Tuesday, 23 August 2016

Humanella

Humanella: noun. A disease a tapeworm gets, as a result of which it defecates bits of humans. In fact, it is more of a side effect of salmonella, which makes sense considering a tapeworm eats, sleeps, and exists all of its life inside a human, and so, logically, the only thing a tapeworm can defecate are things found in a human. Come to think of it, the term humanella is rather redundant.

Saturday, 20 August 2016

Frigorific

Frigorific: adjective. Absolutely freaking wonderful, so terrific it sends shivers down your spine. Often, people use the word frigorific in connection with cold things, such as ice, snow, and freezers, but this is not necessary. Anything colder than lukewarm will do. An example of this word used in a sentence is "Oh, gosh, Barb, this fridge is ecological, elegant, oh it's absolutely frigorific!"

Thursday, 18 August 2016

Apothecare

Apothecare: noun. The attention one gets at a drugstore or in drug-related issues. An example of the word used in a sentence is "The patient who went to the drugstore did not receive proper apothecare and subsequently turned into a newt." The word can also be used as a verb, as in "I went to the drugstore, but they didn't really seem to apothecare about me."  

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Sealot

Sealot: noun. A person who is very passionate, even fanatical about seas. Contrary to popular belief, a sealot is not a parking place in a harbour, so there you have it, Frank, and shut the hell up. 

Saturday, 13 August 2016

Yabbit

Yabbit: noun. A rabbit that yaps a lot or has some other annoying tic. Most rabbits are actually yabbits, which should not really surprise anyone who has kept one such insane, disgruntled, spastically masticating bundle of nerves.

Thursday, 11 August 2016

Istence

Istence: noun. The primordial state of not being. The only thing that can uncontroversially be said of istence is that it is negated by existence, though even this idea is coming under fire with some denying istence altogether. Others, of course, deny existence, but that's a whole new can of worms. Philosophers who speak of istence separate into two groups. Some do not believe istence is possible, or that if it is, that it is not relevant, as an istent object would be a contradiction. Others believe in istence, but split into many factions over what it is. Professor Rockyfjordson of Oslo University writes that an object qualifies as istent only insofar as none of what will constitute it exists. Professor Prunedanishsen of Copenhagen University, however, rebuts this theory, claiming that even such an object would technically be in existence if we accepted Professor Hawthorne's argument about temporal parts.

Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Xex

Xex: noun. Fornication in which the participants lie perpendicularly to each other. Xex can be performed by any number of people, provided they make one or several cross shapes with their bodies. It can also be performed by any combination of sexes, as the Republican party has formally renounced spying on people in their bedrooms last week. From now on, it has declared, homosexuals will be discovered by a series of tortures and exorcisms.

Saturday, 6 August 2016

Cowder

Cowder: noun. A beef chowder. Cowder is not too popular for not entirely clear reasons, though some linguists have speculated that it has to do with the negative perception of the word "cow" in the English-speaking world. Citing this hypothesis, several restaurants in the USA decided to rename the dish from cowder to bovineowder, thus killing the word in the last remnants of its traditional haunts. The word cowder is now artificially kept alive by encyclopaedias and weird blogs.

Thursday, 4 August 2016

Chadow

Chadow: noun. A shadow thrown by a man named Chad. Feeling itself to be very important, much like most people named Chad, the word Chadow frequently attempts to foist itself on users of the English language in attempts to battle its irrelevance.

Tuesday, 2 August 2016

Lambscape

Lambscape: noun. A landscape filled with a lot of lambs or sheep, also known as New Zealand.
Lambscape: verb. To remove wool from a lamb or sheep, the ovine equivalent of manscaping. 

Saturday, 30 July 2016

Onomatopia

Onomatopia: noun. A fictional world in which everyone communicates via onomatopoeias, words whose sounds resemble the objects they describe, such as "tick tock" or "roar." Several essays and treatises (the difference between which no one really knows or cares about and seldom bothers to find out before forgetting it again) have been written on Onomatopias, but the most famous example of an Onomatopia comes from the Eighteenth century novelistic ripoff of Thomas More's Utopia, imaginatively called Onomatopia. Rather imaginatively, the author envisions a society whose classes are drifting apart because of the language barriers constructed between them, owing to the different sets of vocabularies each of them develops. Even words for the same things become different, which is perhaps best documented by the words for sex. While the lower classes develop the word "squeaky-squeaky" because of their worn down beds, the middle class develops the word "hubba-hubba" in an effort to seem more like the pretentious higher classes. Meanwhile, the higher classes themselves do not develop any word for sex because it is deemed improper, and they slowly die out.

Thursday, 28 July 2016

Empurple

Empurple: verb. While the conventional definition for the word empurple is "to become purple," a new meaning arose with an error in a 1996 translation of the Bolivian novel Cincuenta tonos de morado by a translator who has since changed his name and fled to Australia. Attempting to translate the wordplay of the Spanish original, in which the main character is in love (está enamorado) with a tub of perfectly purple (morado) blueberry ice-cream, the translator - admitting years later that the decision came in a moment of very bad judgement - decided to translate the word enamorado as empurple, not meaning "to become purple" but "to fall in love." Thus arose a mistake killing the translator's career, but meanwhile enriching the English dictionary, which is what this blog is all about. Yes, we really are a flock of scavenging, immoral vultures.

Tuesday, 26 July 2016

Reporpoise

Reporpoise: noun. The word reporpoise is often erroneously used by environmental activists such as Greenpeace and Cabbages "R" Us to mean "to return porpoises to their natural habitat" or for "a natural habitat to regain its porpoise population." However, to reporpoise in the correct sense of the word is to change the purpose of a porpoise. It is a well known fact that the porpoise economy has recently undergone a severe recession and numerous porpoises were looking for new jobs. The word reporpoise came into being as a result of a government-run effort to qualify porpoises for jobs in the service sector from manufacturing jobs, an effort which met with remarkable success. The porpoise economy grew substantially, once again showing that neoliberalism is a horrible mistake.

Saturday, 23 July 2016

Spireality

Spireality: noun. The quality of being like a spiral. The word was invented by the Physics for the American South movement, which is highly unpopular for unknown reasons, after decades of negotiations with the American Guild of Fabric Makers failed. The PAS was protesting that the word "spirality" was being hijacked by the AGFM to denote the "untwisting of yarn in fabric," but its demands for the repurposing of the word did not fall on fertile ground. As a result, the PAS wrote the Declaration of 2008, in which it coined the word spireality while denouncing flat earth theories and young earth creationism. Clearly, 2008 was an eventful year for the American South.

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Trunkulent

Trunkulent: adjective. To be eager to fight, usually said of Ents, trees and bushes, and of people wielding sticks and other wooden objects. An example of the word used in a sentence is: "Losing her game of croquet, Lady Genevieve Anne Isabelle of Sandwich started becoming very trunkulent and, after several nervous displays involving beating the earth with her mallet, finally whacked her opponent, Sir John Paul Ringo George of Liverpool, straight into the ground."

Tuesday, 19 July 2016

Framewok

Framewok: noun. The basic concept underlying round-bottomed cooking vessels. An example of the word used in a sentence is "The manual showed me how to use the wok in specific circumstances, but I still don't understand the whole framewok."

Saturday, 16 July 2016

Sikh

Sikh: verb. To look for fulfillment within the framework of Sikhism. The word comes from a popular saying paraphrased from the Guru Granth Sahib: "Sikh and you shall f-india." The past form of the word to sikh is sokhed, which is, coincidentally, the term for one soaked with Sikh knowledge.  

Thursday, 14 July 2016

Poup

Poup: verb. To poop soup. Though the word poup is sometimes taken to mean "to poop something with the consistency of soup," this interpretation is inaccurate and impractical, seeing as soups come in varying degrees of viscosity, from bouillon to super creamy cheese soup. To poup is simply to poop soup. Real soup.

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Apopiate

Apopiate: adjective.
1. Suitable for doing whatever a pope does. An example of this word used in a sentence is: "The cardinals decided that the most apopiate person for the job was Jozef Wojtyla."
2. Something suitable for papal use or interaction. "The French president decided that the most apopiate gift was a porcelain altar boy."

verb.
1. To devote papal funds to a cause. "The money collected from the German princes was apopiated for fighting against other German princes.
2. For a pope to take something. "Martin Luther argued that the Pope would apopiate the German lands in the same way that he apopiated a large part of Italy."
3. To take someone's pope. Contrary to popular belief, this is not what happened during the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy (also known as the Avignon Papacy).

Saturday, 9 July 2016

Claroscopy

Claroscopy: noun. The word claroscopy was devised in a series of attempts to describe the faculty of seeing things before they happen. Though the word "clairvoyance" eventually came out victorious, claroscopy and similar short-lived words, most notably clarividence, continue to haunt the nightmares of people in favour of the rationalisation of the English language, most notably people in the Movement for the Rationalisation of the English Language founded by Lewis Carroll.

Thursday, 7 July 2016

Prack

Prack: noun. A rack that is somehow practical, for example through high efficacy, effectiveness, or efficiency. The term originated with regard to the rack traditionally used for torture, though nowadays it is more commonly associated with things like spice racks or hay racks. It is interesting to note that the famous actor Chris Prack is not related in anyway to pracks because his name is actually Chris Pratt.

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Sprooge

Sprooge: verb. We don't actually know what the word sprooge means or whether it even is a word. But we thought sprooge sounded way too cool not to be made a word, so we have created it without a definition, letting it out into the world like the beautiful monster of Dr Frankenstein it is. By the way, its past tense is sproge.

Saturday, 2 July 2016

Grum

Grum: adjective. The word grum is a cross between the words glum and grim. After a board meeting of our blog editors, we agreed none of us had any idea of why there was any need for the word grum at all, seeing as there are hosts of words to describe the bad and generally awful.

Thursday, 30 June 2016

Jarter

Jarter: noun or verb.  The word jarter has two definitions. Coincidentally, both of them, though derived in completely different ways, come in handy when one is in a dire lack of cash.
1. As a noun, a jarter is a garter made from a jar, which is far more useful than one may think, provided one maintains a relatively stable body weight and doesn't move one's legs too much.
2. As a verb, to jarter is to barter for jars. Such skill is very useful when one is stuck in strife-torn Bolivia and requires large storage jars for rice and mangoes.  

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Drap

Drap: noun. Draps are curtains shorter than drapes. The word drap lost its substantial popularity when people started to question why there should be a word for something shorter than drapes when one could just simply call it a curtain. Since then, the word drap was repurposed to mean "drab crap," a comment often made about unsatisfactory clothing by people of the slightly impoverished medium rung of the lower upper class.  

Saturday, 25 June 2016

Fromic

Fromic: verb. To fromic is to frolic with cheese... a lot of cheese:
Cheese that is carried, cheese that is found,
Cheese that is lying right there on the ground,
Cheese that is oval, cheese that is round,
Cheese that is everywhere, just look around!
New cheese and old cheese,
Blue cheese and gold cheese,
Hot cheese and cold cheese,
Spot cheese and hold cheese!

Thursday, 23 June 2016

Nangle

Nangle: verb. The word nangle has several, wildly different definitions, so context plays a vital role for how the following are used:
1. To strangle a grandmother (or 'nan').
2. To strangle a nanny.
3. When a grandmother inclines at an angle.
4. When a nanny inclines at an angle.
5. When one looks at a grandmother or nanny from an angle.

Tuesday, 21 June 2016

Smigger

Smigger: noun or verb. A smigger is something between a smile and a snigger. To smigger is to make such an expression. Smiggering tends to occur most in confusing or uncertain contexts, in which it is unclear whether a matter is to be openly smiled at or snidely taunted. One telling use of the word smigger can be found in the semi-contemporary novel (semi-contemporary in the sense that it is a novel written about a long time ago but in an unintentionally anachronistic way) Anne Boleyn and the three dudes, which tells about Anne Boleyn's secret (and probably made up) sexual exploits:

Henry VIII paced the room like a giant bull-frog would if it could not leap.
"So what can you tell me about Henry Norris?" He asked, wound up like a tea-kettle before the little switch with the red light turns off.
Anne grew tense like a verb. She tried to conjure an image of a gallant aristocrat, but her mind was like a TV screen drowning in static. The 'static', of course, was the intruding image of a Henry Norris, naked like a fridge (a fridge without all of the annoying stickers and magnets, that is), with a penis the size of a flash drive.
"Only that he is a great man of great ways," she smiggered.


Saturday, 18 June 2016

Glatch

Glatch: verb. To glatch is to gladly catch, to catch with an outward display of pleasure. For example, the sentence "the first baseman glatches the ball" tells us that the first baseman catches the ball while smiling, grinning, or showing his happiness in some other way (e.g. mildly salivating), ostensibly at having put the runner out with this action. The word glatch follows the conjugations of the word "catch." Thus, the present tense declensions are "I glatch, you glatch, he/she/it glatches, we glatch, you (plural) glatch, they glatch," the future tense is "will glatch," and the past tense is glaught.

Thursday, 16 June 2016

Trunge

Trunge: verb. To trudge to the sound of grunge or to trudge thinking in a way typical of the grunge style. This includes trudging to angsty thoughts, trudging alienated thoughts, and even trudging to apathetic ones.

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Glumber

Glumber: noun. A glumber is a type of sleep (and to glumber is to practice that type of sleep), but what exactly this sleep is like is a mystery, as experts have not been able to reach a consensus over the origins of the word. Some, particularly the optimist school of linguistics, hold that the glumber is a glad slumber, while others, particularly the pessimists, maintain that the glumber is a glum slumber. Realists, quite characteristically, believe the glumber to be a glib slumber, a belief which proves beyond all doubt that all realists are really disguised and disgusting, self-congratulating pessimists. It is interesting to note that the Absurdist school of linguistics believes the glumber to derive from gluey gliding slumber and pistachios. How they concluded that is yet to be found out.

Saturday, 11 June 2016

Jale

Jale: noun. In its new initiative to become increasingly self-sufficient, Yale University announced the launching of the jale project, a way of incarcerating all of its misbehaving students, professors, and employees. The jale, as indicated by some hazy declaration made by some sort of shady, alumni-led, and omnipotent management board, is going to be an integral part to hushing up scandals, by way of utilising a highly corrupt justice system and ways of circumventing it. While the board officially maintains that the jale will have a higher admissions rate than the university, and will thus be a viable endeavour, several experts on university and incarceration policy have concluded that given previous experience at institutions of higher learning, the jale will, for the most part, remain unoccupied, and will serve more as a never-to-be-used deterrent, just like grades below Cs do at Ivy League colleges. 

Thursday, 9 June 2016

Spick

Spick: verb. To verbally choose something. A person who spicks is called a spicker and the thing chosen is called a spickee. The word is especially useful when trying to sort out a quarrel over the rules of dibs. Spicking something takes precedence in the rules of dibs over merely hinting or indicating at picking and mentally picking. It is second only to actually appropriating the object in question.  

Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Spitful

Spitful: adjective: Full of spit, and potentially a little malicious. The most spitful things on the planet are llamas and little children, though the latter are first by far. Llamas, for their part, harbour a lot of spit, and often quite a lot of antipathy towards humans. Little children, somewhat more concerningly, not only harbour a lot of spit - which they are very willing to use, by the way - but they are also the seed and the embodiment of the Antichrist.  If you see a little child on the street, run. Better yet, get a plane ticket, fly to Antarctica, and spend the rest of your life researching penguins, compensating for the lack of social interaction by trying to imitate penguin sounds and failing miserably at it, proving to be a failure both in human terms, and in penguin ones.

Saturday, 4 June 2016

Multiple-minded

Multiple-minded: adjective. The word multiple-minded, increasingly written in its unhyphenated* form, multipleminded, is defined as having and concentrating on multiple aims or goals. Multiple-minded people are often told by Capitalist society that they cannot succeed in their endeavours, and by and large, they internalise this attitude, which is really quite tragic. Excuse the writers of the blog right now, while they go lament their sad fate over copious amounts of alcohol.

* Speaking of unhyphenated words, it is an interesting and sad reflection of the arbitrary and unfair nature of life that the word unhyphenated itself is often written in its hyphenated form: un-hyphenated.

Thursday, 2 June 2016

Distriboot

Distriboot: verb. The word distriboot has two very different meanings. Please, please, please make sure you know which meaning is being employed before consenting to buying/selling/doing anything.
1. To distribute boots, shoes, or other footwear.
2. To distribute bootings, i.e. to kick around oneself.
I hope it is sufficiently clear now why one should be most aware of what sort of distribootion one signs oneself up for. As a side note, keep in mind that distribootion denotes not only the act of distribooting (whether with the first or the second meaning), but also the act of distributing "boos" or other signs of disapprobation.

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Overstand

Overstand: verb. To overstand is to comprehend something too well. Though the frequently repeated adage says that "one can never know too many things", it is a fact of life that people often do know too much, which takes a negative toll on them. Overstanding life, for example, is why many intelligent people turn to Nihilism, alcoholism, or plain old death to solve their dissatisfaction with what they have discovered the world to be. As another frequently repeated adage says, "ignorance is bliss." It is quite strange, really, how these two sayings can coexist alongside each other without the general populace taking notice. It seems one of them is always selected when deemed pertinent to a certain situation, leaving the other behind, forgotten, or rather, hushed up. As a rule, people see what they want to see, and choose the narrative they want to have.

Saturday, 28 May 2016

Derstand

Derstand: verb. To be in a state of ignorance about some particular thing or things in general. Understanding is a negation of this state of ignorance - derstanding. An example of the word derstand and derstanding used in context would be the following: "Mr Brown completely derstood his wife. He did not care to learn about her interests or hobbies, and the only thing he ever talked to her about was Nihilism, which she boycotted, being a die-hard Existentialist. Of course, her husband did not know that, assuming her, in his derstanding, to be an Absurdist." 

Thursday, 26 May 2016

Everyfrom

Everyfrom: preposition. From everywhere. The antonym of everyto - to everywhere. The word everyfrom was invented to simplify everyday language. Where one would usually say "people flocked to the market from everywhere" or "robbers attacked her from all sides", one can use the much shorter formulations "people flocked to the market everyfrom" and "robbers attacked her everyfrom." The word everyto is quite similar in this respect, and it has the added benefit of elucidating sentences. While one could say "the gnats flew everywhere", it is unclear whether the author of this sentence means to say that the gnats were in one place and flew from that one place into many different places, or whether the gnats were simply flying everywhere from the very beginning. The word everyto covers the second meaning; in the sentence "the gnats flew everyto", there is no confusion: the gnats simply flew from one place to a lot of other places.

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Conduckt

Conduckt: verb. There are several meanings with which the word conduckt is frequently used.
1. To conduct ducks. Typically, a policeman or another public official conduckts, or becomes a conducktor, by stopping traffic to show crossing ducks the way using his or her baton.
2. To conduct, being a duck. A duck conduckts many things, such as heat, love, and electricity. 
3. To  let through by ducking. For example, if a duck is flying straight towards my head and I duck, thus letting it pass, I can be said to be conduckting.

Saturday, 21 May 2016

Strate

Strate: adjective. Without a curve or bend, moving in one direction only. The shape of the shortest possible line from one point to another in a two dimensional space. We actually had to make this word up completely here at Enriching the English Dictionary, which is strange considering how useful it seems to be. It does sound familiar though...

Thursday, 19 May 2016

Lieful

Lieful: Adjective. The antonym of truthful: to be full of lies. An example of this word used in context is: "That presidential candidate is so lieful. Then again... so are all politicians. The problem isn't whether one is truthful or lieful - it's clear that they all lie through their teeth. The problem is that this presidential candidate is a raving psychopath."

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

Dulcinean

Dulcinean: adjective. Idealised, idolised, glorified. A Dulcinean ideal is constructed over some real foundation - a person, animal, or object - though sometimes, even this reality is not necessary. The basic idea is then augmented by fantasy and wishful thinking. Thus, we arrive at someone or something Dulcinean, an idealised version of our romantic interest, desired meal, or favourite politician. 

Saturday, 14 May 2016

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Special Announcement from one of our blog writers: Tomorrow is my dog's Name Day! To honour my wonderful bitch, I have given her the opportunity of entering history with her very own word. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the immense pleasure to present you with the first dictionary entry written completely by a dog:

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I couldn't get her to write more, but this looks very insightful indeed.

Thursday, 12 May 2016

Sanchian

Sanchian: adjective. The word Sanchian, synonymous with the word Panzian, denotes the quality of being very trusting, rather stupid, but capable, at the same time, of showing a great deal of prudence and judgement. A sanchian person will, for example, follow a deranged old man through dangerous and mostly imagined adventures at his own peril, yet will excercise Solomonic wisdom when in charge of a whole town. Some have argued that even the great Don Quixote is a Sanchian character, but the difference there, it seems, is that Don Quixote is highly intelligent consistently, and often appears to be aware of his own insanity, even indicating that it is ingeniously self-caused.

Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Dutchless

Dutchless: adjective. Lacking in Dutch people or Dutch qualities. For example, North Korea is, for the most part, completely Dutchless, with very few Dutch influences and very few Dutch tourists as well.

Saturday, 7 May 2016

Dutchess

Dutchess: noun. A dutchess is the official term for a Dutch duchess. The word dutchess has been rendered largely obsolete following the year 1830, when Belgium and the Netherlands split and the Netherlands retained no duches or dutchesses save the monarch, who is the Duche or Dutchess of Limburg. Thus, the only duche surviving today is Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and the only dutchess is his wife, Queen Máxima.

Thursday, 5 May 2016

Jesuine

Jesuine: adjective. Contrary to popular belief, to be jesuine isn't to behave like a genuine Jesuit. Being stinking Catholics, it is indeed quite difficult, if not nearly impossible, for Jesuits to be genuine, the only exception, perhaps, being Pope Francis. To be jesuine is to genuinely behave like a Jesuit, in other words, to behave exactly like a Jesuit would. A person described as Jesuine will often employ caustic reasoning, softly question conservative Catholic dogma, and torture a couple of heretics here and there.

Tuesday, 3 May 2016

Jobial

Jobial: adjective. Someone called jobial accepts all challenges thrown their way with grace and good humour. Jobiality is typical of very religious people, who embrace all of their hardships and praise the Lord for his mysterious ways, maintaining a "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" attitude in face of the meaningless void that is existence.

Saturday, 30 April 2016

Forelorn

Forelorn: adjective. Describing something which is predicted to be pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely, or unlikely to succeed or be fulfilled. For example the endeavor of Christopher Columbus was mocked as forelorn, which was eventually proven incorrect due to his perseverance and hard-work. Today Columbus' efforts to overcome this forelorn sentence are often overlooked and he is mocked for having arrived at a continent known to many people before him, the Vikings being just one example. Columbus was however unaware of these accounts, clear from the fact that he refused to believe he hadn't landed in the East Indies. Columbus may be partially responsible for initiating the genocide of millions of native people of the Americas, but no more so than the majority of the people of his time. Columbus was also most likely a tyrannous governor of Hispaniola, but this does not take away from his laudable efforts in setting out on his voyages and overcoming many difficulties to achieve the feat. Today Columbus' landing and discovery are an opportunity to celebrate the richness gained through the process of mestijaze, indigenous resistance, cultures and respect for cultural diversity.

Thursday, 28 April 2016

Sone

Sone: noun. Pronounced so as to rhyme with 'loan'. The end bit of tape that you need to find when you want to use tape. This word was coined by Dr. Horace Day, who was frankly amazed that this word didn't already mean something, it's such a plausible combination of 4 letters, it looks like it should mean something, but until Dr. Day, it hadn't. To be fair, we were all pretty amazed that it didn't already mean something...we just kinda assumed it did...it just totally looks like it has to mean something...ya know...do you get what I'm sayin'?

Tuesday, 26 April 2016

Prorn

Prorn: noun.


1. Porn involving prawns.
2. Porn involving Marcel Proust or the works of Marcel Proust.
3. Premium porn - porn that you have to pay more than 13.4% of your weekly salary for.
4. Prejudiced porn - porn with a person judging you from the side.
5. Porn involving the man who announces "and now back to our regularly scheduled programming."
6. Prestigious porn - porn involving at least two members of a noble house and a respected academic.
7. Porn involving Pringles in some way.
8. Porn with the music of Prince as the soundtrack.

Saturday, 23 April 2016

Panjamdrum

Panjamdrum: noun. The hypothetical barrel that could contain all the marmalade in the world. This was part of a thought experiment the English writer Samuel Richardson, who was attempting to make a point about the power and authority of the Pope, which seemingly got away from him. Since then panjamdrum has been used in various scenarios involving bees, horticulture, bears, seagulls and the like.

Thursday, 21 April 2016

Quasi-hyperpathetical

Quasi-hyperpathetical: adjective. Describing something which appears to be incredibly miserable and contemptibly inadequate, but in fact isn't. For example the love life of J. Alfred Prufrock was initially described as "so sad and disappointing it's almost tragic" by Christina Rossetti, the immortal Queen of Sick Burns, but upon further inspection, all of Rossetti's claims were refuted by Robert Frost, who was a sad excuse for lumberjack who didn't have the balls to be an actual lumberjack, so he just wrote weepy poems about it. Rossetti out.

Tuesday, 19 April 2016

Serendipetous

Serendipetous: adjective. Occurring or discovered due to a force acting to cause the occurrence or discovery in a  happy or beneficial way. Serendipetous is the sister word to 'serendipitous', both are the children words of  'serendipity', which is in turn the child word of 'Serendip', which is the cousin word of 'Sielen Diva' and the aunt word of 'Ceylon'. The whole word family has been recently denounced by the 'Lanka' word family, headed by the father word 'Lak-diva', which true to form, is definitely a diva.

Saturday, 16 April 2016

Smughead

Smughead: noun. A person with the unique and frankly incredible ability to convey his or hers or theirs smugness in photographs. One would assume that smugness is a quality that emerges through a person's actions and behavior and thus shouldn't be captureable, and yet smugheads emanate their smugness to such an extent simply from their appearance and expressions that it can actually be preserved and recorded on photographs.

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Santaism

Santaism: noun. A religious movement founded on the idea that Santa with his flying reindeer and mystical express-delivery abilities is the highest form of power in the known and unknown universe. The religion is most prevalent amongst UPC and Amazon communities, who have developed intricate shrines to Santa and in honour of Santaism inside trucks, airplanes and warehouses. The largest Santaist temple, the Golden Bauble, also holds the record for largest Cardboard box fort.

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Screem

Screem: noun. A visual representation of a scream. Screems are notoriously difficult to create successfully and many artists throughout history have attempted to do so. Perhaps one of the most successful and aesthetically-pleasing screems was created by Giuliano Pessello as a fresco on top of the Parthenon in Rome. Unfortunately the paints that Pessello used were water-soluble and so were washed away only 245 days after the screem was completed.

Saturday, 9 April 2016

Junkette

Junkette: noun. A dish of sweetened and flavoured curds of milk and an assortment of cheap toys from the 90's, those various leaflets you get at conventions, several drawers filled with plastic bags, all those little screwdrivers from IKEA, various little knickknacks that you'll definitely need one day and spare pieces of Lego that don't seem to fit anywhere.

Thursday, 7 April 2016

Lumination

Lumination: noun. The process of covering a piece of paper in a layer of glowing plastic from both sides so as to protect the piece of paper, make it more sturdy and glowing, so that it is readable in the dark. Lumination was originally developed in the 1980's by the physical chemist John W. Boothe in his lab in MIT. Boothe claims that it was mostly an accident, he had left a piece of plastic in a solution while he left to go to the theatre, and when he returned the piece of plastic was glowing brightly and vividly and so his immediate thought was to try it in lamination.

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Desssert

Desssert: noun. A vast expanse of land composed entirely of sweet, sugary treats, such as pancakes, crepes, eclairs, cakes, pies, and chocolate, as well as others. Examples of dessserts include the Great Frosted Plains of Siberia and the Brulee Plateau in Argentina. What the various tourist bureaus that are responsible for the dessserts, is why there aren't more people visiting them.

Saturday, 2 April 2016

Applausible

Applausible: adjective. Something which warrants an expression of approval in the form of furious and repeated striking of palms together. This word was coined by theatre critic Samuel Tage, who described the performance of John Gielgud and Alec Guinness in Anything Goes, calling the finale "truly applausible".

Thursday, 31 March 2016

Contra-diction

Contra-diction: noun. Diction used to oppose an argument or thought. This category of words was first defined by Jost Trier in his well known and public debate with Pope John XXIII, where they debated whether planting rapeseed along with maize in one field was a feasible and sustainable mode of farming. Trier used this sentence during the break in the middle of the debate: "His Holiness uses contra-diction, that would be laughed at even by Nero."

Tuesday, 29 March 2016

Airsmith

Airsmith: noun. A being from ancient Greek mythology, airsmiths were the children of the gods Hephaestos and Nemesis and they created Zeus' lightning bolts after Hephaestos got bored and also maintained the clouds, which worked as support structures for Mount Olympus. They are the inspiration behind the name of the popular American rock band Kiss.

Saturday, 26 March 2016

Rainarrow

Rainarrow: noun. The ammunition/missile for a rainbow.

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Dredful

Dredful: adjective. Describing something which is causing or involving great suffering, fear or unhappiness and is also entirely and completely red. Examples of dredful things include: Mars, the number 12, Chairman Mao's Little Book, and Tomatoes without their stems.

Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Rafter

Rafter: noun. The common definition of this word is of course the wooden beam used in roof support, but the word was originally meant to describe someone who operated a raft. How the definition of the word changed so drastically is actually a fascinating tale, unfortunately we can't relate it all in the limited space we have here. I can only reveal that it involved two men, a duck, an earthquake and seven storks.

Saturday, 19 March 2016

Blaim

Blaim: verb. To blame oneself. This word was introduced into the English language at the same time as 'blame' and was intended, so that people wouldn't have to use the added word 'oneself' or 'myself', when they wanted to blame themselves, they could simply use blaim. Unfortunately what the creators of the words, two monks by the names of Jesse and Wilderhelm, didn't think of, was the fact that both words were pronounced exactly the same and thus hadn't solved the issue of having to use 'oneself' or 'myself' at all.

Thursday, 17 March 2016

Demenish

Demenish: verb. A sociogeographical phenomenon where the ratio of men in a population decreases rapidly for unknown or inexplicable reasons. The word was first used by the renowned illiterate theologian John Savage in his seminal 1845 work, "Figs and such", where he referred to the sudden change in the behavior of oxen, "The population of locusts in Kent has been suddenly demenished, which has led some to speculate about the potential implications for combine harvesters."

Tuesday, 15 March 2016

Disinterrested

Disinterrested: adjective. Describing something or someone, who/which has been dug up after having been buried, but who simply doesn't seem to care, mostly likely due to having given up on life. An example of this occurred in 1882, when the poet Emily Dickinson had been buried after being found in her room, seemingly dead and it only later turned out she had simply been having a nap, however after having been dug up again, Dickinson was only upset that her nap had been disturbed by the digging up.

Saturday, 12 March 2016

Funcomfortable

Funcomfortable: adjective. This one seems pretty self-explanatory. Yes, this is a definition (entirely factual ones, mind you), but this seems unnecessary. Here, why don't you give it a go? Think up a definition for funcomfortable, write it down on a piece of paper, fold the piece of paper into a beautiful paper flower, place the flower gingerly into a small box, wrap the box in tin foil, attach an address for a friend you haven't spoken to in at least 92 days, mail the box to the person and then never think about it again. Ever.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

Funtastic

Funtastic: adjective. Describing something which quite literally does not possess a single fault; something that is entertaining and awesome and doesn't cause harm to anyone/anything. This word hasn't been properly used in connection to anything since the time of Atlantis, which some say is a reflection on today's world, but I don't really see it. Inappropriate uses of funtastic have included using it to describe Donald Trump's hair, John Oliver, that one guy at a party who looks like he's looking off into the distance, but is actually looking at you and your friend points it out and you suddenly feel both giddy and funcomfortable at the same time.

Tuesday, 8 March 2016

Slothsome

Slothsome: adjective. Used to describe something that is ridiculously inefficient, in expending a pointless amount of energy to achieve a task that is ultimately pointless. Examples of things that could be described as slothsome, include sloths, organizing a desk, lawn-mowing, living life to the fullest, and physical exertion.

Sunday, 6 March 2016

Monogramme

Monogramme: noun. A single metric unit of mass equal to one thousandth of a kilogramme. This word can only be used to describe something that weighs exactly one gramme, for example: "That feather is a monogramme." Uses of the word that do not align with this philosophy are a punishable offence with fines up to four turkeys.

Saturday, 5 March 2016

Marder

Marder: noun. This word has too meanings, neither of which relate to tanks.

1. The process of creating a martyr by killing someone, because of a cause they are supporting or believe in. The International Association has decreed marder to be one of the stupidest things humanly possible, as creating a martyr is never a good thing.
2. A special room adjoining the kitchen which is used solely to store marmalades and associated marmalade products. This room does not accept jams.

Friday, 4 March 2016

Greace

Greace: verb. To apply greese to a surface or object. Greacing is actually the national sport of Macedonia, but remains surprisingly unpopular in Albania, where its application as a sport is seen as vile and unholy. It is extremely difficult to properly greace, as it requires years of careful training and practice.

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Greese

Greese: noun. An oily or fatty matter, which originates from southeastern Europe. The earliest example of this can be found in a less well-known work by Herodotus, in which he details a process through which Retsina becomes initially drinkable and then turns into a surprisingly useful greese, which can be used as an adhesive, sealant, insulator and many other fascinating applications.

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

Squary

Squary: adjective/noun. This word has two separate meanings, each with their own distinct pronunciation.

1. This definition of the word has a pronunciation that rhymes with "carry". It means to resemble a square in shape. Therefore something with sides of equal length and angles of 90 degrees could be referred to as very squary. On the other hand something spherical would be thought of as extremely unsquary. 

2. This definition on the other hand has a pronunciation that rhymes with the Canadian "sorry". It means the target or object of a hunt or pursuit that also happens to begin with 's'. For example if a group of men are taking pitchforks and torches to the house of a man named Simon, then Simon is their squary. This is also of course true of animals; sloths and squid are examples of common types of squaries. 

Tuesday, 1 March 2016

Cloyster

Cloyster: noun. A covered walkway usually in a convent or monastery, which is in the shape of a rough oval with one side more squary than the other. Cloysters were particularly common in medieval Andorra with over three hundred being constructed in the span of three and a half millennia.  A popular phrase that originated from that time is: "The world is my cloyster." This saying referred to the never-ending turmoil and misery of life and the seaming inability to escape the endless tedium.

Monday, 29 February 2016

Raphal

Raphal: adjective. Raphal people love fish and healing, sometimes healing fish or even healing using fish. Never tell a Raphal person that you are sick while they are holding a fish. Odds are that they will slap you with it or tear it apart and smear it all over you.

Sunday, 28 February 2016

Urial

Urial: adjective. A Urial person loves light, art, and flaming swords. Despite their love for clarity and brightness, Urial people tend to be the ones surrounded by the greatest mystery. Their identity is often difficult to place, confused, and sometimes even neglected in an inundation of conflicting accounts. Remind you of anyone? No? Didn't think so.

Saturday, 27 February 2016

Michal

Michal: adjective. To be Michal is either to keep wondering who is like God, or to be like or pertaining to the archangel Michael. Being like Michael tends to entail inflicting righteous violence on unsuspecting and suspecting victims alike, and acting very self-entitled about it.

Friday, 26 February 2016

Gabrial

Gabrial: adjective. In a very literal sense, to be Gabrial is to rely on God as the source of one's strength. However, the word is usually used in the sense of 'like or pertaining to the archangel Gabriel.' People called Gabrial tend to wear linen, dress in white, carry around horns, dictate books, and give unwanted news.

Thursday, 25 February 2016

Onany

Onany: noun. The word Onany, derived either from the German "Onanie," the Spanish "Onanismo," or the French "Onanisme," is the act of pleasuring oneself sexually (also known as "the M-word," "the rustle mustle," "the naughty game with one's private bits," and "the no-no dodo"). To commit onany is to onanate, and a person who onanates is an onanator (which, despite its intimidating sound, does not come with any superpowers). Whichever language it derives from, Onany ultimately traces its origins back to the "sin of Onan," though commentators argue over whether Onan's sin consisted in spilling his seed or disobeying God. While the latter seems to be the more plausible and more scripturally justified opinion, the idea that the sin of Onan consisted in spilling his seed has found very militant supporters in many churches, which apparently thrive on telling people what not to do with their dingle-dongles.

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Disabel

Disabel: verb. To disabel is to permanently reduce the functionality of a person to nothing. The word comes from some of the earliest Latin translations of the book of Genesis, which went something like this:

8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
9 One could say that made him pretty... disabeled! 

For one reason or another, this cheesy pun was eventually dropped in favour of a rather redundant dialogue between Cain and God, both of whom of course knew what had occurred, one by virtue of his involvement, the other through his omniscience.

Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Serpend

Serpend: verb. To serpend has a range of meanings:
1. To dispose of a serpent, e.g. in the sentence "I had the pest control serpend my house."
2. To move in a serpent-like fashion, i.e. through undulation and coiling. "The snake serpended to the smooth rhythm of the rumba."
3. To be dependent on a serpent, e.g. "It serpends: how big was your child the last time you saw it and could it fit into a medium sized anaconda?"

Monday, 22 February 2016

Ovidation

Ovidation: noun. A period of high productivity in the life of a poet. Some poets have Ovidations often, while others may not have an Ovidation their entire life. Some poets have Ovidations in regular cycles, while others Ovidate in a completely haphazard fashion. It is the tragedy of many poets that their Ovidations do not necessarily increase their poetic productivity, but productivity of very irrelevant kinds, like in curling, sex, or blueberry-picking.

Sunday, 21 February 2016

Aighnneeasse

Aighnneeasse: unknown. The word Aenneeasse is a product of an experiment with the English language devised by Lewis Carroll. Carroll postulated that any word in the English language could be doubled in length using common spelling conventions without changing the sound of the word at all. Using the English spelling of the name "Aeneas" (six letters) to demonstrate the concept, Carroll showed that the word Aighnneeasse (twelve letters) makes the word twice as long without changing its sound at all. Carroll repeated this experiment with many other words, such as shoe (schueuet), ale (eighle) and a (uh or ey, depending on the pronunciation). However, Carroll ran into an insurmountable problem with the word "thought." The word "thought," Carroll said, was already so full of letters it didn't need that it did not fit his hypothesis. A year later, he attacked the problem again, saying that any word in the English language could be written in a simple way (unless it was written in a simple way already), and this simple spelling could then be doubled in length while keeping the pronunciation. For example, the word "thought" can be simplified to "thoht," which can then be expanded to the twice as long "thouwghtte." None of the words Carroll came up with during the experiment, however, were given definitions, and so they roam the world to this day, homeless monsters from the darkest nightmares of a truly evil Doctor Frankenstein.

Saturday, 20 February 2016

Telemaniac

Telemaniac: noun. A person obsessed with long distances and anything connected to them. Telemaniacs love long-distance friendships, travelling, and fathers lost at sea. Their condition is called telemania and when they fly into a rage, they are referred to as telemaniacal. The opposite of telemania is anchimania, which is an obsession with things that are nearby and is recommended over telemania by nine out of ten psychiatrists.

Friday, 19 February 2016

Scyll

Scyll: noun. Scyll, pronounced the same way as the word "skill," is expertise with regard to controlling dogs. A person with scyll is called scylled. The word scyll derives from Scylla, a nymph who, according to certain classical sources, was transformed into a monster with dogs growing from her body. One could hardly get more scylled than Scylla unless one were actually a dog.

Thursday, 18 February 2016

Aeolous

Aeolous: adjective. Windy, gusty, breezy, etc. The word aeolous derives from the name of the Greek lord of the wind: Aeolus. According to legends, he owned a sack containing all the winds of the world. Describing the weather as aeolous makes one sound very classy, even intellectual.

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Kirkular

Kirkular: adjective. When a motion is described as kirkular, it is circular and has magical effects. The word derives from the name of the Greek witch Circe and is not spelled with two Cs, because then people would read it as "sir-kyoo-lar", which would break the convention according to which the witch's name is read as "Kir-kay", following the Greek pronunciation. Although this post might sound too rant-like, please do remember to read the witch's name as "Kir-kay" and remember that when she transforms Odysseus' crew into pigs, she does it with a kirkular wave of her wand.

Tuesday, 16 February 2016

Lotophagy

Lotophagy: noun. The word lotophagy has two meanings, both derived from Homer's Odyssey:
1. The literal meaning of the word lotophagy is simply the consumption of lotuses. One needs to practice lotophagy on a regular basis, however, to be called a lotophagian.
2. Doing pleasurable but unproductive things over what is necessary or important. A form of procrastination, lotophagy tends to be one of the most serious, as a lotophagian is a procrastinator so deep in their procrastination that they no longer feel any shame, and consequently, no need to stop.

Monday, 15 February 2016

Odystance

Odystance: noun. An odystance is a constantly changing and indeterminate length of space between two points. The most famous example of odystance is the journey of Odysseus' homecoming (or "nostos" in Greek). While at some points in the story, it is absolutely unclear where Odysseus is in modern geographic terms, at other points, Odysseus jumps from being really close to Ithaca to being blown back by the winds of Aeolus' sack, and therefore even farther than he was before.     

Sunday, 14 February 2016

Parisan

Parisan: adjective. Pertaining to anyone of the name Paris. The word parisan was devised by the Movement for the Rationalisation of the English Language (MREL) to avoid confusion between the city of Paris and Paris the person. What the movement forgot to mention when it coined the word was how it should be pronounced. This is why there is a huge divergence today between people who say "pah-ri-sun," people who say "pah-ris-en," and those who say "pah-rye-sun." 

Saturday, 13 February 2016

Briseisless

Briseisless: adjective. To be briseisless is to be deprived of some symbol of honour, or "kleos" in Greek. For example, one is called briseisless when one's degree is revoked or when one's Olympic medals are taken. Briseisless people tend to end up sulky, unemployed, or - especially in the modern world - candidating for president of the USA.

Friday, 12 February 2016

Andromake

Andromake: verb. To build up someone's masculinity. The word andromake comes from Homer's Iliad, in which Andromache, the wife of Hector, is used to reinforce the character of Hector, showing him as a loving husband and father, as well as a valiant fighter. Thanks to Andromache, Hector seems to become the most complete character and the best male role model in the whole work, thus making the word Andromake all the more relevant.

Thursday, 11 February 2016

Pentheance

Pentheance: noun. The obstinate refusal to show penitence, also known as apenitence. Pentheance, or apenitence, is very different from unpenitence, which consists of revoking one's former penitence and going back to pentheance. The word pentheance derives from the character of Pentheus, who refused to acknowledge Dionysus as a god and was ripped apart by his own mother under Bacchic rage. 

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Bacching

Bacching: noun. Support, whether material or emotional, given to thespians by the great god of theatre, Bacchus (also known as Dionysus). Bacching can take any form, from little gifts of wine and grapes to Bakkheia, a blinding rage that clouds the mind and grants superhuman strength. It is unclear whether the Hulk suffers from Bakkheia, but given the apparent lack of connection between him and Bacchus, this is quite unlikely.

Tuesday, 9 February 2016

Electral

Electral: adjective. An electrifyingly exciting character or person, just like anyone but Electra in Aeschylus' Oresteia. Unlike the word she gave birth to, Aeschylus' Electra is terribly bland, never really giving a satisfying explanation for her loyalties other than consuming self-righteousness. This is why Jung came up with an even more unsatisfying explanation for her behaviour, attributing it to attraction to her father and subsequent animosity towards her mother. Be it as it may, Aeschylus' Electra is partially responsible for her mother's Clytemnestran fall, for which she shall never be forgiven... at least not by me.