Fitching

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

Fitching

v. intr.
compulsively turning away from works of art you find frustratingly, nauseatingly good—wanting to shut off the film and leave the theater, or devour a book only in maddening little chunks—because it resonates at precisely the right frequency to rattle you to your core, which makes it mildly uncomfortable to be yourself.

From bitching, markedly good + fitch, the European polecat, an animal that often cripples its prey by piercing its brain with its teeth, before storing it alive in its burrow to return and eat sometime later.

Grayshift

a spiral staircase from above

Catoptric Tristesse

Cover image for the Catoptric Tristesse word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Aftergloom

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

Scabulous

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

Present-Tense

a close-up of a stopwatch

Falesia

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