A Dictionary of Cool Words That Hide True Feelings & Meanings from Parents
Many of the strange vocabulary words, that Jude and her friends, from my new novel The Far Side, use, arise from their need to create a sense of linguistic privacy from the grownups. These are real and come from hard-to-translate words from other languages, professions, or sub-cultures.
Age-otori — a feeling that you look worse after the haircut. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Ataraxia — a sense of stoic calm. (Based on an ancient Greek word.)
Backpfeifengesicht — a face in need of a fist. (Based on a German word.)
Chingada — a hellish place where all that annoy you go. (Based on a Spanish word.)
Desenrascanço — to find a creative way out of a bad situation. (Based on a Portuguese word.)
Dépaysement — the sense of displacement one feels when visiting a foreign country and being far from home. (Based on a French word.)
Doppelgänger — a duplicate of a person. (Based on a German word.)
Dustsceawung — the contemplation of the idea that everything turns to dust eventually. (Based on an Old English word.)
Eudaimonia — deep fulfillment and the resulting happiness, even as it goes through periods of momentary frustration and pain. (Based on an ancient Greek word.)
Ganbaru — to endure no matter the difficulties. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Gattara — an old woman who spends a lot of time with cats. (Based on an Italian word.)
Hyggelig — a pleasant, friendly, comfortable demeanor. (Based on a Danish word.)
Hutzpah — shameless audacity. (Based on an Yiddish word.)
Iktsuarpok — a sense that someone is about to come as part of waiting for that person to turn up. (Based on an Inuit word.)
Kabelsalat — a bunch of tangled cables. (A literal translation from German.)
Mokita — a painful truth that everyone knows but doesn’t voice due to compassionate considerations. (Based on a Kivila word — a language spoken by people who live on the Trobriand Island of Kiri, New Guinea.)
Natsukashii — that nostalgic yearning for a moment in childhood when everything was simple and easy. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Nekama — a boy pretending to be a girl. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Noob — a slang word for newcomer or a novice. (Based on an English slang.)
Querencia — a place that feels like home, although it might not mean that it’s a place where you live. (Based on a Spanish word.)
Saudade — a melancholic longing for a person, a place, or an object that may no longer exist; a sense of deep nostalgia for something or someone missing. (Based on a Portuguese word.)
Sehnsucht — a life-longing. (Based on a German word.)
Schlimazel — a very unlucky person. (Based on an Yiddish word.)
Shinrinyoku — forest bathing. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Skeuomorphism — a design approach of making items in the virtual world resemble their real-world counterparts. (A word in English.)
Sutaffu — staff. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Saudade — a nostalgic yearning for a thing that might not even exist anymore. (Based on a Portuguese word.)
Sweetchious — a slung word for good fun. (Based on an English slang.)
Torschlusspanik — an intense sense of panic that comes from all options closing rapidly, especially due to time pressure. (Based on a German word.)
Toska — a deep sense of spiritual emptiness, a longing for something undefined, an emotional anguish without a specific cause. (Based on a Russian word.)
Trepverter — a witticism or a comeback that only comes to mind after it’s too late. (Based on a Yiddish word.)
Uitwaaien — a feeling akin to the reinvigorating effects of going for a stroll in a wind. (Based on a Dutch word.)
Vade Mecum — a wise friend or a guide. A literal translation from Latin: “go with me.” (Based on a Latin phrase.)
Verschlimmbessern — making things worse while trying to fix them. (Based on a German word.)
Waldeinsamkeit — a feeling of being alone in nature. (Based on a German word.)
Yūgen — a feeling or a mood arising from the appreciation that the universe possesses magical, mysterious beauty, like the green flash at the moment the sun sets below the ocean horizon — a phenomenon that is rare and yet sublime. (Based on a Japanese word.)
Now, I hope you go out and explore other cool words to add to your vocabulary!