The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach—lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, huddled in the company of other misfits, unable to recognize the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you’d be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home.

Coined 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.

GREG RAKOZY RITA VICARI

 

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 🙂

1 comment
  1. Im a monachopsis. Now, I know and thanks for sharing your rich vocabulary. I can relate to.

Leave a Reply

You May Also Like
Read More

Lachesism

For a million years, we’ve watched the sky and huddled in fear. But somehow you still find yourself…
Read More

Midsummer

A feast celebrated on the day of your 26th birthday, which marks the point at which your youth…
Read More

Daguerreologue

An imaginary interview with an old photo of yourself. An enigmatic figure who still lives in the grainy and color-warped house you…
Read More

Nighthawk

A recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night—an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a…
Read More

Keta

An image that inexplicably leaps back into your mind from the distant past. Coined in 2012 by John Koenig in The…
Read More

Amicy

The mystery of what goes on behind the scenes of your social life, wondering about all the back…
Read More

Nefelibata

“cloud walker”; one who lives in the clouds of their own imagination, or one who does not obey…
Read More

Pochemuchka

One who asks too many questions. Mostly used to describe a child, who is more curious, tends to…
Read More

Ecstatic Shock

The surge of energy upon catching a glance from someone you like—a thrill that starts in your stomach,…
Read More

Liberosis

The desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every…
Read More

Anecdoche

A conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of…
Read More

Nodus Tollens

The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore. Although you thought, that you…
Read More

Fitzcarraldo

An image that somehow becomes lodged deep in your brain. Maybe washed there by a dream, or smuggled…
Read More

Lutalica

When you were born they put you in a little box and slapped a label on it. But…