hebetude /HEB-ə-tood/. noun. A state of torpor, dullness, lethargy or languor. From Latin hebes (blunt, dull).
Persons, places, things...you know the drill.
ondinnonk
ondinnonk. noun. An Iroquoian word for the soul’s deepest desires as expressed in dreams; special dreams. Or, as quoted by multiple sources but without attribution, “the innermost desires of someones’ soul and its angelic nature.”
“To extirpate these repressive desires, or to communicate the supernatural interpretation of an omen, the Iroquois relied on a host of rituals that sought to alleviate what they called Ondinnonk, the secret desire of the subconscious or the soul revealed in a dream.” (Edna Kenton)
“The Iroquois believed that the soul revealed hidden desires through dreams; these desires were referred to as Ondinnonk. If the Ondinnonk was not satisfied the soul would take revenge on the physical body through illness or death.” (Art Rogers)
“The yearly festival of this traveling dream theater was known as the Onoharoia; it allowed many Ondinnonk (special dreams) to be acted out very dramatically.” (Denise Linn)
blatherskite
blatherskite. /BLA-thər-skiyt/noun. A noisy person who talks foolish nonsense, who blathers with braggadocio. The speech of said blatherer. Originally a Scottish insult, it became a common term of colloquial speech during the American Revolution due to the then-popular Scottish song “Maggie Lauder.” Alt: bletherskate, blether skyte.
“Right dauntingly she answered him,
“Begone ye hallanshaker.
Jog on your gate ye blether skyte,
my name is Maggie Lauder”
(Frances Semple)“the result was just nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has. She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber…” (Mark Twain)
“Those foolish tales which I used to read in my youth […] what are they but the blatherskite of long-tongued persons who could talk faster than they could think?” (John Runciman)
“And naught I ken who the bowdykite’s to wed—
Some bletherskite he’s picked up in a ditch,
Some fond fligary flirtigig, clarty-fine,
Who’ll turn a slattern-shrew and a cap-river
Within a week”
(Wilfrid Gibson)
lallation
lallation /lə-LAY-shən/. noun. Baby talk; gibberish. Also, confusion of the R sound with the L sound (AKA lambdacism).
“Disorders of articulation include lisping, lallation, substitution of sounds, omission of sounds, and addition and distortion of sounds.” (S. S. Chauhan)
“Lallation is sound separated from meaning, but nonetheless, as we know, not separated from the infant’s state of satisfaction.” (Colette Soler)
“Lallation it’s called, the difficulty Asians have in pronouncing ‘L’ and ‘R’ in English. For years it prompted adolescent jokes about ‘flied lice’ and ‘I went to U.C.R.A.’ The wisecracks have waned as Japan has given America lessons in quality and industry. No one is heard to mock the Honda Acula or the Sony Warkman.” (New York Times)
syzygy
syzygy /SIZ-i-jee/. noun. The conjunction or opposition of two astronomical bodies, particularly involving the Sun, so usually the Sun and the moon (new moon and full moon). A pair of connected or correlative things. The combination of two feet in one meter, such as iamb (du-DUM), trochee (DUM-du), and spondee (DUM-DUM). In biology, the conjunction of two organisms without either losing their identity. Also, a mathematical concept I can’t really understand, much less explain plainly. From the Greek syzygia: a pair of yoked animals, a union of two.
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lagniappe
lagniappe /LAN-yap/. noun. A tip, a gratuity or gratuitous addition, something given above what has been earned.
“And more than this, than the revenge, as lagniappe to the revenge as it were, this nosegay of an afternoon, this scentless prairie flower which will not be missed and which might as well bloom in your lapel as in another’s” (William Faulkner, from Absalom, Absalom)
“We picked up one excellent word—a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word: ‘lagniappe’. They pronounce it lanny-yap.” (Mark Twain, from Life on the Mississippi)
“Lagniappe, usually attributed to the French of New Orleans, in fact originated among the Kechuan Indians of Peru as yapa. The Spanish adopted it as ñapa. The French then took it from the Spanish and we from the French.” (Bill Bryson, from Made in America)
“He pays off Bodine, full price, overriding Bodine’s offer to prorate for what’s missing. ‘Call it a little lagniappe, goodbuddy, that’s Duane Marvy’s way o’ doin’ thangs…'” (Thomas Pynchon, from Gravity’s Rainbow)
sehnsucht
sehnsucht /ZEN-zuukst/. noun. Inconsolable longing; longing that cannot be expressed. A compound of the German das Sehnen (fervent yearning) + die Sucht (longing), sehnsucht is often called (wrongly, but you get the idea) untranslatable. See also saudade and hiraeth.
“Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt Weiß, was ich leide!” — “None but the lonely heart can know my sadness!” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Arthur Westbrook)
“They were not very far off but they were, to children, quite unattainable. They taught me longing—Sehnsucht; made me, for good or ill, and before I was six years old, a votary of the Blue Flower.” (C. S. Lewis, from Surprised by Joy)
Select Synonyms: yen, yearning, craving, aching, longing, desire, pining, coveting.
Elsewhere: Wordnik.