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!