Fear that learning the name of something—a bird, a constellation, an attractive stranger—will somehow ruin it, transforming a lucky discovery into a conceptual husk pinned in a glass case, which leaves one less mystery to flutter around your head, trying to get in.
Coined in 2012 by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a project, to create a compendium of invented words for every emotion we might all experience but don’t yet have a word for.
YUTING GAO
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links or advertisements in the wordket website are affiliate links or advertisements, meaning, at no additional cost to you. We will earn a commission, if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you 🙂