ineffable
/in-EF-uh-buhl/ adjective. Too great or powerful to be described. Inexpressible. Unutterable. Unspeakable.
iatrogenic
iatrogenic /iy-A-tro-jen-ik/. adjective. In medicine: an illness or symptom caused by a physician’s treatment or medications. In more general use, a problem caused by the means of treating that problem but ascribed to being a natural part of it. From Greek iatro-(pertaining to medicine or physicians) + -genic (producing, caused by).
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isthmus
isthmus /IS-thməs/. noun. A strip of land with water on both sides that connects two relatively larger land areas. In anatomy, a narrow part or organ connecting two larger parts. From Latin isthmus, from Greek isthmos (narrow land between two seas). Further history is unknown, though it could be from eimi (to go) and suffix -thmo (step, movement).
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interoception
interoception /in-tair-oh-SEP-shən/. noun. The sense of conditions and stimuli within the body. Compare to exteroception (the sense of stimuli acting on the body) and proprioception (the sense of the position of the body, and parts of the body, to other bodies or parts of the body).
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imbrue / embrue
imbrue (embrue) /im-BROO/. verb. To stain or drench, particularly with blood. When speaking of a weapon, to thrust or plunge. From Old French embreuver (moisten, soak [in], dye, imbue)
“These barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood.” (Oliver Cromwell)
“Come, blade, my breast imbrue!” (William Shakespeare)
“A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued in blood to the eyebrows.” (Charles Dickens)
“I used to stand on the balcony and watch the setting sun imbrue the sky with its puce and blue-indigo stains and then fall down” (Mark Leyner)
“…it has been a sort of balm to my spirit to sit up with the King, night after night, imbrued in the royal gore, breathing it into my lungs, sopping it up with my flesh…” (Neal Stephenson)
“What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!”
(William Shakespeare)
“To sue and lose, his knightly soul might bear;
But insult galled him sore.
Should he imbrue
His puissant sword in her own father’s gore?”
(William Stephen Pryer)
imago
imago /i-MAY-go/. noun. In psychology, an idealized image of a person—including possibly one’s self—formed in childhood and persisting into adulthood. In biology, the final, adult stage of an insect’s transformation (see also: nymph and pupa), usually winged. From classical Latin imāgō (representation, natural shape). See also: Imago Dei (the image of God), a theological term referring to man being created in God’s image.
“But it had all come hard upon: realignment of mother, death of father (the two imagos now transfigured)…” (Margaret Atwood)
“Signifying the imitation of a portrait, the word imago was applied to the image of the deceased. It designated the mask made from the imprint of a face.” (Barbara Cassin)
“In psychoanalysis, the term imago is an unconscious prototype of personae, the imago determines the way in which the subject apprehends others.” (W.G. Sebald)
“The burst of lightning was the white of the sunlit room when he came up for air and opened his eyes. His mother’s tiny rotating imago faded against the ceiling. What seemed like heavy breathing was him trying to scream.” (David Foster Wallace)
Beneath the dun and the watershine—
Incipient spinner, set for the take-off…
And does, in clean tear: imago rising out of herself
For the last time, slate-winged and many-eyed.
(Charles Wright)IMAGO TAPES
Tanguy: ‘Jours de Lenteur.’
Ernst: ‘The Robing of the Bride.’
de Chirico: ‘The Dream of the Poet.’
(J.G. Ballard)
Elsewhere: Wordnik.