Beautiful rare words
with the moments they found people.

sonder

noun

The profound realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Sitting on the tube at rush hour, watching faces. Everyone going somewhere that matters to them. I felt very small and very connected at once.

hiraeth

noun

A Welsh longing for home that you cannot return to, or that never was.

Driving back through the town I grew up in. Everything smaller than I remembered. Missing something I couldn't name.

nostalgia

noun

A sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

My old playlist on shuffle. A song from when I was 19 and had no idea what was coming. I sat in the car and didn't go inside for ten minutes.

petrichor

noun

The smell of rain on dry earth.

The first rain after a long summer. My grandmother's garden in Lahore. I was seven and I didn't know I was making a memory.

liminal

adjective

Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a threshold or boundary.

The airport at 4am. Between the life I had and the one I was flying toward. Neither yet.

vellichor

noun

The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.

A secondhand bookshop in Edinburgh. Someone had annotated every page in pencil. I bought the book to keep their thoughts.

ineffable

adjective

Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

Holding my daughter for the first time. I tried to write about it that night. Every sentence felt like a betrayal of the actual thing.

solivagant

noun

A lone wanderer; one who travels alone.

Three hours walking with no destination in a city I didn't know. Every street a discovery. No one waiting for me. Perfect.

wistful

adjective

Having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing.

Looking at photos from five years ago. I wasn't even that happy then, but I still miss it. I think I miss who I thought I'd become by now.

solace

noun

Comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness.

After my dad died I started going for long walks. I didn't know why until I realised it was the only time I wasn't expected to be okay.

wanderlust

noun

A strong desire to travel and explore the world.

I opened Google Maps and started zooming into random places and reading about them. It was 11pm on a Tuesday. Some part of me was already packing.

melancholy

noun

A pensive sadness with no obvious cause; a state of deep and pleasurable sorrow.

A rainy Sunday when nothing was wrong. I made coffee and sat by the window and felt something I couldn't name. Not unhappy. Just full of something heavy and soft.

chrysalism

noun

The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.

A storm that lasted all day. I cancelled my plans and stayed in with a book and a blanket and felt completely, inexplicably safe.

adronitis

noun

Frustration with how long it takes to truly know someone.

A first date that ended at 3am. We had talked for six hours and I still felt like I was standing at the entrance. I wanted to skip the next two years and already know them.

opia

noun

The ambiguous intensity of eye contact — the feeling of being seen and simultaneously seeing.

A stranger on the train who held my gaze for a second too long. Not threatening. Not flirtatious. Just: I see you exist. It stayed with me all day.

hygge

noun

A Danish quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment.

A Sunday in February. Candles, soup, the rain outside. Nothing to do and nowhere to be. This is what I have been trying to recreate ever since.

ephemeral

adjective

Lasting for a very short time.

Cherry blossoms, first day. I stood under them for ten minutes just to look. They were gone by Thursday.

kenopsia

noun

The eerie, unsettling atmosphere of a place that is usually busy but is now abandoned.

My school, visited years later on a holiday weekend. The hallways exactly as I remembered. No one there.

wabi-sabi

noun

A Japanese worldview centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.

A cracked teacup my mother refused to throw away. It pours perfectly. The crack is part of its history now.

serendipity

noun

The occurrence of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

A wrong turn in Lisbon led me to the only bookshop I've ever cried in. I wasn't looking for it. It was looking for me.

catharsis

noun

The process of releasing and providing relief from strong or repressed emotions.

I cried at the end of a film I had seen before. I knew it was coming and I cried anyway. Something needed to get out.

meraki

noun

Doing something with soul, creativity, and love. Leaving a piece of yourself in your work.

Watching my father fix things. He never rushed. Whatever he touched, he gave it his full attention. Cooking, building, mending.

exulansis

noun

The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.

After moving countries. People ask how it was. I say "good." It is not that I don't want to tell them. It is that I don't know where to start.

reverie

noun

A state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream.

I was supposed to be listening in the meeting. I was watching rain on the window and thinking about a holiday I took eight years ago. I came back to the room and no one had noticed.

respite

noun

A short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant.

A Wednesday afternoon off when everyone else was working. I sat in a café and read for three hours. Nothing was solved. Everything felt manageable again.

lucent

adjective

Glowing with or giving off light; luminously clear.

My daughter's face when she understood something for the first time. The word just lit up. That is the only way to describe it.

numinous

adjective

Having a strong spiritual or mysterious quality; suggesting the presence of something greater.

A cathedral in Prague, midweek, almost empty. Light coming through a window I couldn't see. I am not religious. I was not sure what I was feeling. It was bigger than me.

susurrus

noun

A whispering or murmuring sound.

A library on a Friday afternoon. The soft sound of pages. Someone typing slowly. The building breathing. I didn't want to be anywhere else.

selcouth

adjective

Strange and wonderful; unfamiliar, rare, and marvellous.

Watching a murmuration of starlings for the first time. I didn't know that was what it was called. I just stood in a field with my mouth open.

halcyon

adjective

Denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

The summers before anything mattered. Before bills and ambitions and comparison. We just played until it got dark and then did it again the next day.

ennui

noun

A feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

A Sunday in November when I had everything I needed and still couldn't settle. I kept picking up my phone. I kept putting it down. I didn't want anything specific. I just wanted something.

phosphorescence

noun

Light emitted by a substance without combustion or perceptible heat; a soft, mysterious glow.

Swimming at night off the coast of Croatia. Every movement lit up the water around me. I stayed in far too long. I could not believe that was real.

anemoia

noun

Nostalgia for a time you have never known.

Old photographs of strangers. A party in 1967, someone laughing with their whole body. I keep looking at this person I never met and missing them.

liberosis

noun

The desire to care less about things.

Watching my cat sleep in a sunbeam for twenty minutes straight. Not a single concern. I genuinely envied him.

Crotchety

adjective

Cranky, disagreeable, or stubborn, especially if prone to odd whims or fancies.

Reading

Deliquesce

verb

To melt and disappear.

May 22, 2026

Ouroboros

noun

A serpent, dragon or worm that eats its own tail, a representation of the continuous cycle of life and death.

Oh well…

Adage

noun

An old saying which has obtained credit by long use

welp

interjection

(US informal) used to express disappointment or resignation (= the fact that you must accept something you do not like) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/welp

At first I was extremely defensive and kinda irritated but as he kept going I realized "damn that's you". Welp time to make so changes.

wishful thinking

noun

the imagining or discussion of a very unlikely future event or situation as if it were possible and might one day happen

I thought you might have been a good guy. But I guess that was just wishful thinking. - А ведь ты показался мне отличным парнем. Но, видимо, я просто хотела, чтобы это было правдой.

Aggrade

verb

To build up or raise the level of a riverbed or landscape through the deposition of sediment, as if the earth itself were composing itself into higher ground; to gradually elevate a surface through accumulation.

A comment that made a dad joke that said what "aggrade way to learn a new word "

Genuflect

verb

To bend one's knee in an act of reverence, submission, or prayer, whether before an altar, a sovereign, or the weight of one's own conscience. The body's eloquent confession of humility.

Found it in a book and it stopped me in a completely odd context

derelict

noun

A person without a home, job, or property

Coming straight from my google keep list

sycophants

noun

One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another; a servile flatterer.

Can't recall, been years, found it in my google keep notes

Pyrrhic

adjective

Describing a victory so costly in its achievement that it amounts to a defeat, named for the ancient king Pyrrhus whose triumphs against Rome left his armies so devastated they could not continue the war. To win pyrrhically is to discover that the price of conquest has consumed the very spoils one sought to claim.

A few years ago, we pushed code to production. Everyone thought we would be in and out. We were not. A few bugs in sanity testing turned a 20 minute job into a 3 hour one. When we finally called it, our team lead said "pyrrhic victory." I had to look it up. It stayed with me because it explained that night so perfectly. A word I did not know I needed until I heard it.

flippant

adjective

Marked by a casual, irreverent disregard for the weight or seriousness of a matter; speaking or acting with a lightness that dismisses gravity where gravity is due. The flippant remark dances where solemnity should stand.

Google keep

Apogee

noun

The point, in an orbit about the Earth, that is furthest from the Earth: the apoapsis of an Earth orbiter.

It’s been sitting in my list of words for years. I think the context was where some development reaches its peak.

catastrophic

adjective

Of or pertaining to a catastrophe.

kilig

noun

giddiness • thrilled • shiver • romantic excitement • shuddering • butterflies (in one's stomach); exhilaration (from an exciting or romantic experience)

My best friend told me about the meaning of this world when we were in high school.

bundok

noun

mountain

Where the word boondocks comes from.

matuloy

verb

to follow through; to continue; to be able to continue; to push through

I had heard this word in buwan all the time. Then I learned what it meant.

Torrent

Calamity

noun

An event resulting in great loss.

feral

adjective

Wild and untamed, having reverted to a natural state beyond the reach of civilization; marked by an unrestrained, primal quality that suggests both danger and freedom.

世界 (せかい)

world

have a bee in your bonnet

idiom

to keep talking about something again and again because you think it is very important

Harry stared at the black inside of the hat, waiting. Then a small voice said in his ear, “Bee in your bonnet, Harry Potter?” “Er, yes,” Harry muttered. “Er—sorry to bother you—I wanted to ask—” “You’ve been wondering whether I put you in the right House,” said the hat smartly.

Jökull

noun

An Icelandic glacier, those vast rivers of ancient ice that move with glacial patience through mountain valleys, carving the land into cathedrals of stone and crevasse.

Jökulsárlón. First light. The icebergs moved slower than I expected, like they had nowhere to be and had decided this centuries ago. I stood at the edge and felt very small and very lucky at the same time.

bereavement

noun

the death of a close relation or friend

The crux of the Air Canada case lay in a disagreement between the airline's chatbot and the airline's Bereavement Fares Policy webpage