Kinchy

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

Kinchy

adj.
feeling guilty that you care about your own petty concerns more deeply than faraway cataclysms—that a family spat hurts more than a civil war, that a three-day fever hits you harder than climate change.

Japanese 近視 (kinshi), near-sightedness. A word just shy of kinship. Pronounced “kin-chee.”

Fata Organa

Cover image for the Fata Organa word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Zverism

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

Halfwise

a train coming towards the camera shot from the tracks

Karanoia

a neat stack of white paper

Volander

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

Chrysalism

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