### given to using long words or words with many syllables; containing many syllables; long-winded (literally, a foot and a half long)

### sessile

### permanently attached; not freely moving; attached by the base, or without any distinct projecting support, as a leaf issuing directly from the stem

### se'udah (Hebrew)

### a festive meal, often during a holiday or following a joyous event

### se'udat havra'ah (Hebrew)

### meal of consolation

### seva (Hindi)

### selfless service

### sextant

### an astronomical instrument used to determine latitude and longitude at sea by measuring angular distances, especially the altitudes of sun, moon, and stars; a sixth part of a circle having an arc which subtends an angle of 60°

### sexton

### an official of a church charged with taking care of the edifice and its contents, ringing the bell, etc., and sometimes with burying the dead; an official who maintains a synagogue and its religious articles, chants the designated portion of the Torah on prescribed days, and assists the cantor in conducting services on festivals

### seyewailo (Yaqui)

### the flower world

### sfizio (Neopolitan)

### doing something silly or without purpose; going out on a lark

### sforzando

### with sudden force or strong accent (usually used as a musical direction); a note or group of notes with strong emphasis

### sfumato (Italian)

### low-contrast; gentle shading; artistic veiling; "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane" (Leonardo da Vinci)

### sgiomlaireachd (Scottish)

### the habit of dropping in at someone else's house at mealtimes

sgrob (Scottish)

### the itching of the upper lip in anticipation of sipping whiskey; an expectation of something that manifests in a physical way

### shabui (Japanese)

### a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty

### shadow banning

### the act of blocking a user or their content from an online community such that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned; stealth banning; ghost banning; comment ghosting

### shakahari (Sanskrit)

### plant-eater; vegetarian; vegan

### shako

### a military cap in the form of a cylinder or truncated cone, with a visor and a plume or pompon

### shakubuku (Japanese)

### directly awakening another to the correct teaching in Buddhism by refuting that person's mistaken views

### shakti (Sanskrit)

### sacred force; enlightenment; cosmic energy; divine feminine creative power

### shalom (Hebrew)

### peace; wholeness; completeness

### shamarnu (Hebrew)

### we have heard

### shamati (Hebrew)

### I have heard

### shambolic

### completely disorganized; chaotic

### shamus

### a detective

### shanda (Yiddish)

### a shame or scandal

### shangri-la

### paradise; utopia; erewhon; eden

### sharrow

### a shared-lane marking, usually for bicycles; a bicycle lane

### shemomedjamo (Georgian)

### eating past the point of satiety due to sheer enjoyment

### Shěnměi píláo (Mandarin)

### exposure to so much beauty that one ceases to appreciate it; aesthetically fatigued

### Shermanesque

### unequivocal, especially in refusing to run for an office; brutally thorough, especially in defeating someone

### sheshin (Tibetan)

### environmental awareness

### shibboleth

### a peculiarity of pronunciation, behavior, mode of dress, etc., that distinguishes a particular class or set of persons; a slogan; catchword; password; a custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider; an arbitrary test to prove membership in a group; an often-repeated slogan; a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth

### shibumi (Japanese)

### beauty in the understated; good taste

### shizen (Japanese)

### naturalness without pretense; natural and spontaneous

### shìdào (Mandarin)

### manners and morals of the time; way of the world; cf. zeitgeist

### shikishi (Japanese)

### a square-shaped piece of heavy paper, meant especially for short poems and paintings

### shinjuu (Japanese)

### a mutual suicide pact

### shinrin-yoku (Japanese)

### spending time in forests to reduce stress; forest therapy; tree therapy; nature therapy (literally, forest bathing); a short, leisurely visit to a forest; senlinyu (Mandarin); sanlimyok (Korean)

### shiok (Singapoean English; Malaysian English; Singlish)

### great; wonderful; delightful; pleasurable; cool

### shiori (Japanese)

### delicacy with a deep sympathy for nature and humanity; wilting

### Shirky Principle

### institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution

### shirr

### to gather (cloth) on parallel threads

### shitshow

### a situation or state of affairs characterized by chaos, confusion, or incompetence

### shivah (Hebrew)

### the week-long (7 days) mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives

### shive

### a sliver or fragment; splinter; a thin plug, as of wood or cork, for stopping the bunghole of a cask or the mouth of a bottle; a splinter or fragment of the husk of flax, hemp, etc.

### shizzle

### used as a euphemism for "shit" in various senses and phrases

### shloshim (Hebrew)

### the month-long (30 days) mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives

### shmegege (Yiddish)

### a stupid person; an unlucky one; an unadmirable or untalented person ("the one who cleans up the soup the schlemiel spilled on the schlamazel")

### shmo

### an idiotic person

### shnayderuk (Yiddish)

### a bad tailor; tailoraster

### shnorrer

### a beggar who makes pretensions to respectability; moocher; scrounger; a parasite, but always with resourcefulness in getting money from others as though it was his own

### shnuk

### an idiotic person

### shoal

### a place where a sea, river, or other body of water is shallow; a sandbank or sand bar in the bed of a body of water, especially one that is exposed above the surface of the water at low tide

### shoat (also shote)

### a young, weaned pig; geep

### Shock Doctrine

### the exploitation of crises to smuggle through policies that devour the public sphere and further enrich a small elite

### shog

### to shake; jolt; to jog along; a shake; jolt

### shoganai (Japanese)

### it can't be helped; it is what it is; an expression of fatalism; shikata ga nai; shit happens (cf. c'est la vie; mai pen rai; inshallah)

### shojin (Japanese)

### to have the goodness and keep away evils

### shoju (Japanese)

### a method of expounding Buddhism in which one gradually leads another to the correct teaching according to that person's capacity and without refuting his or her attachment to mistaken views

shong31met55ni55 (Trung)

### the fifth day after today

### shpilkes (Yiddish)

### nervous energy; to be feeling "antsy"; on stilts; to be "sitting on pins and needles"

### shtetl (Yiddish)

a small town with a large Jewish population (cf. a larger city is a shtot and a village is a dorf)

### shtick

### something one is known for doing; comic theme; a defining habit or distinguishing non-physical feature; one's special interest, talent, etc.; an entertainer's routine; an actor's bit; stage business; a routine or piece of business inserted to gain a laugh or draw attention to oneself

### shun (Japanese)

### the philosophy that every food should be eaten only in its proper season and only when it is at the peak of its flavor; the moment that a particular fruit, vegetable, or other food is at its absolute best

### shunpike

### a side road taken to avoid a toll road; to travel on a side road

### shraybekhts (Yiddish)

### inferior writing

### si bu mingmu (Mandarin)

### to die with regrets (literally, to die with one's eyes open)

### si yi mingmu (Mandarin)

### literally, to die with one's eyes closed; to die without regrets

### sialoquent

### spitting much in one's speech; spraying saliva while speaking; spraying it while saying it

### sibilant

### hissing

### sibylline

### of, resembling, or characteristic of a sibyl; prophetic; oracular; mysterious; cryptic

### sidereal

### relating to the stars; measured with reference to the apparent motion of the stars

### sienna

### a color derived from clay (originally from Siena), ranging from yellowish brown (in raw form) to reddish brown (when roasted, then called burnt sienna)

### sigil

### a seal, signature or signet; asign, image or symbol considered to be magical; a non-alphanumeric character affixed to a symbol (e.g. variable) in programming to indicate a property such as type or scope

### sillage

### the degree to which a perfume's fragrance lingers in the air when worn; the smell of something after it has passed; odiferous afterness; scent wake; after-scent

### silvopasture

### the intentional combination of trees, forage plants, and livestock together as an integrated, intensively-managed system

### simile

### a figure of speech in which two things are compared explicitly, using the word "like" or "as"

### simper

### to smile or gesture in an affectedly coquettish, coy, or ingratiating manner; an affectedly coquettish, coy, or ingratiating smile or gesture

### simplexity

### disorder; structural simplicity; high entropy; the number of simplexes into which a structure can be divided; the tendency of a simple system to generate complex forms; the act of establishing a simple interface for something that is complex

### simulacrum

### an image or representation; an unreal or superficial likeness; a copy of a copy for which there is no original; a vague resemblance to something

### simony

### profiting from holy things

### Simpson's Paradox

### it is not necessarily true that averaging the averages of different populations gives the average of the combined population

### sin-wat

### a person who wants all of somebody's love for him/herself

### sinat chinam (Hebrew)

### baseless hatred

### sinecure

### a position in which one is paid for little or no work

### singleton

### a unit set; a set with exactly one element

### singultus

### a hiccup

### sinniht (Old English)

### everlasting night

### sinookas

### the tendrils of one's life

### sinopia

### a reddish-brown color or pigment; a preliminary drawing for a fresco; a sinful utopia

### sinter

### siliceous or calcareous matter deposited by springs, as that formed around the vent of a geyser; to bring about agglomeration in metal particles by heating

### sinthome

### a certain signifying formation penetrated with enjoyment; a signifier as a bearer of enjoyment-in-sense

### sipid

### a pleasing taste or flavor

### sippet

### a small piece of bread or the like for dipping in liquid food; a small sop; a small bit; fragment; a crouton

### sirimiri (Spanish)

### very light rain; stronger than mist but less than a shower; drizzle

### sirocco

### any hot, oppressive wind, especially one in the warm sector of a cyclone; a hot, dry, dust-laden wind blowing; a warm, sultry south or southeast wind accompanied by rain

### sisu (Finnish)

### a flair for turning extreme adversity into advantage; the psychological strength to ensure that regardless of the cost or the consequences, what has to be done will be done; grit

### situationism

### the idea that people's behavior is determined largely by what's happening around them

### sitzriese (German)

### a person who seems taller when sitting than when standing due to their posture or length of torso

### skeg

### a projection supporting a rudder at its lower end, located abaft a sternpost or rudderpost; an extension of the keel of a small craft, designed to improve steering

### skeuomorph

### an ornament or design on an object copied from a form of the object when made from another material or by other techniques, as an imitation metal rivet mark found on handles of prehistoric pottery; an object or feature which imitates the design of a similar artifact made from another material; a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues from structures that are inherent to the original; an element of a graphical user interface which mimics a physical object

### skinship (Japanese English)

### the physical intimacy, or closeness, between a mother and a child; the act of intimate, non-sexual touching between very close friends

### skirr

### to go rapidly; fly; scurry; to go rapidly over; a grating or whirring sound

### skite

### a quick, oblique blow or stroke; a chopping blow; a joke or prank; the butt of a joke or prank; a person whose opinions are not taken seriously; one held in mild contempt; to boast; brag

### skosh

### a small amount; a little bit

### skyway

### a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two or more buildings; aerial footbridge; skybridge; elevated footbridge (cf. breezeway)

### slacker

### a person who habitually avoids work or lacks work ethic

### slake

### to allay (thirst, desire, wrath, etc.) by satisfying; to cool or refresh; to make less active, vigorous, intense, etc.; quench

### slalom

### a downhill race over a winding and zigzag course marked by poles or gates; any winding or zigzag course marked by obstacles or barriers, as one in which automobiles are tested for maneuverability or drivers for reaction time

### slattern

### a slovenly, untidy woman or girl; slut; harlot

### slaver

### to slobber; drool

### slimsy

### flimsy; frail

### slipstream

### a stream of air (or a fluid) forced backwards by a propeller; the area of reduced pressure behind a fast-moving object; to follow behind a vehicle to take advantage of decreased wind resistance; a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or water) is moving at velocities comparable to the moving object, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is moving

### slithy

### smooth and active; slimy; slithery

### slough

### an area of soft, muddy ground; swamp or swamplike region; a hole full of mire, as in a road; a condition of degradation, despair, or helplessness; a mass or layer of dead tissue separated from the surrounding or underlying tissue; anything that is shed or cast off; discard; to dispose or get rid of (also sluff)

### slumgullion

### a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.; a beverage made weak or thin, as watery tea, coffee, or the like; the refuse from processing whale carcasses; a reddish, muddy deposit in mining sluices; a disparaging American term for something unpleasant

### sluice

### a water channel controlled at its head by a gate; a sliding gate or other device for controlling the flow of water, especially one in a lock gate; an artificial passage for water fitted with a valve or gate for stopping or regulating flow; an act of rinsing or showering with water; to wash or rinse freely with a stream or shower of water

### smarmy

### excessively flattering; unctuous; smug; overly suave; affected; slimy; sycophancy

### smaragdine

### of or relating to emeralds; having the color of emeralds

### smirch

### to discolor or soil; spot or smudge with or as with soot, dust, dirt, etc.; to sully or tarnish (a person, reputation, character, etc.); disgrace; discredit; a dirty mark or smear; a stain or blot

### smultroställe (Swedish)

### a special place discovered, treasured, and typically returned to for solace and relaxation (literally, place of wild strawberries); a personal idyll free from stress or sadness

### snarf

### to eat quickly and voraciously; to eat or drink greedily; scarf (often followed by down or up)

### snarky

### snide; rudely sarcastic; disrespectful

### snatchy

### done in or by snatches broadly; marked by breaks in continuity; interrupted; spasmodic

### snath

### the shaft or handle of a scythe

### snerdle

### to wrap up cozily in bed

### snollygoster

### a shrewd, unprincipled person

### sobremesa (Spanish)

### that languid time when food gives way to hours of talking, drinking and joking; a digestive period that allows for the slow settling of food, gossip, ideas, and conversations; when the food has finished but the conversation is still flowing; the leisurely time spent in conversation after a meal

### sobriquet

### a humorous epithet; assumed name; nickname

### socha

### the hidden vulnerability of others; the illusion of others' invulnerability arising from their distance from ourselves

### social entrepreneur

### one who adopts a mission to create and sustain social value based on both for-profit and non-profit models, using the profit generated to keep the social activity going

### social capital

### the quantity, quality, and diversity of one's social network, including strong and weak ties

### social distancing

### actions that are taken to stop or slow down the spread of a highly contagious disease; physical distancing; remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance from others when possible; staying away from other people

### social learning theory

### learning is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and can occur purely through observation or direct instruction, even in the absence of motor reproduction or direct reinforcement

### sociofraudus (Latin)

### a deceiver of one's friends

### sociogenic illness

### the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss, or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic etiology; mass psychogenic illness

### sociological imagination

### the use of imaginative thought to understand the connections between the forces of society and the personal lives of the individual; the understanding that macro social forces shape micro individual thought and action in addition to individual behavior shaping social forces, while seeing their oscillating connections; how self and society dialectically relate

### sociopomp

### a cultural guide of people; one who escorts people through a new culture or lifestage

### sockdolager

### a decisive reply, retort, or argument; something unusually large, heavy, etc.; a heavy, finishing blow; mic drop

### sodality

### fellowship; comradeship; an association or society; a lay society for religious and charitable purposes

### soigné

### carefully or elegantly done, operated, or designed; well-groomed; soignée

### soiree

### a formal evening party; a dinner party; an evening social gathering, especially for a particular purpose

### sojourn

### a temporary stay; to stay somewhere temporarily

### sólarfrí (Icelandic)

### when workers are granted unexpected time off to enjoy a particularly sunny or warm day; literally, sun holiday

### solatium

### something given in compensation for inconvenience, loss, or injury

### solecism

### a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage; a breach of good manners or etiquette; any error, impropriety, or inconsistency

### solenoid

### a coil of wire, usually cylindrical, in which a magnetic field is set up by passing a current through it

### solferino

a purplish red color (cf. magenta)

### solicitous

### full of concern; eager; meticulous

### solicitude

### care or concern for another

### solidago (Latin)

### to strengthen; to make well or make whole; goldenrod plant

### solidarity

### union or fellowship with others; community of feelings or purposes

### solipsism

### the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist; extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption

### solivigant

### a solitary wanderer; rambling alone; marked by solitary wandering

### solon

### a wise lawgiver; a legislator

### solutionary

### one who finds a way to resolve problems by significantly and strategically addressing the underlying causes of the problems, instead of complaining about or giving in to them

### somnambulism

### sleepwalking

### somniloquence

### sleep talking

### somnolent

### sleepy; drowsy; tending to cause sleep; soporific

### son-mat (Korean)

### the specific, irreplaceable flavor of someone else's cooking

### sonata

### a musical composition for one or two instruments, typically in three or four movements in contrasted forms and keys

### sonder

### the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living, thinking, feeling, etc. despite one's personal lack of awareness of it; the realization that every other person is living a life as vivid and complex as your own

### sonipes

### having loud feet, often applied to a horse; noisy-footed

### sonnet

### a poem, properly expressive of a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment, of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to one of certain definite schemes, being in the strict or Italian form divided into a major group of 8 lines (the octave) followed by a minor group of 6 lines (the sestet), and in a common English form into 3 quatrains followed by a couplet

### sonorous

### giving out or capable of giving out a sound, especially a deep, resonant sound; loud, deep, or resonant; rich and full in sound; wordy or grandiloquent; produced with a relatively open vocal tract and relatively little obstruction of airflow

### sophianic

### of or pertaining to wisdom

### sophist

### one who makes clever, but unsound arguments

### sophistry

### a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning; a cleverly false argument

### sophrology

### a particular structured method created to produce optimal health and well-being

### sophrosyne

### an ideal of excellence of character and soundness of mind, which when combined in one well-balanced individual leads to other qualities, such as temperance, moderation, prudence, purity, and self-control; a healthy state of mind characterized by self-control, moderation, and a deep awareness of one's true self, resulting in true happiness or joy

### sopor

### a deep, unnatural sleep; lethargy

### soporific

### causing or tending to cause sleep or sleepiness; somnolent

### soramimi (Japanese)

### mishearing; (feigned) deafness (literally "air ear")

### soramimi kashi (Japanese)

### misheard lyrics; homophonic translation of song lyrics; interpreting lyrics in one language as similar-sounding lyrics in another language (cf. mondegreen)

### sorb

### to take up and hold by absorption; to take up and hold by adsorption

### sortilege

### divination by drawing lots; sorcery; magic

### sorn (Scot)

### to obtain food, lodging, etc. from another person by presuming on his/her generosity

### soteriology

### the doctrine of salvation

### sotto voce (Italian)

### intentionally lowering the volume of one's voice for emphasis

### sough

### a rustling, rushing, or murmuring sound

### soulrocker

### one who lives from the heart, with compassion for all, possessing a tenacious enthusiasm for music, life, and the planet

### soupçon (French, pronounced like "soup's on")

### a very small but important amount

### souse

### to plunge into water or other liquid; immerse

### sowl

### a relish; sauce; anything eaten with bread; tasty, seasoned food; pottage; moist, liquid food; any liquid that is drunk; to pull by the ears; to drag about

### spacetime (also space–time, space time or space–time continuum)

### any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single interwoven continuum; the combination of space and time into a single abstract universe

### spang

### directly; exactly

### sparge

### to sprinkle or spray; to introduce bubbles into a liquid

### specifelicity

### elation from precision

### specious

### superficially true, but actually wrong

### specter

### some object or source of terror or dread; a visible incorporeal spirit, especially one of a terrifying nature; ghost; phantom; apparition

### spes (Icelandic)

### special in an odd way

### sphallolalia

### flirtatious talk that leads nowhere

### spiel

### a long, involved sales pitch or monologue

### spinnaker

### a large, usually triangular sail carried by a yacht as a headsail when running before the wind or when the wind is abaft the beam

### spirit

### a source of enlightenment

### spiritual

### of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature; incorporeal; supernatural; intangible

### spirituel

### showing or having a refined and graceful mind or wit; light and airy in movement; ethereal

### spizzerinctum

### ambition; energy; the will to succeed

### splanchnic

### of or relating to the internal organs or viscera

### splendiferous

### splendid; magnificent; fine

### splenetic

### irritable; peevish; spiteful; vexatious; testy; petulant

### spoonerism

### the usually accidental transposition of usually initial sounds in a pair of words; the transposition of initial or other sounds of words, usually by accident

### sprachgefühl (German)

### a feeling for language or a sensitivity for what is correct language; an instinctive or intuitive grasp of a language; a knack for language

### sprat

### a small or inconsequential person or thing; a species of herring

### sprezzatura (Italian)

### studied carelessness; acting effortlessly despite the effort involved; artfully-concealed effort; well-faked nonchalance

### spruik (Australian)

### to make or give a speech, especially extensively; spiel

### spume

### froth or foam, especially that found on waves

### spumescent

### foamy; foamlike; frothy

### spurtle

### a wooden stick for stirring porridge

### squall

### a sudden burst of wind; a sudden disturbance or commotion; to cry or scream loudly

### squamiferous

### covered in scales

### squamous

### covered with or formed of squamae or scales

### squib

### a short and witty or sarcastic saying or writing; a short news story, often used as a filler

### squiggle

### an irregularly curling or looping line, string, etc.; to make an irregularly curling or looping line; to squirm or wriggle; to scribble

### squillo (Italian)

the ring, ping, or buzz of a telephone; the blast of a trumpet; prostitute; a technical term for the resonant, trumpet-like sound in the voices of opera singers; singer's formant

### squirl

### a flourish or curve, especially in handwriting

### sraddha (Sanskrit)

### the inner, intuitive belief that you are walking steadily towards your life's goals

### staggeration

### the dotted lines tracing the path of an inebriated character

### stalactite

### a deposit, usually of calcium carbonate, shaped like an icicle, hanging from the roof of a cave or the like, and formed by the dripping of percolating calcareous water (cf. stalagmite)

### stalagmite

### a conical column on the floor of a cave, formed by minerals in dripping water (cf. stalactite)

### stalwart

### strongly and stoutly built; sturdy and robust; strong and brave; valiant; firm, steadfast, or uncompromising; a steadfast or uncompromising partisan

### stanch

### to stop the flow of (a liquid, especially blood); to stop the flow of blood or other liquid from (a wound, leak, etc.); to check, allay, or extinguish

### starboard

### the right-hand side of or direction from a vessel or aircraft, facing forward; toward the right side (antonym: port)

### stasis

### the state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces

### starets

### a religious teacher or adviser, who is not necessarily a clergy member

### steatopygous

### the state of having a large amount of fat around one's bottom (cf. callipygous)

### steenth

### latest in an indefinitely long sequence; one sixteenth

### steganography

### the practice of hiding secret messages in seemingly innocuous documents

### stellenbosch

### to relegate someone incompetent to a position of minimal responsibility

### stelliferous

### having or abounding with stars

### Stendhal syndrome (hyperkulturemia or Florence syndrome)

### a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion, and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place; a similar reaction to a surfeit of choice in other circumstances, e.g. when confronted with immense beauty in the natural world; artistic awe

### stenosis

### a narrowing of a passage, vessel, or an opening in the body

### stent

### a tube or mesh cylinder inserted into a blocked vessel to keep it open

### stentorian

### powerfully loud; booming

### stentorophone

### an excessively loud speaker

### sternutation

### a sneeze; the act of sneezing; a fit of sneezing

### stevedore

### a person employed, or a contractor engaged, at a dock to load and unload cargo from ships; longshore worker

### stich

### a line of poetry or prose; a measured part of something written especially in verse

### stipple

### to paint, engrave, or draw by means of dots or small touches

### stiver

### the smallest possible amount

### stob

### a post, stump, or stake

### stochastic

### random; conjectural; non-deterministic; of or pertaining to a process involving a randomly determined sequence of observations each of which is considered as a sample of one element from a probability distribution

### Stockholm syndrome

### a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them

### stolid

### not easily stirred or moved mentally; unemotional; impassive

### stooz

### a form of arbitrage that takes advantage of an introductory interest-free period offered by a credit-card company to borrow money for investment elsewhere, especially in a high-interest account; to borrow money at an interest rate of 0%, a rate typically offered by credit card companies as an incentive for new customers, which is then placed in a high-interest bank account to make a profit from the interest earned

### strabismus

### a disorder of vision due to a deviation from normal orientation of one or both eyes so that both cannot be directed at the same object at the same time; squint; crossed eyes

### stravage

### to wander aimlessly; to gallivant

### streicheleinheiten (German)

### tender loving care; a unit of petting

### streitsüchtig (German)

### quarrelsome; dispute-addicted; a hunger for conflict; a need for discord or yearning for something to oppose

### stretto

### the close overlapping of statements of the subject in a fugue, each voice entering immediately after the preceding one

### strew

### to let fall in separate pieces or particles over a surface; scatter or sprinkle

### stria

### a slight or narrow furrow, ridge, stripe, or streak, especially one of a number in parallel arrangement; any of a series of parallel lines or tiny grooves on the surface of a crystal, indicative of the mode of growth; a flute on the shaft of a column

### striate

### marked with striae; furrow; stripe; streak

### stridor

### a harsh, grating or creaking sound

### stridulate

### to produce a sound by rubbing together certain parts of the body; to make a shrill creaking noise by rubbing body parts together

### strikhedonia

### the pleasure of being able to say to hell with it; enjoyment through the abandon of normal inhibitions or prohibitions

### string theory

### a theoretical framework in physics in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings using their quantum states and incorporating gravity

### stultify

### to make, or cause to appear, foolish or ridiculous; to render absurdly or wholly futile or ineffectual, especially by degrading or frustrating means

### stupefaction

### overwhelming amazement; stupor

### stupefy

### to make someone so bored or tired as unable to think clearly; to amaze

### Sturgeon's law

### ninety percent of everything is crud

### Sturm und Drang (German)

### literally "storm and drive", "storm and urge", though conventionally translated as "storm and stress"; a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that took place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements

### sturmfrei

### the freedom of not being watched and being alone; the ability to do whatever you want withlout having to consult another, negotiate, or agree

### suaimhnaes croi (Gaelic)

### the state of joy after the completion of a task; a silent sense of contentedness

### suan (Mandarin)

### a spicy or chemical reaction in one's mouth

### subaudition

### an act or instance of understanding or mentally supplying something not expressed

### subduct

### to push or move below something

### subfusc

### dark, drab, or gloomy; dark, formal clothing worn at some universities for exams and special occasions

### sublate

### to negate or eliminate (as an element in a dialectic process) but preserve as a partial element in a synthesis; negate; deny

### sublation

### ritual purification; the purification or exaltation of matter by its negation or redirection

### sublimation

### the transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas phase without passing through an intermediate liquid phase; a mature type of defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse

### sublimate

### to direct the energy of a primitive impulse into activities that are considered to be socially more acceptable; to refine or purify a substance; to make nobler or purer; a mature type of defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse

### sublunary

### situated beneath the moon or between the earth and the moon; characteristic of or pertaining to the earth; terrestrial; mundane or worldly; earthly; of this world

### subitize

### to perceive, without counting, the number of objects in a small group, the limit for most humans being about seven

### suborn

### to induce to commit perjury; to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing

### substance dualism

### a supposition that the mental and the physical are separate substances with independent existence (cf. mind-body)

### subterfuge

### an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something, etc.; a stratagem employed to conceal something, evade an argument, etc.; chicanery

### subtilize

### to introduce subtleties into or argue subtly about

### subsume

### to include or incorporate under a more comprehensive category

### suchart (Thai)

### one who is born into a good life

### succedaneum

### a substitute or replacement

### succor

### help; relief; aid; assistance; person or thing that gives help, relief, aid, etc.; to help or relieve

### succorance

### the act of seeking out affectionate care and social support

### succus

### juice; fluid

### sudorific

### causing sweat

### sudser

### any movie, show, play, or the like that is designed to provoke a tearful response; tearjerker

### suffrage

### the right to vote; the exercise of the right to vote

### suiseki (Japanese)

### the Japanese art and practice of stone appreciation

### sui generis

### of its own kind; unique in its characteristics

### sulfurous (or sulphurous)

### relating to or resembling sulfur; pale yellow; fiery; hellish; hot-tempered; profane; blasphemous

### sulit (Tagaglog)

### something that is worth it

### sultry

### oppressively hot and close or moist; sweltering; oppressively hot; emitting great heat; characterized by or associated with sweltering heat; characterized by or arousing passion

### sump

### a pit, well, or the like in which water or other liquid is collected

### sumpsimus

### adherence to or persistence in using a strictly correct term, holding to a precise practice, etc., as a rejection of an erroneous but more common form; a person who is obstinate or zealous about such strict correctness (antonym: mumpsimus)

### sumptuary

### regulating personal habits or behavior on moral or religious grounds

### sumptuous

### entailing great expense, as from choice materials, fine work, etc.; costly; luxuriously fine or large; lavish

### sunk cost fallacy

### the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit; "throwing good money after bad"; irrational escalation of commitment

### sunyata (Sanskrit)

### the voidness that constitutes ultimate reality; the Buddhist tenet that all things are empty of intrinsic existence; the Buddhist doctrine that phenomena are devoid of an immutable or determinate intrinsic nature; the belief that all phenomena are empty of a self-nature in both the relative and absolute sense, without positing anything beyond that; an emptiness that is a nonimplicative negation; empty of an unchanging essence; form is empty, emptiness is form

### supercilious

### showing haughty disdain; contemptuous; full of or characterized by pride for oneself and scorn for others; behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others

### superficies

### the surface, outer face, or outside of a thing; the outward appearance, especially as distinguished from the inner nature

### superfluity

### the state of being superfluous; a superabundant or excessive amount; something superfluous

### superluminal

### faster than light

### supernal

### heavenly

### supernumerary

### exceeding the stated, standard, or prescribed number; exceeding what is necessary or desired; numerically superfluous; an actor without a speaking part, as a walk-on or an extra in a crowd scene

### supervoter

### a voter who votes in every election for which they are eligible

### supine

### lying on the back, face or front upward; inactive, passive, or inert, especially from indolence or indifference; displaying no interest or animation; lethargic; having the palm upward

### suppletory

### supplying a deficiency

### supplicant

### entreating humbly; a suppliant; a petitioner

### supposition

### the act of supposing; something that is supposed; assumption; hypothesis

### suppurate

### to produce or discharge pus, as a wound; maturate; fester

### supramundane

### above or beyond this world

### surcease

### stoppage, especially a temporary one; to bring or come to an end

### surd

### voiceless; inexpressible quantity; irrational

### surfeit

### excess or an excessive amount; plethora; overabundance; nimiety

### surreal

### having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; phantasmagoric; something that resolves the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality

### surreptitious

### obtained, done, made, etc. by stealth; secret or unauthorized; clandestine; acting in a stealthy way; obtained by subreption; subreptitious

### suspiration

### a long, deep sigh

### suss (British slang)

### to investigate or figure out (usually followed by out)

### susto (Spanish)  
a distinctly Latin American fear that one's soul has panicked and left one's body

### susurrus (or susurrant)

### a whisper, soft murmuring, or rustling sound

### Sutton's law

### if you want money, go where the money is

### švejkovat (Czech)

### to respond to an absurd order with malicious compliance; to act crazy in response to a crazy order

### swadeshi (Hindi or Sanskrit?)

### the spirit that restricts us to the use of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of much else; provincialism; parochialism; ethnocentrism; nationalism

### swage

### a tool for bending cold metal to a required shape; a tool, die, or stamp for giving a particular shape to metal on an anvil, in a stamping press, etc.; to bend or shape by means of a swage; to reduce or taper (an object), as by forging or squeezing

### swain

### a male admirer or lover; a country lad; a country gallant

### swalloops (also blurgits)

### curved lines preceding or trailing after a character's moving limbs

### swaraj (Hindi)

### independence from foreign domination; self-governance through individuals, community building, and decentralization; independent livelihood

### sweven

### a vision; a dream

### swivet

### a state of nervous excitement, haste, or anxiety; flutter

### swizzle

### a tall drink, originating in Barbados, composed of full-flavored West Indian rum, lime juice, crushed ice, and sugar typically served with a swizzle stick; to agitate (a beverage) with a swizzle stick; to gulp down; guzzle

### sybarite

### a person devoted to luxury and pleasure; hedonist

### sybilline

### relating to or characteristic of a sibyl; prophetic and mysterious

### sycophancy

### self-seeking or servile flattery; smarmy

### syllogism

### deductive reasoning; reasoning from the general to the specific; an extremely subtle, sophisticated, or deceptive argument

### sylph

### a slender, graceful woman or girl; one of a race of supernatural beings supposed to inhabit the air

### sylvan

### wooded or forested

### sylvatic

### relating to wild animals

### symbiosis

### a close and often long-term interaction between two or more different biological species; the living together of unlike organisms

### symbiotic

### any interdependent or mutually beneficial relationship

### symbolic interactionism

### the sociological perspective that people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation

### symphysis

### growing together

### symploce

### the simultaneous use of anaphora and epistrophe

### synchronicity

### coincidence of events that may seem unrelated and cannot be explained by conventional means; the experience of two or more events, that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner; occurring at the same time

### synchrony

### simultaneous action, development, or occurrence

### syncopation

### a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected which make part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat; a general term for "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm"; a "placement of rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur"

### syncretic

### reconciling disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought; the attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles, practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion

### syndemic

a set of linked health problems involving two or more afflictions, interacting synergistically, and contributing to excess burden of disease in a population; a synergetic epidemic or pandemic; the aggregation of two or more concurrent or sequential epidemics or disease clusters in a population with biological interactions, which exacerbate the prognosis and burden of disease

### synderesis

### innate knowledge of the basic principles of morality

### syndetic

### serving to unite or connect; connective; copulative

### synecdoche

### a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special

### synechism

### philosophy stressing the importance of continuity

### synergy

### an interaction effect making the whole greater than the sum of its parts

### synesthesia

### multi-sensory response to a stimulus

### synoptic

### affording or taking a general or common view of the principal parts of a subject; relating to a summary or general view of something; covering a wide area; taking a similar view

### syntax

### the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages

### syzygy

the lining up of celestial bodies; a conjunction or opposition, especially of the moon with the sun; a pair of connected or corresponding things; the only English word with three Ys

### "Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within."

— Alfred Lord Tennyson

### ta'arof (Persian)

### the art of etiquette ubiquitous in everyday Iranian life; feigned over-politeness

### tabanca (Creole)

### the bittersweet feeling one has when being left by the person they love

### tableau

### a picture, as of a scene; a picturesque grouping of persons or objects; a striking scene

### tabula rasa

### blank slate; erased slate

### tacenda

### things that are not to be spoken about or made public; things that are best left unsaid

### tachycardia

### a condition in which the heart beats unusually fast (antonym: bradycardia)

### tachyon

### a hypothetical particle that travels faster than the speed of light; FTL (antonym: bradyon, ittyon, tardyon)

### taciturn

### inclined to silence; reserved in speech; reluctant to join in conversation; dour, stern, and silent in expression and manner

### tactical empathy

### understanding the feelings and mindset of another person at the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you can increase your influence in the moments that follow

### tafala (Arabic)

### the encroaching darkness of nighttime on the day

### taffety

### well dressed; wearing or resembling taffeta

### tahor (Hebrew)

### the pure state of being that is necessary to properly come before Divine Presence

### taijitu (Chinese)

### a term which refers to a Chinese symbol for the concept of yin and yang (literally, diagram of supreme ultimate)

### takkeling (Dutch)

### a bird that can't fly yet

### talanoa (Fijian)

### to chat, gossip, or tell stories as a way to socially bond

### talko (Swedish; talkoot in Finnish)

### people voluntarily getting together for a necessary job that is not necessarily fun

### talus

### a boulder or a field of boulders; a bone of the ankle joint, also known as the anklebone; a slope, especially a sloping mass of debris at the foot of a cliff

### tam

### a cap of Scottish origin, usually made of wool, having a round, flat top that projects all around the head and has a pompon at its center

### tampo

### a withdrawal from a social interaction due to another's outburst, especially of anger; a non-confrontational, mostly non-verbal behavior in which a person withdraws their affection or cheerfulness from a person who has hurt their feelings; sulking silent treatment

### tangible

### capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material or substantial; real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary; definite; not vague or elusive; having actual physical existence; palpable; corporeal; manifest

### tanha (pali)

### intense desire for life, whether physical or mental

### tapestry thesis

### the idea that while one side is beautiful and patterned, the other side is rough and chaotic

### taphonomy

### the study of fossilization

### tarab (Arabic)

### musically-induced enchantment or ecstasy

### taradiddle

### a small or petty lie; pretentious nonsense

### tarantism

### an uncontrollable urge to dance

### tarbiya (Arabic)

### a comprehensive process of personal progress, whereby an individual grows spiritually, intellectually, and socially to achieve a godly life; ongoing spiritual and ethical development

### tardis

### a time machine; something that is much bigger than it appears from the outside

### tarn

### a small mountain lake or pool, especially one in a cirque

### tarnal

### damned

### tartle (Scottish)

### the act of hesitating while introducing someone because their name has been forgotten

### tasseography (also tasseomancy and tassology)

### a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments

### tathagatagarbha (Sanskrit)

### the doctrine that the essence of our mind is always already the Buddha-nature; the philosophy of original enlightenment; buddhadhatu

### tatterdemalion

### a person dressed in ragged clothing; ragged or disreputable in appearance; unkempt or dilapidated; being in a decayed state or condition; shabby

### taupe

### a moderate to dark brownish gray, sometimes slightly tinged with purple, yellow, or green

### tautologous

### involving unnecessary repetition of an idea, especially in different words

### tautology

### unnecessary repetition of an idea, especially in different words; a compound statement that is always true, irrespective of the value of its components; a logical argument constructed in such a way, generally by repeating the same concept or assertion using different phrasing or terminology, that the proposition as stated is logically irrefutable, while obscuring the lack of evidence or valid reasoning supporting the stated conclusion

### tawdry

### gaudy; showy and cheap; low or mean

### taxis

### movement of an organism towards or away from a stimulus; order, arrangement, or classification; the manual repositioning of a displaced body part to its normal position; more than one taxi

### taxon

### a taxonomic category, as a species or genus (plural taxa)

### taw

### to prepare or dress (some raw material) for use or further manipulation; to transform the skin of an animal into white leather by the application of minerals (alum, salt), emulsions, etc.

### tawdry

### gaudy, showy and cheap; low or mean; base

### tchotchke

### an inexpensive souvenir, trinket, or ornament; knick-knack; miscellaneous curios of no obvious practical use

### tea

an infusion made by steeping Camellia sinensis, or other plants (cf. tisane), in hot water; liquid meditation

### tectonic

### of or pertaining to building or construction; constructive; architectural; pertaining to the structure of the Earth's crust; referring to the forces or conditions within the Earth that cause movements of the crust; designating the results of such movements

### teg

### a two-year-old sheep that has not been shorn; the wool shorn from such a sheep

### tegular

### relating to, resembling, or arranged like tiles

### teknonymy (or tecnonymy)

### the custom of naming a parent after their child

### telematics

### technologies that wirelessly transmit data from sensors and other devices to computers for analysis

### teleology

### the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes; the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world

### tellurian

### of or characteristic of the Earth or its inhabitants; an inhabitant of the Earth; Earthling

### telluric

### of or proceeding from the earth or soil; of or relating to the Earth; terrestrial

### temblor

### a tremor; earthquake

### temerarious

### presumptuously or recklessly daring or bold

### temerity

### unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger; rashness

### temimut (Hebrew)

### pious innocence; sincere simplicity; childlike wonder

### temporal discounting

the tendency of people to discount rewards as they approach a temporal horizon in the future or the past (i.e., become so distant in time, either forward or back, that they cease to be valuable or to have additive effects); a tendency to give greater value to rewards as they move towards the "now" and away from their temporal horizons

### temporocentrism

### the belief that a particular time, typically the current time, is better, more important, or more consequential; a cultural bias that views historical times as inferior to present day (cf. ethnocentrism)

### tendentious

### having or showing a definite tendency, bias, or purpose

### tendril

### a threadlike, leafless organ of climbing plants, often growing in spiral form, which attaches itself to or twines round some other body, so as to support the plant

### tenebrific

### producing darkness

### tenebrous

### dark; gloomy; obscure

### teratism (teratosis)

### love or worship of the monstrous; a congenital malformation or anomaly

### termagant

### violent; turbulent; brawling; shrewish; virago, harridan; scold; nag

### terpsichorean

### pertaining to dancing; a dancer

### terraqueous

### consisting of, or formed of, land and water

### terrene

### relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane

### terroir (French)

### a sense of place, both materially and non-materially

### teshuvah (Hebrew)

### looking back and forward, with compassion, to return to oneself; repentance; atonement

### tessera

### a mosaic tile; smalto; a small piece of something larger and more beautiful

### tesseract

### the four-dimensional analog of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square

### tetchy

### easily annoyed; oversensitive

### tetragrammaton

### a word having four letters; YHVH

### tetralogy

### a series of four related dramas, operas, novels, etc.

### tew

### to prepare by beating or working, as leather or hemp; to taw; to beat; to scourge; also, to pull about; to maul; to tease; to vex

### thagomizer

### the distinctive arrangement of four to ten spikes on the tails of stegosaurid dinosaurs

### thallus

### a simple vegetative body undifferentiated into true leaves, stem, and root, ranging from an aggregation of filaments to a complex plantlike form

### thalweg

### a line connecting the lowest points of successive cross-sections along the course of a valley or river; the path of least resistance

### thanatology

### the study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families

### thanatopsis

### a view or contemplation of death

### thanatos

### an ancient Greek personification of death; the death instinct, especially as expressed in violent aggression

### thaumaturge

### a miracle worker; a holy person

### thaumaturgy

### the performing of miracles or magic

### theodicy  
the theological problem of evil

### theogony  
the origin of gods or an account of this

### theomania  
the belief that one is God or specially chosen by God on a mission

### theomorphism

### having the form or likeness of God or a deity

### theophany  
an appearance of a god to a person

### theosophy

### religious philosophy or speculation about the nature of the soul based on mystical insight into the nature of God or gods

### theriomorphism

### the worship of deities that are partly animal and partly human in form; therianthropism; theriolatry; the ascription of animal characteristics to humans (cf. anthromorphism)

### theurgy

### divine or supernatural intervention in human affairs; the performance of miracles with supernatural assistance; magic performed with the aid of beneficent spirits

### thew(s)  
muscle or sinew; physical strength

### thewless  
cowardly; lacking energy

### thigmophilic  
touch-loving; the opposite of claustrophobic

### thill

### either of the pair of shafts of a vehicle between which a draft animal is harnessed; shaft

### thimblerig

### to cheat or swindle, as in the traditional shell game known as thimblerig (cf. 3-Card Monty)

### thixotropic  
liquid when shaken but semisolid or solid when untouched

### thalassic

### of or pertaining to seas and oceans; of or pertaining to smaller bodies of water, as seas and gulfs, as distinguished from large oceanic bodies; growing, living, or found in the sea; marine

### thanatosis

### the ability to fake death to evade a predator or any other unwelcome intrusion

### theography

### writing about a god or gods

### therianthropy

### the mythological ability of human beings to metamorphose into other animals by means of shapeshifting; someone who identifies as one or more non-human animal(s) on a personal, non-physical, integral level; any human-animal hybridization

### thurible

### a metal censer suspended from chains, in which incense is burned during worship services

### Thomas theorem

### if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences; Tinkerbell effect

### thrasonical  
bragging or boastful; cf. fanfaron and rodomont

### threnody

### a song, hymn, or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person; dirge

### threnos (pl. threnoi)  
a song of lamentation; a dirge; a threnody

### thrip

### to snap (the fingers) softly; to twitch slightly; false singular of thrips, a type of insect

### tiáo (Mandarin)

### a measure word for long-narrow-shape things (one of at least 140 classifiers and measure words)

### tiffin

### to eat lunch; to provide lunch for; to serve lunch to; lunch

### tikun olam (Hebrew)  
healing or repairing the world

### tilaka (Sanskrit)

### a mark worn usually on the forehead for Hindu religious or spiritual purposes (not to be confused with the bindi)

### timorous

### full of fear; fearful; timid

### tingo (Rapa Nui)  
to extract or haul as much as possible; to take everything one wants from a friend by borrowing them one by one

### tinhorn

### someone who pretends to have money, skill, influence, etc.; inferior or insignificant, while pretending to be otherwise

### tinnient

### ringing or tinkling

### tintinnabulum

### a small high-pitched bell; a small, tinkling bell or a set of bells played in succession

### tio do pavê (Brazilian Portuguese)

### a middle-aged man, often an uncle, who thinks he is funny, but only makes corny, overused jokes

### titrate

### to ascertain the amount of a constituent in (a solution) by measuring the volume of a known concentration of reagent required to complete a reaction with it, typically using an indicator; continuously measure and adjust the balance of a physiological function or drug dosage

### tirl

### a wheel, cam, or any revolving mechanism or piece of machinery; an allotted time for action that comes in rotation to each member of a group; turn; to rotate; turn; twirl; To quiver; to vibrate; to veer about; to make a rattling noise by spinning or revolving

### tiro (or tyro)  
one who is beginning to learn something

### titter

### to laugh in a nervous, restrained manner; a nervous, restrained laugh

### tittle

### a dot or other small mark in writing or printing, used as a diacritic, punctuation, etc.; a very small part or quantity; a particle, jot, or whit

### tittup

### an exaggerated prancing, bouncing movement, or manner of moving; to move, especially to walk, in an exaggerated prancing or bouncing way, as a spirited horse

### titubant

### a disturbance of body equilibrium in standing or walking, resulting in an uncertain gait and trembling

### titular

### of or relating to a title; in the name only; having a title without accompanying responsibilities and powers

### tizita (Amharic)

### a bittersweet remembrance and longing for a time, person, thing gone by; nostalgia; saudade

### tmesis  
stuffing a word into the middle of another word; the insertion of one or more words between the words that make up a compound phrase; the only English word to begin with tm

### toccata

### a musical composition for a keyboard instrument designed to exhibit the performer's touch and technique

### tocsin  
a signal, especially of alarm, sounded on a bell or bells; a bell used to sound an alarm

### tod

### an English unit of weight, chiefly for wool, commonly equal to 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms) but varying locally; a load; a bushy mass, especially of ivy

### toff

### a stylishly dressed, fashionable person, especially one who is or wants to be considered a member of the upper class

### tofu  
nutritious, delicious, and multi-use soy bean curd

### tog

### to dress especially in fine clothing

### tohubohu  
chaos; confusion [Hebrew tohu va-bohu, from tohu (formlessness) and bohu (emptiness)]

### tokka (Finnish)

### a large herd, especially of reindeer

### tokples (Tok Pisin)  
local language

### tombolo

### a sand bar connecting an island to the mainland or to another island

### tonsorial  
of or pertaining to a barber or barbering

### tontine

### a form of investment in which participants pool their money into a common fund and receive an annuity with each person's share increasing as members die until the last survivor takes the whole

### topos

### a convention or motif, especially in a literary work; a rhetorical convention

### tor  
a rocky pinnacle; a peak of a bare or rocky mountain or hill

### tornig (Yinglish)  
a disobedient nephew

### torpor

### sluggish inactivity or inertia; lethargic indifference; apathy; listlessness; a state of suspended physical powers and activities; dormancy, as of a hibernating animal

### torque

### something that produces or tends to produce torsion or rotation; the moment of a force or system of forces tending to cause rotation

### torrefy  
to subject to fire or intense heat; to roast

### torrent

### a stream of water flowing with great rapidity and violence; a rushing, violent, or abundant and unceasing stream of anything; a violent downpour of rain; a violent, tumultuous, or overwhelming flow

### torrid

### very hot and dry; full of difficulty or tribulation

### torschlusspanik (German)  
the agitated, fretful feeling we get when we notice time is running out; the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages (literally, gate-closing panic)

### tortuous

### twisting; devious; highly complex

### torturous

### extremely painful

### toska (Russian)

### spiritual anguish; a deep pining; the product of nostalgia or love-sickness; depression plus longing; an unbearable feeling that you need to escape but lack the hope or energy to do so; "a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause" (Nabokov)

### touji (Japanese)

### going to the hot springs in the winter to rest the body; a hot spring cure

### tourbillion

### a whirlwind or something resembling a whirlwind

### tractable  
easily led, taught, shaped, or managed; docile; manageable; governable; malleable

### traduce

### to speak maliciously and falsely of; slander; defame

### tragus

### the small fleshy projection at the front of the external ear, slightly extending over the opening of the ear

### traipse

### an easygoing manner of travel; to walk or go aimlessly or idly or without finding or reaching one's goal; to walk with the dress trailing or bedraggled

### traject

### to transport, transmit, or transpose

### tranche  
a portion, especially of money, investment, etc.; a class of bonds

### trangam

### a trinket, puzzle, or odd gadget

### transcendentalism

### a philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought; a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical; a belief in the inherent goodness of both people and nature, especially when self-reliant and independent, yet society and its institutions, particularly organized religion, political parties, and corporations, ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual

### transect

### to cut across; a narrow section through a natural feature; a path along which measurements or observations are made

### Transformation of Things

### the knowledge that two things that seem the same must still be different

### transmundane

### extending or lying beyond the world; reaching beyond or existing outside the physical or visible world; beyond this world or worldly considerations

### transpicuous

### easily seen through or understood

### transpontine

### situated on the farther end of a bridge

### transom

### the flat surface forming the stern of a vessel; a horizontal beam reinforcing the stern of a vessel; a strengthening crossbar, in particular one set above a window or door; a horizontal, rectangular window placed directly above a door

### trayf da'at (Hebrew)

### a mind pulled in various directions; a torn mind

### treacle  
contrived or unrestrained sentimentality; anything sweet or cloying

### tremulous

### characterized by trembling, as from fear, nervousness, or weakness; timid; timorous; fearful; vibratory, shaking, or quivering

### trenchant

### incisive or keen; caustic; cutting; vigorous; effective; energetic; clearly or sharply defined; incisive; clear-cut; distinct

### trepan

### a person who ensnares or entraps others; a stratagem; a trap; to ensnare or entrap; to entice; to cheat or swindle

### treppenwitz (German)

### thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit; esprit d'escalier (French)

### tresses

### long locks or curls of hair; a plait or braid of hair

### tressilate

### to be suddenly agitated; be a-quiver

### triangulate

### to position between two extremes; to make triangular; to divide an area into triangles; to determine a location by measuring angles to it from known points; composed of or marked with triangles

### tribology

### the study of friction, lubrication, and wear

### trichotillomania

### hair pulling disorder; an impulse control disorder characterized by a long-term urge that results in the pulling out of one's hair; a compulsive and uncontrollable desire to pull out one's own hair

### tricolon

### a sentence with three clearly defined parts of equal length, usually independent clauses (cf. hendiatris)

### triffid

### an out-of-control plant that overruns everything around it

### trig  
neat; trim; smart; trigonometry

### trinary

### relating to three; third in a series; having three things or arranged in three

### triskelion

### a symbolic figure consisting of three legs, arms, or branches radiating from a common center, as the device of Sicily and the Isle of Man

### tristesse

### a state of melancholy sadness

### trite

### lacking in freshness or effectiveness because of constant use or excessive repetition; hackneyed; stale

### trochal  
resembling or revolving like a wheel

### trombenik (or trombenick)

### a lazy or a boastful person

### trompe l'oeil (French)

### an artistic technique of visual deception in which illusion is achieved using extreme detail to make flat surfaces such as canvases and walls appear three-dimensional

### trope

### any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense

### trophic

### of or relating to nutrition; concerned in nutritive processes

### trophic cascade

### when predators in a food web suppress the abundance and/or alter traits (e.g., behavior) of their prey, thereby releasing the next lower trophic level from predation (or herbivory if the intermediate trophic level is an herbivore)

### tropism

### an orientation of an organism to an external stimulus, especially by growth rather than by movement

### trouvaille (French)

### a lucky find; something lovely discovered by chance

### truckle  
to yield or bend obsequiously to the will of another; to act in a subservient manner

### truculent  
aggressive; eager to fight; destructive; cruel; savage

### trumped-up

### faked or fraudulent

### trumpery

### something of less value than it seems; something without use or value; rubbish; trash; worthless stuff; nonsense

### trumpeso (Spanish)

### a negative political event that comes as a surprise

### truth  
one's perception, perspective, experience, or reality; something accepted by a community

### truthiness

### the act or quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than those known to be true (cf. factoid; paranym)

### truss  
to tie, bind, or fasten

### trypanophobia  
the extreme fear of medical procedures involving injections or needles

### trypophobia

### a fear of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps

### tryst  
a secret meeting, usually between lovers

### tsavd danem (Armenian)

### indicating that the speaker is interested in and cares about the other; literally, let me take away your pain

### tsukimi (Japanese)

### moon viewing; cf. otsukimi and jugoya

### tsulla (Ingush)

### the day after the day after tomorrow

### tsundoku (Japanese)

### the art and practice of buying books yet not reading them; letting books pile up unread; a pile of unread books; guilt pile

### tsuris  
serious troubles or worries, not minor annoyances

### tulku (Tibetan)

### the corporeal existence of an enlightened Buddhist master; a living Buddha

### tumescent  
exhibiting or affected with many ideas or emotions; teeming; pretentious; swelling

### tumid

### swollen, or affected with swelling, as a part of the body; pompous or inflated, as language; turgid; bombastic; seeming to swell; bulging

### tumulus

### a mound of earth placed over prehistoric tombs; a barrow; a dome-shaped swelling formed in cooling lava

### tupocze (Polish)

### the sound of a hedgehog running across a hardwood floor, making the sounds tup tup tup as it walks

### turbid

### not clear or transparent because of stirred-up sediment or the like; clouded; opaque; obscured; thick or dense, as smoke or clouds; confused; muddled; disturbed

### turdiform  
shaped like a songbird, especially a thrush

### turgid  
swollen; distended; tumid; inflated, overblown, or pompous; bombastic

### Turing machine

### a hypothetical universal computing machine able to modify its original instructions by reading, erasing, or writing a new symbol on a moving tape of fixed length that acts as its program.

### Turing test

### a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human; a test proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing, and often taken as a test of whether a computer has humanlike intelligence, whereby if a panel of human beings conversing with an unknown entity (via keyboard, for example) believes that that entity is human, and if the entity is actually a computer, then the computer is said to have passed the Turing test

### turpilucrus  
profiting dishonestly

### turpitude  
inherent baseness or vileness of principle, words, or actions; depravity; wickedness; a base act

### tutelary

### having the guardianship or charge of protecting a person or a thing; guardian; protecting

### tuteo (Spanish)

### the practice of being informal with someone; the use of an informal second person pronoun; address familiarly; cf. tutoyer in French

### tutoyer (French)

### to address (someone), especially in French, using the familiar forms of the pronoun "you" rather than the more formal forms; address familiarly; cf. tuteo in Spanish

### twelveteen

### a 12-year-old who acts like more like a teenager than a pre-teenager; a baker's dozen; an indefinite though small addition to twelve of something; a number between twelve and thirteen; a number between eleventeen and thirteen

### twitterpated

### excited or overcome by romantic feelings; smitten

### typhlobasia

### the act of kissing with one's eyes closed

### tyro

### a beginner in learning anything; novice; neophyte; noob; greenhorn

### tyvsmake (Norwegian)

### to taste or eat small pieces of the food when you think nobody is watching, especially when cooking

### tzedakah (Hebrew)

### obligations of righteousness and charity

### tzedek (Hebrew)

### justice

### tzadik (Hebrew)

### one of (at least) the thirty-six righteous people in each generation who sustain the world; those who are or strive to be or act like them; a righteous person; boddhisattva

### tzimtzum (Hebrew)

### condensing oneself to make space for other beings and things

### "Words are more powerful than munitions."

  * ### Albert Camus

### über alles

### above all else

### uberate

### to make plentiful; to nourish

### ubermensch

### an ideal superior being

### uberous

### abundant; fruitful; uberty

### uberty

### fertile growth; abundance; fruitfulness; copiousness; plenty

### ubiety

### the condition of existing in a particular location

### ubuntu (Nguni? Xhosa?)

### self-in-community; I am because we are; becoming human due to positive socialization; the capacity to express compassion, justice, reciprocity, dignity, harmony and humanity in the interests of building, maintaining and strengthening community; human kindness and generosity

### udevu (Swahili)

### a beard hair

### ugsome

### loathsome; dreadful; disgusting

### uhtcearu (Old English)

### pre-dawn anxiety

### uhuru (Swahili)

### freedom/independence

### uitwaaien (Dutch)

### walking in the wind for fun or exercise

### ujamaa (Swahili)

### familyhood; people becoming people through family and community

### ukiyo (Japanese)

### the urban lifestyle, especially the pleasure-seeking aspects, of the Edo-period Japan (1600–1867); literally, floating world

### ullage

### the amount by which the contents fall short of filling a container, as a cask or bottle

### Ullassa (Sanskrit):

### feelings of pleasantness associated with natural beauty

### ultimate attribution error

### the tendency to internally attribute negative outgroup and positive ingroup behavior and to externally attribute positive outgroup and negative ingroup behavior (cf. fundamental attribution error)

### ultracrepidarian

### giving opinions beyond one's area of expertise; one who gives opinions beyond one's area of expertise

### ultradian rhythm

### a recurrent period or cycle repeated throughout a 24-hour circadian day; a rhythm or cycle having a period of recurrence shorter than a day but longer than an hour

### ultramarine

### a brilliant deep blue pigment originally obtained from lapis lazuli; cerulean

### ululate

### to howl or wail

### umami (Japanese)

### savory (as opposed to the other tastes of sweet, salty, bitter, or spicy); deliciousness; pleasant savory taste

### umarell (Bolognese)

### a folk term in Bologna referring specifically to men of retirement age who pass the time watching construction sites, especially roadworks, stereotypically with hands clasped behind their back and offering unwanted advice; kibbitzer

### umbel

### an inflorescence in which a number of flower stalks or pedicels, nearly equal in length, spread from a common center

### umber

### an earth consisting chiefly of a hydrated oxide of iron and some oxide of manganese, used in its natural state as a brown pigment (raw umber) or, after heating, as a reddish-brown pigment (burnt umber); the color of such a pigment; dark dusky brown or dark reddish brown

### umbra

shade; shadow; the invariable or characteristic accompaniment or companion of a person or thing; the complete or perfect shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the direct light from the source of illumination is completely cut off; a phantom or shadowy apparition, as of someone or something not physically present; ghost; spectral image (cf. penumbra)

### umbrage

### offense; annoyance; displeasure

### umlaut

### a mark (¨) used as a diacritic over a vowel, as ä, ö, ü, to indicate a vowel sound different from that of the letter without the diacritic, especially as so used in German; vowel mutation; assimilation in which a vowel is influenced by a following vowel or semivowel; to modify by umlaut; to write an umlaut over

### umvelt

### the world as it is experienced by a particular organism; self-centered world (cf. innenvelt)

### unasinous

### equal to another in stupidity

### unco

### unusual; remarkable; strange; remarkably; extremely; a stranger; news

### unctuous

### characterized by excessive piousness or moralistic fervor, especially in an affected manner; excessively smooth, suave, or smug; greasy; oily; having an oily or soapy feel, as certain minerals

### undecennary

### a period of eleven years; an eleventh anniversary; of or pertaining to a period of eleven years; occurring every eleven years

### ungepatchke (also ongepotchket, ongepatchkat) (Yiddish)

### overdone; tacky; ostentatious; overcomplicated

### unguinous

### resembling, containing, or consisting of fat or oil; greasy; oily

### unguwacirpet (Alutiiq)

### way of being alive

### unicum

### a unique example of something

### universal design

### the concept of designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life; inclusive design

### unterhinken (Yiddish)

### to limp slightly, a little, or in a subtle way

### unvicennial (or unvicennary)

### a period of twenty one years; an twenty first anniversary; of or pertaining to a period of twenty one years; occurring every twenty one years

### unwort (German)

### a word that is not (yet) considered a word; a new word; an unofficial word; un-word

### upaya (Sanskrit)

### a means that goes or brings one up to some goal, often the goal of Enlightenment

### upekṣā (Sanskrit)

### the detached state of someone who witnesses things without becoming emotionally involved but also without indifference

### upbraid

### to find fault with or reproach severely; censure

### uptalk

### when a speaker ends a declarative sentence with an upwards inflection that would ordinarily suggest that the statement is a question; upspeak; high rising terminal (HRT); high rising intonation (HRI); rising inflection

### ursine

### of or pertaining to a bear or bears; bear-like

### usageaster

### self-styled authority on language usage

### useful idiot

### a pejorative term used to describe people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they do not understand and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause; polezniye duraki (Russian)

### ustulation

### an act or process of burning or searing, especially roasting; the use of heat to dry or scorch; a burning sensation

### usufruct

### the right of enjoying all the advantages derivable from the use of something that belongs to another, as far as is compatible with the substance of the thing not being destroyed or injured; the right to use and enjoy another's property without destroying it

### ut

### first note of a major scale

### utepils (Norwegian)

### the joy of drinking beer outside in the sunshine; enjoying beer with others; the ritual of the first drink of the year taken outdoors after the winter

### utfus (Old English)

### eager to leave; ready to depart

### utile

### useful

### utmost

### of the greatest or highest degree, quantity, or the like; greatest; being at the farthest point or extremity; farthest

### utopia

heaven; nirvana; paradise; eden; shangri-la; erewhon (literally, no place and good place)

### uxorious

a husband who is excessively fond of his wife (cf. maritorious)

### "Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations — naturally. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today — that they are so stored with meanings, with memories, that they have contracted so many famous marriages."

  * ### Virginia Woolf

### vacilando (Spanish)

### the act of wandering when the experience is more important than the destination

### vacuole

### the part of a plant cell that stores nutrients and maintains the cell's shape and structure

### vacuous

### without contents; empty; lacking in ideas or intelligence; inane; bereft; mindless

### vade mecum (Latin)

### a book for ready reference, such as a manual or guidebook

### vagary

### an erratic, unpredictable occurrence or action; an impulsive or illogical desire; a caprice or whim

### vagitus

### the cry of a newborn

### vainglorious

### filled with excessive pride over one's achievements, abilities, etc.; boastful vanity

### vair

### squirrel fur

### valediction

### an act of bidding farewell or taking leave; an utterance, oration, or the like, given in bidding farewell or taking leave (antonym: salutation)

### valence

### the quality that determines the number of atoms or groups with which any single atom or group will unite chemically; the relative combining capacity of an atom or group compared with that of the standard hydrogen atom

### valence effect

### the tendency for people to overestimate the likelihood of good things happening rather than bad things (cf. Pollyanna principle)

### valetudinarian

### weak or sickly person, especially one who is constantly or overly worried about his or her health; chronically sick or concerned about one's health

### valorous

### courageous; brave; bold

### valuta

### the value of one currency with respect to its exchange rate with another

### vapid

### lacking liveliness or spirit; dull or tedious; flat or flavorless; insipid

### vapulation

### a whipping or flogging

### vara (Spanish/Portuguese)

### a unit of length in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, varying from about 32 inches (81 cm) to about 43 inches (109 cm); half a braza; a yard; a long and thin stick, pole, or rod; thin branch or cane of a tree or bush; a staff of office

### varlet

### a knavish person; rascal; an attendant or servant; a page who serves a knight

### variorum

### an edition with notes

### varve

### an annual layer of sediment or sedimentary rock (cf. rhythmite)

### vasculature

### arrangement of blood vessels in the body or in an organ or a body part

### vastitude

### vastness; immensity; a vast expanse or space

### vates

### a poet or bard who is divinely inspired

### vatic

### of or related to a prophet or a prophecy; prophetic

### Veblen good

### a good for which demand increases as the price increases, because of its exclusive nature, appeal as a status symbol, and assumption of it being a positional good

### vecu (French)

### your whole lived life; your myriad experiences and reactions to them that have shaped you into the kind of person you now are

### vedätätyttää (Finnish)

### to cause something to cause something to cause something to pull

### vegaphobia

### a fear, hatred, or aversion to vegetarian and vegan people

### vegete

### lively; active; vigorous

### vegvayzer (Yiddish)

### certified leader

### velleity

### volition in its weakest form; a mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it; a desire too small to cause an action; a mild desire too slight to overcome inertia

### vellicate

### to twitch or to cause to twitch; to pluck, nip, irritate, etc.

### vellichor

### the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you'll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured

### velocitation

### a sensation that a driver may feel believing their vehicle is not traveling as fast as it is after long periods of driving on a freeway or on an open road; a sensation of movement after moving while no longer in motion

### velotopia

### a bicycle or cycling paradise; a place or situation that is ideal for bicycle riding

### velutinous

### soft and smooth like velvet

### venal

### willing to sell one's influence, especially in return for a bribe; bribable; able to be purchased; corruptible; mercenary; capable of being bought; open to bribery

### vendication

### a claiming for oneself

### venery

### the practice or pursuit of sexual pleasure; the gratification of sexual desire; the practice or sport of hunting; the chase

### venial

### capable of being forgiven or pardoned; minor; easily excused or excusable; not seriously wrong; trifling

### ventifact

### a pebble or cobble that has been faceted, grooved, and polished by the erosive action of wind-driven sand

### ventose

### given to empty talk; windy

### ventricose

### swollen, especially on one side or unequally; protuberant; having a large abdomen

### verbigeration

### obsessive repetition of meaningless words or phrases

### verdierlijken (Dutch)

### to turn into an animal; to assume animalesque traits

### verdigris

### a green or bluish patina formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces exposed to the atmosphere for long periods of time, consisting principally of basic copper sulfate; copper rust

### verdure

### a condition of health and vigor

### verisimilitude

### the appearance or semblance of truth

### verklempt (also ferklempt)

### overcome with emotion; clenched

### vermeil

### vermilion color: bright orange-red; metal, such as silver, bronze, or copper that has been gilded; bright red in color

### vernacularize

### to translate into the natural speech peculiar to a people

### vernal pond

### a wetland that only exists in the spring and beginning of summer

### verschlimmbesserung (German)

### a supposed improvement that makes things worse

### verso

the back side of a page (antonym: recto)

### vertiginous

### whirling; spinning; rotary; dizzy; affected with vertigo

### verwechslungsgefahr (German)

### the danger of possible confusion

### vespertine

### pertaining to or occurring in the evening; late in the day; crepuscular

### vestal

### of or pertaining to the goddess Vesta; of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a vestal virgin; chaste; pure

### vestige

### a mark, trace, or visible evidence of something that is no longer present or in existence

### vesuvian

### volcanic; of, pertaining to, or resembling Mount Vesuvius

### vexillology

### the scientific study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags; any interest in flags

### viand

### an article of food, now usually of a choice or delicate kind

### vibhajjavada (Pali)

### teaching of analysis; the belief that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning instead of by simple faith

### vibratiuncle (also vibratiuncula or vibratiuncule)

### a minuscule or slight vibration

### vicennial

### of or for 20 years; occurring every 20 years

### vicinage

### the region near or about a place; vicinity; a particular neighborhood or district, or the people belonging to it; proximity

### vicious circle

### a situation in which a problem causes other problems, which in turn make the original problem worse (cf. virtuous circle/cycle)

### vicissitude

### changeability of life or nature; a change in condition or fortune

### vidya (Hindi)

### a holistic sense of knowledge, science, art, language, wisdom, reason, faith, and philosophy

### vig

### the interest on a loan that is paid to a moneylender; a small fee charged to a buyer or seller by a third-party

### vigia

### a navigational hazard whose existence or position is uncertain; a warning on a navigational chart indicating a possible reef or other hazard of unknown exact location

### vigilia (Spanish)

### waking life

### vilde khaye (Yiddish)

### impolite or undisciplined child (literally, wild beast)

### vindemire (Latin)

### to harvest wine grapes; to gather the vintage

### vipassana (Pali)

### insight or special-seeing meditation, which enables one to see, explore, and discern formations of craving and clinging; a long with samatha (mind calmness or tranquility of the mind), it is one of two qualities of mind that are developed through meditation; a form of meditation that seeks insight into the true nature of reality, defined as anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering or unsatisfactoriness), anatta (non-self), the three marks of existence in the Theravada tradition and as sunyata (emptiness) and Buddha-nature in the Mahayana traditions

### virago

### a woman of strength or spirit; a strong, brave, or warlike woman

### viraha (Hindi)

### the realization of love through separation

### virga

### rain or snow that evaporates before hitting the ground

### viridescent

### greenish; slightly green (cf. celadon)

### viridian

### a long-lasting, bluish-green pigment, consisting of a hydrated oxide of chromium

### visceral

### profound; instinctive; intuitive; cellular

### viscid

### having a glutinous consistency; sticky; adhesive; viscous; covered by a sticky substance

### viscous

### of a glutinous nature or consistency; sticky; thick; adhesive; viscose

### vitiate

### to impair the quality of; make faulty; spoil; to impair or weaken the effectiveness of; to debase; corrupt; pervert; to make legally defective or invalid; invalidate

### vitreous

### of the nature of glass or resembling glass, as in transparency, brittleness, hardness, glossiness

### vitrine

### a glass cabinet or case, especially for displaying art objects

### vittate

### striped longitudinally; provided with or having a vitta or vittae

### vituperate

### to scold; to use or address with harsh or abusive language; revile

### vituperative

### criticizing bitterly; scathing; abusive

### viveka (Sanskrit)

### discrimination of the real from the unreal

### vivencia (Spanish)

### the knowledge one gains from lived experiences

### vivisection

### the action of cutting into or dissecting a living body; the practice of subjecting living animals to cutting operations, especially in order to advance physiological and pathological knowledge

### vizard (or visard)

### a visor, mask, or disguise

### vocable

### a word or utterance, especially with reference to its form rather than its meaning; a syllable or sound without specific meaning, used together with or in place of actual words in a song

### vocal fry

### the tendency to lower one's voice to the point of sounding creaky or gravelly; the lowest vocal register; pulse register, laryngealization, pulse phonation, creak, croak, popcorning, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape, or strohbass

### voice confrontation

### the surprise and dislike of the sound of one's own voice

### volant

### engaged in or having the power of flight; moving lightly; nimble; volitant

### volar

### of or relating to the palm of the hand or the sole of the foot; pertaining to or used for flight

### volitant

### engaged in or having the power of flight; active; moving; volant

### volta (Greek)

a leisurely stroll down the street; an evening promenade; time spent taking a stroll; the hours of the evening, around dusk, where people in the town may go for a walk in the main streets; passeggiata (Italian)

### voluble

### speaking incessantly; characterized by a ready and continuous flow of words; fluent; glib; talkative; having the gift of gab

### voluntourism

### tourism in which travelers do volunteer work

### voluptuary

### a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury and sensual pleasure; of, relating to, or characterized by preoccupation with luxury and sensual pleasure

### vomitorium

### each of a series of entrance or exit passages in an ancient Roman amphitheater or theater; a place in which, according to popular misconception, the ancient Romans are supposed to have vomited during feasts to make room for more food

### voorpret (Dutch)

### the feeling of excitement before doing something fun; pre-fun; excited anticipation

### vorfreude (German)

### the excited anticipation that comes from imagining future pleasures; joyful anticipation

### vortex

### a whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column; anything that involves constant violent or chaotic activity around some center; anything which inevitably draws surrounding things into its current

### votary

### one who is devoted, given, or addicted to some particular pursuit, subject, study, or way of life; a devoted admirer; a devout adherent of a religion or cult; a dedicated believer or advocate

### votive

### offered, given, dedicated, etc., in accordance with a vow; performed, undertaken, etc., in consequence of a vow; of the nature of or expressive of a wish or desire

### vouchsafe

### to grant or give something as if as a favor; to condescend

### voulu

### contrived; forced

### vug

### a small cavity in a rock or vein, often lined with crystals

### vuk'uzenzele (Zulu)

### wake up and do it for yourself

### vulgus

### the common people; masses

### vulpine

### cunning; crafty; relating to a fox; foxy

### vuvuzela

### a long, plastic horn that makes a loud, monotone sound similar to the trumpeting of an elephant, typically blown by South African fans at soccer matches

### vybafnout (Czech)

### to jump out and surprise someone by saying 'boo'

### vyria (Sanskrit)

### to have the goodness and keep away evils

### vystopia

### the existential crisis experienced by vegans, arising out of an awareness of the trance-like collusion with a dystopian world; an awareness of the greed,

### ubiquitous animal exploitation, and speciesism in a modern dystopia; the anguish of being vegan in a non-vegan world

### "In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature."

— Wallace Stevens

### wa (Japanese)

### the fundamental principle of harmony; a prefix to describe Japanese things

### wabi-sabi (Japanese)

### the philosophy and art of imperfection, incompleteness, and impermanence, combining an inward Buddhist-based spiritualism with an outward aesthetic rustic materialism; a way of living that finds beauty in imperfection and accepts the natural cycle of growth and decay

### wadi

### the channel of a watercourse that is dry except during periods of rainfall; such a stream or watercourse itself; a dry wash; a valley (cf. lugga)

### waggish

### funny or humorous; roguish in merriment and good humor; jocular

### waldeinsamkeit (German)

### the feeling of being alone in the woods

### wain

### a farm wagon or cart

### wakerife

### wakeful; alert

### waldeinsamkeit (German)

### the feeling of being alone in the woods; the ineffable feeling of truly communing with nature; feeling like Thoreau at Walden Pond

### waldo

### a device for manipulating objects by remote control, for example, a remotely-operated arm

### wale

### a streak mark raised on the skin, as by a whip; one of the series of ribs in a fabric such as corduroy; a plank along the side of a wooden ship; a horizontal band or strip, for example, around a woven basket; to mark with wales; to fasten or secure

### wamadat (Persian)

### the intense heat of a sultry night

### wamble

### to move unsteadily; an unsteady walk; to twist and turn; to wriggle; to roll over; an unsteady motion; to wobble; to totter; to feel nauseated; a feeling of nausea; a rumble of the stomach

### wampish

### to wave about or flop to and fro

### wampum

### beads made from shells, strung in strands, belts, etc. used for ceremonial purposes, jewelry, and money; wampumpeag; peag; seawan; sewan

### wan

### of an unnatural or sickly pallor; pallid; lacking color; showing or suggesting ill health, fatigue, unhappiness; lacking in forcefulness, competence, or effectiveness

### wanderlust

### a strong, innate desire to rove or travel about; a desire that compels wayfarers, cosmopolitans, and globetrotters to sojourn, traipse, and gallivant to sights unseen all over the world; "nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land" (Nabokov); fernweh (German); errance (French)

### wanderwörter (German)

### words that travel across languages, either due to the words' transmission via trade or because they are terms for inventions that none of them have words for yet

### war of position

### resistance to domination with culture, rather than physical might, as its foundation; counter-hegemony; culture jamming; cf. war of manouvre

### warish

### to cure or heal; to get better; to recover from an illness

### wassail

### a toast or salutation to someone's health, usually with a drink and on a festive occasion

### wastrel

### a good-for-nothing; wasteful person

### wasuremono (Japanese)

### lost article; something forgotten; an item left behind on a train, at home, etc.

### watthanatham (Thai)

### qualities which indicate and promote social prosperity, orderliness, national unity, development, and morality

### waul

### to wail; to cry plaintively

### wayfarer

### someone who travels, especially on foot

### wazzo

### someone who is crazy or wild; someone who pushes things at least one step too far; an action that is totally out-of-control, weird, or crazy

### weald

### a heavily-wooded area; a forest; a wild or uncultivated usually upland region

### weeaboo

### a non-Japanese person who is obsessed with Japanese culture and behaves in a stereotypically Japanese manner; a mostly derogatory slang term for a Western person who is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially anime, often regarding it as superior to all other cultures; someone who is obsessed with Japan and/or Japanese culture and attempts to act as if they were Japanese; Japanophile; wapanese

### ween

### to think; suppose; to expect, hope, or intend

### wehewehe (Hawaiian)

### to explain; to unsaddle or unharness; to pull growing taro stalks slightly apart so as to strengthen the corm

### welkin

### sky

### wellaway

### used to express sorrow

### wellerism

### an expression involving a familiar proverb or quotation and its facetious sequel, usually comprising three parts  
statement, speaker, situation

### weltanschauung

### worldview; philosophy of life; framework through which to interpret the world

### weltansicht

### a worldview within a linguistic system

### weltschmerz

### sentimental pessimism; sorrow that one feels and accepts as one's necessary portion in life; world weariness; world-woe; melancholy

### wen

### a sebaceous cyst; a benign encysted tumor of the skin, especially on the scalp, containing sebaceous matter

### wendehals (German)

### a person who adjust their opinions to whatever gives them popularity at the time

### wend's-day

### a day of traveling along a route (whether it is a Wednesday or not)

### wergild (also weregeld) (Old English)

### money paid to the relatives of a murder victim in compensation for loss and to prevent a blood feud; the amount of money fixed as compensation for the murder or disablement of a person, computed on the basis of rank

### weruka (Chichewa)

### to get off work

### wetiko (Algonquian)

### spirit of evil that inspires humanity's inhumanity to itself; separation from life

### whang

### a resounding blow; the sound produced by such a blow; to strike with a resounding blow; to resound with such a blow

### whangdoodle

### a fanciful creature of undefined nature

### whelk

### any of several large, spiral-shelled, marine gastropods; a pimple or pustule; an inflamed swelling

### whelp

### the young of the dog, or of the wolf, bear, lion, tiger, seal, etc.; a youth, especially an impudent or despised one; any of a series of longitudinal projections or ridges on the barrel of a capstan, windlass, etc.; any of the teeth of a sprocket wheel

### wherefore

### for what reason? why?

### wheedle

### to entice by soft words or flattery; to coax; to gain or get by flattery or guile; to flatter

### whelve

### to turn upside down usually to cover something; to bury deep down; to hide

### whence

### from what place?: from what source, origin, or cause?

### whicker

### to neigh; to laugh in a half-suppressed manner

### whiffle

### to blow in light or shifting gusts or puffs, as the wind; to blow, displace, or scatter with gusts of air; to veer or toss about irregularly; to shift about; vacillate; to be fickle; to move or think erratically; to whistle lightly

### whin

### any thorny or prickly shrub

### whinge

### to complain in an annoying way; whine

### white paper

### an authoritative report or guide helping readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision, typically used in two main spheres: government and business-to-business marketing

### whoopensocker (chiefly Wisconsin slang)

### something remarkably large; whopper

### wieldy

### easily handled or managed

### winkle

### a periwinkle, any of various mollusks with a spiral shell; to extract with effort or difficulty

### winsome

### sweetly or innocently charming; winning; engaging

### wiki (Hawaiian)

### quick; used on the web to mean open-source with community participation

### wiki walking

### following successive links so that what one finds is substantially different than what one was originally searching, especially on Wikipedia

### widdershins (also withershins)

### going counter-clockwise; against the grain (ant. deasil)

### widsith (Old English)

### long journey; far-traveller

### wifty

### eccentric; silly

### williwaw

### a violent squall that blows in near-polar latitudes, as in the Strait of Magellan, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands

### willowwacks

### a wooded, uninhabited area

### wite

### a fine imposed by a king or lord on a subject who committed a serious crime in Anglo-Saxon law; a fee demanded for granting a special privilege

### wixle (from my dream)

### to read but not (completely) understand something; someone who reads something, but doesn't (completely) understand it

### woolgathering

### indulgence in aimless thought or dreamy imagining; absentmindedness; daydreaming

### wormwood

### a plant of the genus Artemisia, used in making absinthe and medicines; something that brings bitterness or grief

### wortaberglaube (German)

### word superstition

### wraith

### an apparition of a living person supposed to portend his or her death; a visible spirit; a ghost; an insubstantial copy of something

### wrick

### to sprain or wrench

### writhen

### twisted

### wronger than wrong

### a statement that equates two errors when one of the errors is clearly more wrong than the other

### wroth

### extremely angry

### wuther

### sound of the wind rustling through the leaves; psithurism

### wu-wei (Chinese)

### non-acting or non-doing; not forcing; minimal interference; trying not to try without trying; deliberate slowness to action; going with the flow; effortless action; not acting from personal motives or prejudices; the principle of spontaneous action governed by the mind and not the senses; being natural, uncontrived and effortless; aligned with the Tao

### wu-zhi (Chinese)

### non-thought; non-knowledge; ignorance; beginner's mind

### "Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words."

— Leonard Cohen

### Xanadu

### a place of great beauty, luxury, and contentment

### xanthic

### yellow or yellowish

### Xanthippe (or Xantippe)

### a nagging, ill-tempered woman

### xanthodontous

### having yellow teeth

### xaxaar (Wolof)

### a ritual insult poem

### xenia

### the influence of pollen upon the form of the fruit developing after pollination

### xenodochium

### a separate room in a monastery for visiting guests or pilgrims

### xenolexica

### a grave confusion when faced with unusual words

### xenophobia

### intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries; deep-rooted, hatred towards foreigners; the dislike of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange (cf. chauvinism; ethnocentrism)

### xeric

### relating to very dry conditions

### xeriscaping

### environmental design of residential and park land using various methods for minimizing the need for water use

### xerophyte

### a plant adapted to growing in a very dry or desert environment

### xertz

### to gulp a beverage down enthusiastically, heartily, and quickly

### xiá (Chinese)

### rosy clouds at sunrise or sunset

### xiào (Mandarin)

### filial piety; family reverence

### xīn (Mandarin)

### heart, mind, and spirit combined

### xīn kǔ (Mandarin)

### appreciation and recognition for others and their efforts

### xyst

### a long portico, especially one used in ancient Greece for athletics; a covered garden walk or one lined with trees, especially in ancient Rome

### "Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble."

— Yehuda Berg

### ya-ba (Thai)

### crazy medicine; drugs; meth

### ya'aburnee (Arabic)

### the hope that a loved one will outlive you because of how unbearable life will be without them (literally, you bury me)

### yaff

### to bark; yelp

### yakamoz (Turkish)

### the reflection of moonlight on water; cf. moonglade, mångata (Swedish), and gumusservi (Turkish); phosphorescence in the sea due to dinoflagelates

### yalda (Farsi)

### the longest night of the year

### yardang

an elongated ridge formed by wind erosion, often resembling the keel of an upside down ship (cf. cairn, cwm, hoodoo, inselberg, karst, pingo, pisolite, scree, talus, tombolo)

### yare (or yar)

### quick; agile; lively; easily maneuverable; nimble; ready; prepared; growling sound

### Yarra-banker

### a vagrant; a loafer; a soapbox orator or agitator

### yawp

### to utter a loud, harsh cry; to yelp, squawk, or bawl; to talk noisily and foolishly or complainingly

### yclept

### by the name of

### yeasayer

### a person with a confident and positive outlook; a person who agrees uncritically; a yes-person

### ye-dé-bgé (Fon)

### with the approval of the spirits

### yegg

### a safecracker; an itinerant burglar; a thug

### yemeless

### helplessly, hopelessly inadequate; useless and bumbling

### yeridah letzorech aliyah (Hebrew)

### descending for the sake of ascending; a brokenness that initiates a deeper process of healing, growth, and transformation

### yestreen

### during yesterday evening; yesterday evening; last evening

### yethhound

### a phantom hunting dog ghost chasing a lady

### yeuk

### an itching sensation; to itch; a prickly feeling; to irritate the skin

### yibbum (Hebrew)

### marriage between a widow whose husband died childless (the yevamah) and the brother of the deceased (the yavam or levir); Levirate marriage

### yilugnta (Amharic)

### a feeling of obligation to consider and defer to the opinion of others (in a positive way)

### yin-yang

### the Chinese philosophy of two cosmic forces of creative energy, yin being feminine/negative/dark and yang being masculine/positive/light, from which everything originates and depends on the interaction of the opposite and complementary principles

### yiyi (Mandarin)

### one by one; one after another

### ylem

the primordial substance of which all is built; a hypothetical original substance or condensed state of matter, which became subatomic particles and elements as we currently understand them

### yngling

### a type of two-person keelboat from Norway

### yobbery

### rowdy, destructive behavior by the youth

### yoni

### the vulva or vagina, or a symbol of them, especially as an object of veneration within certain types of Hinduism, Buddhism, and other cultures (cf. phallus)

### yoyogi (Japanese)

### generations of trees

### yskäistä (Finnish)

### to cough once as a means of gaining attention (cf. ahem)

### ythlaf (Old English)

### detritus left by the waves

### yuanfen (Chinese)

### the fate that brings two people together; the fate, chance, or binding force that brings a person and other people or objects together; fateful coincidence; duyên phận (Vietnamese)

### yugen (Japanese)

### the impenetrable mystery of even the most commonplace when seen with contemplative eyes; profound grace and subtlety; the subtle profundity of things; a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe; deep awareness of the world; an awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and mysterious for words; awe

### yutta-hey (Cherokee)

### leaving life at its zenith; departing in glory

### yuzver' (Russian slang)

### an incompetent user on the internet

### "A right word is the most direct route between two minds.... The richer our vocabulary, the better we can convey our thoughts with nuance and precision."

  * ### Anu Garg

### zaftig

### juicy or plump, referring to food, ideas, things, situations, or people

### zagrenitsa (Russian)

### any foreign country

### zanshin (Japanese)

### complete awareness of body and mind in relation to the goal; the mind with no remainder

### zarf

### a holder, usually of ornamental metal, for a coffee or tea cup without a handle

### zarrin

### a woman of a pure and golden heart, sincere, compassionate, and kind

### zax

### a hatchet-like tool for cutting and punching nail holes in roofing slate; adze; sax

### ze

### he, she, or other; a pronoun referring to an individual regardless of sex or gender

### zechpreller (German)

### someone who leaves without paying the bill they owed

### Zeigarnik effect

### people tend to remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks

### zeitgeber

### an environmental cue, as the length of daylight, that helps to regulate the cycles of an organism's biological clock; any external or environmental cue that entrains, or synchronizes, an organism's biological rhythms to the Earth's 24-hour light/dark cycle and 12 month cycle

### zeitgeist

### the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time; the general moral, intellectual, and cultural climate of an era

### zek

### an inmate of a forced-labor camp in the former USSR

### zelotypy

### jealousy

### zemblanity

### the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky, and expected discoveries by design; the inevitable discovery of what we would rather not know (antonym: serendipity)

### zenosyne

### the sense that time appears to be moving faster and faster, especially as one grows older

### zenzizenzizenzic

### the eighth power of a number; the square of squares squaredly

### zoetrope

### one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion

### zephyr

### a breeze from the west; a gentle breeze; any of various lightweight fabrics and articles of clothing

### zerotude

### the state of zeroness; nothingness; emptiness; having or being zero or nothing; absolute nothing

### zetz (Yiddish)

### a strong blow or punch; a push or shove

### zero-sum

### of or denoting a system in which the sum of the gains equals the sum of the losses (cf. positive-sum and negative-sum); one's gain necessitates another's loss

### zeugma

### the use of a word to refer to two or more words, especially in different senses; the rhetorical device of using a word in more than one of its senses at the same time; syllepsis

### zhoosh (or zhuzh)

### to tweak, finesse, or improve something; small adjustments to make a design better; to make more appealing or exciting; stylish

### zib

### a nondescript nincompoop

### zielschmerz

### the exhilarating dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream

### Zipf's law

in any language, a few words are used very often, but many or most are used rarely; the linguistic idea that the second-most common word is used half as much as the most-common word, while the third most-common word is use one-third as much as the most-common word

### ziraleet (Arabic)

### a choral expression of joy, typically by a group of women, consisting of the sounds "lillé, lillé, lillé" repeated as often as possible in one breath; ululation

### ziran (Chinese)

### natural, innate creativity brought forth by an uncluttered mind; naturally and spontaneously; so of itself

### zitzfleish (Yiddish)

### ability to stay seated

### zizzy

flashy; eye-catching; tingling; showy; spectacular; lively; uninhibited

### zoanthropy

### a mental disorder in which one believes oneself to be an animal; a mania or delusion that one is an animal

### zoonosis

### an infectious disease caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites that spread between animals (usually vertebrates) and humans

### zoosemiotics

### the study of the sounds and signals used in animal communication

### zugzwang

a situation in which any choice leads to a loss; double bind (cf. Buridan's Ass, Catch-22, Hobson's Choice, Morton's Fork, Sophie's Choice, false dilemma)

### zukunftsmusik (German)

### something not yet done or planned but for the distant future; a visionary idea

### zuz

### an ancient Hebrew silver coin, the fourth part of a silver shekel

### zwieback

### a usually-sweetened bread that is baked and then sliced and toasted until dry and crisp; biscotti; mandelbrot

### zymic

### relating to fermentation

### zymology

### the study of zymurgy

### zymurgy

### the workings of fermentation (splitting complex compounds into relatively simple substances); unrest; agitation

### zythepsary

### a brewery

### zyzzyva

### any of various South American weevils of the genus Zyzzyva, often destructive to plants

zzxjoanw (pseudo-Maori, 1903 hoax; pronounced shaw)

### drum; fife; conclusion

### "No word is completely untranslatable, but then no word is precisely translatable either."

— David Shariatmadari

Dan Brook, PhD is a traveler, tourist, wanderer, wonderer, reader, writer, speaker, poet, photographer, daydreamer, and professor of sociology in the San Francisco Bay Area. His other free  ebooks can be found at smashwords.com/profile/view/brook.

### "Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life."

— Joyce Meyer

