- Woolgathering:
- wool·gath·er·ing / wool-gath-er-ing / Noun.
- Indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness: His woolgathering was a handicap in school.
- Mamihlapinatapai: (from Yaghan)
- A look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.
- Petrichor:
- A term coined to describe the scent we recognize after a rain, especially on dry ground; created by a combination of oils exuded by plants during dry spells, and geosmin, the bacteria which gives earth its distinctive smell; from the Greek, meaning essence of stone or rock.
- Noctilucent:
- adjective /ˌnɑk.tə.ˈlu.sənt
- Shining or glowing at night, said especially of high altitude clouds.
- Saccade:
- noun /səˈkɑːd/
- 1) a sudden jerking movement (rare). 2) a rapid jerky movement of the eye (voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another. 3) the act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins. 4) the sounding of two violin strings together by using a sudden strong pressure of the bow (music).
- From French saccade, “a jerking movement”, derived from saccader, “to jerk, jolt”.
- Sprezzatura:
- noun
- Studied nonchalance.
- From Italian, coined in The Book of the Courtier (1528), which describes it as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.”
- Divagate:
- verb /dīˈvə-gātˌ, dĭvˈə-/
- To wander about; stray; ramble; digress.
- Pulchritude:
- noun /ˈpəlkrəˌt(y)oōd/
- poetic/literary
- Beauty.
- Aimonomia:
- noun
- Fear that learning the name of something — a bird, a constellation, an attractive stranger — will somehow ruin it, transforming a lucky discovery into a conceptual husk pinned in a glass case, which leaves one less mystery to flutter around your head, trying to get in.
- Clinomania:
- noun
- An excessive desire to stay in bed.
feb 23 2011 ∞
sep 8 2012 +