Anecdoche

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Anecdoche

n.
a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening— instead merely overlaying words like a spoken game of Scrabble, each player borrowing bits of others’ anecdotes to build out their own, until we reach a point when we all run out of things to say.

From anecdote, a short and often amusing account of real-life events + synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole. Pronounced “uh-nek-doh-kee.”

Hobsmacked

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Austice

a leaf imprint in the mud

Pâro

Cover image for the Pâro word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Nilous

a person standing at a bus terminal

Rasque

close-up of the shards of a broken vase

Punt Kick

Cover image for the Punt Kick word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows