Words

I've always loved words that had interesting meanings and since I was young, I kept a small journal of them.

Here are some of my favs:

Gluggaveður

(n) (Icelandic) window weather

weather that looks appealing from inside but would be unpleasant to be outside in.

Nefelibata

(n) (Portuguese) cloud walker

one who lives in the clouds of their own imagination or dreams; or one who does not obey the conventions of society, literature, or art.

Verschlimmbessern

(v) (German)

to make something worse in an honest but failed attempt to improve it

Kalon

(n) (Greek)

beauty that is more than skin deep

Billet-doux

(n) (French)

a love letter

Komorebi

(n) (Japanese)

sunlight that filters through the leaves of a trees

Antiscians

(n) (Greek)

people who live on opposite sides of the world, "whos shadows at noon are cast in the opposite direction"

Cryptoscopophilia

(n) (Greek)

the urge or pleasure of secretly looking through people's windows as you pass by their homes, a curiosity about the hidden lives within

Tsundoku

(n) (Japanese)

the practice of buying a lot of books and keeping them in a pile because you intend to read them but have not done so yet; also used to refer to the pile itself

Raxeira

(n) (Gaelic)

the thin line of light or sunbeam that filters through a window and casts a shadow on the floor

Cynefin

(n) (Welsh)

a place where someone feels they belong

Augenblick

(n) (German) "in the blink of an eye"

a quick, yet significant moment

Rimijhim

(n) (hindi)

drizzling, light rain, or the soft pitter-patter of small raindrops, often used poetically to evoke gentle, refreshing imagery or sounds.

Setsunai

(adj) (Japanese)

feeling between bittersweet, painful, and wistful

Yūgen

(n) (Japanese)

awareness of universe the universe that triggers an emotional response too deep and powerful for words

Eigengrau

(n) (German) dark light

color seen by eye in darkness

Saudade

(n) (Portuguese and Galician)

a deep longing for someone/something denying the fact they/it will ever come back

And my favorite one:

Ya'aburnee

(n) (Arabic) "you bury me"

an intense, morbidly beautiful declaration of love, expressing the desire to die before a beloved to avoid the pain of living without them