/steg-ə-NAW-grə-fee/. noun. Secret writing. Concealing a secret message within another visible (or otherwise perceivable) message. From the Greek steganos (covered) + the Latin suffix -graphy (written)
WORD(S)
A cornucopia—a logocopia!—of awesome words.
frottage
frottage /FRAW-tawzh/. noun. Taking a rubbing from a textured surface, such as from a gravestone. Sexually touching or rubbing, while clothed, against someone. From French frotter (rub, scrub, scrape, caress).
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satisfice
satisfice. verb. A blend of satisfy and suffice, coined by Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert A. Simon in his 1956 article ‘Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment’ to describe the behavior of pursuing the minimum satisfactory outcome. Satisficing is the opposite of maximizing or optimizing. Also, a Northern English/Scottish synonym for satisfy.
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haptic
/HAP-tik/. adjective. Relating to the sense of touch. From Greek haptomai (to touch, to adhere to, to cling) + -ic (suffix: of or pertaining to).
pinguid
pinguid /PEEN-gwid/. adjective. Fat, greasy, oil. Unctuous. Rarely (usually referring to soil): fertile. From Latin pinguis (fat) + -id (adjective suffix, as in languid, torpid, etc.).
“For the first minute the water grips me like a cryonic gel, glacial, faintly pinguid…” (Greg Jackson)
“Her suspicions got embellished by, of all people, Mike Fallopian of the Peter Pinguid Society.” (Thomas Pynchon)
“In the numb gesture of this ever-dead, a pair of pinguid crows hopped, foot to foot, along one pleading limb, like two conspiring nuns cackling and pecking and flapping into the air…” (Nick Cave)
“The angel would stand, giant in her consciousness, its head bent down. She would stare up into its meteor-scarred face and its wings would open slowly, with pinguid plumage, a wider span than any sea eagle.” (J. M. Ledgard)
“There, staring back at us, between the drum major’s braided cap and the gold epaulettes, were the dark pinguid features of Dada made flesh: His Excellency Al Haji Field Marshal and President for Life of Uganda: Idi Amin Dada.” (T. C. Boyle)
“Pingle should not be confused with pinguid, which means greasy, though if the food is too much the latter, it may cause the former. So if you were stuck with a bad cook in Antarctica you might pingle a pinguid penguin.” (Mark Forsyth)
flesh-pot / fleshpot
flesh-pot (fleshpot). noun. Literally, a pot in which flesh (a highly desirable foodstuff) is boiled, generally referring to the phrase in Exodus (see below). As an allusion, a place or person of luxury, indulgence and titillation.
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autotomy
/aw-TAW-tə-mee/. noun. The reflexive casting off (or ejection) of a body part in response to being attacked. Colloquially, if such a word can be said to be used that way!, self-amputation.
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