Hemeisis

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

Hemeisis

n.
the off-putting awareness of how deeply your culture’s norms are ingrained in your psyche—arbitrarily defining what you find shameful and admirable, private and communal, attractive and repulsive, fair and unfair—as if you’d been programmed in a way that you can’t control or even perceive, until you happen to encounter someone who has slightly different code.

Ancient Greek ἡμεῖς (hēmeîs), we (excluding the listener). Pronounced “hem-ey-sis.”

Los Vidados

Cover image for the Los Vidados word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Nullness

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

Anticious

a group of men in hats looking at elevated signage

Appriesse

a blurry image of a person looking at mounted images

Karanoia

a neat stack of white paper

Hanker Sore

Cover image for the Hanker Sore word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows