You have probably felt some complex feeling that you cannot really explain, at least not in one word. Well, it turns out that there are some made-up words that can help you express these obscure feelings. Most (or all) of the words you see on the list below were published in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
- Sonder – The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
- Opia – The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
- Pâro – The feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong.
- Monachopsis – The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
- Rubatosis – The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
- Kenopsia – The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet
- Mauerbauertraurigkeit – The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
- Jouska – A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
- Chrysalism – The amniotic tranquillity of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
- Anecdoche – A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening.
- Ellipsism – A sadness that you will never be able to know how history will turn out.
- Lachesism – The desire to be struck by a disaster – to survive a plane crash or to lose everything in a fire.
- Adronitis – Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
- Onism – The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
- Liberosis – The desire to care less about things.
- Altschmerz– Weariness with the same old issues that you have always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you have been gnawing on for years.
- Occhiolism – The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.
- Wwytai – A feature of modern society that suddenly strikes you as absurd and grotesque.
- Vemödalen – The fear that everything has already been done.
- Midding – Feeling the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it.
