Bantu:

  • Bilita mpash: The opposite of a nightmare - not merely a "good" dream but a "legendary, blissful state where all is forgiven and forgotten".

Latin:

  • Exemplī grātiā: For example.
  • Faculae: Bright patches that are visible on the Sun’s surface.

Greek:

  • Nepenthe: A medicine for sorrow. It is a place, person or thing, which can aid in forgetting your pain and suffering; something that can make you forget grief or suffering.
  • Paralian: Person who lives near the sea.
  • Meraki: To do something with soul, creativity, or love; when you leave a piece of yourself in your work.

Russian:

  • Toska: (noun) Vladimir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.
  • Ostyt: A cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room, and return, it is too cool.
  • Perekhotet: To want something so much over months and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire.

Japanese:

  • Komorebi: Sunlight filtering through trees.
  • Tsundoku: The act of buying a book and leaving it unread, often piled together with other unread books.
  • Wabi-Sabi: A way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.

German:

  • Fernweh: A longing to travel, missing a place you’ve never been.
  • Wunderkind: (noun) A young person who achieves success or displays great talent at an early age.
  • Schadenfreude: The feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune.
  • Verschlimmbessern: To make something worse when trying to improve it.
  • Fremdschämen: Embarrassment you feel on behalf of someone who is too dumb to know they’ve done something they should be embarrassed by.
  • Geborgenheit:The feeling that, when with a certain person or in a certain place, that nothing could ever harm you.

Rukwangali, Namibia:

  • Hanyauku: To walk on tiptoes on hot sand.

Mandarin:

  • Laotong: A friendship bonding two girls together for eternity as kindred sisters.

Swedish:

  • Tidsoptimist: A person who is always late because they think they have more time than they do; a time optimist.
  • Mångata: The glimmering, roadlike reflection the moon creates on water.

Italian:

  • Culaccino: The mark left on a table by a cold glass.
  • Gattara: A cat lady; a woman, often old and lonely, who devotes herself to stray cats.

Dutch:

  • Voorpret: Pre-fun, the sense of enjoyment felt before a party or event takes place.

Indonesian:

  • Mencolek: The old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them.
  • Jayus: A joke so poorly told and unfunny you can’t help but laugh.

Yaghan:

  • Mamihlapinatapai: You go first. no, you go first. the special look shared between two people when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want to do.

Filipino:

  • Gigil: The overwhelming urge to squeeze or pinch something very cute.

Norwegian:

  • Utepils: To sit outside enjoying a beer on a sunny day.
  • Kjæreste: A gender neutral term for girlfriend or boyfriend. It literally translates as “dearest".
  • Forelsket: The euphoric sensation you feel when you are first falling in love. The feeling is characterized by feelings of anxious anticipation, giddy nervousness, and intense happiness, which point to the beginning of love. Literally, pre-love.

Yagan:

  • Mamihlapinatapei: The wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start.

Hebrew:

  • Koev halev: Empathizing with someone else so deeply that it causes your heart to ache.

Urdu:

  • Goya: The transporting suspension of disbelief that can occur in a good storytelling.

Icelandic:

  • Skúffuskáld: Someone who’s secretly a poet; literally: drawer poet; someone who writes poetry but chugs it all into his desk drawer instead of showing it to people.
dec 30 2015 ∞
feb 1 2016 +