Caucic

a close-up of a stone walking path

Caucic

adj.
afraid that the rest of your life is already laid out in front of you, that you’re being swept inexorably along a series of predictable milestones—from school to graduation to career to marriage to kids to retirement to death—which makes you wish you could pull off to the side of the road for a little while, to stretch your legs and spread out the map so you can double-check that you’re headed the right way.

Middle English cauci, path or road + caustic, able to burn or corrode living tissue. Pronounced “kaw-sik.”

Anechosis

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

Drisson

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

Nemotia

a city with clouds of smoke

Anaphasia

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

Rasque

close-up of the shards of a broken vase

1202

Cover image for the 1202 word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows