Nullness

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

Nullness

n.
a state of instinctive restlessness that arises when your society makes too many choices on your behalf—foreclosing all risks, codifying all moral dilemmas, deciding in advance whether you’ll succeed or fail—as if your conscience had been outsourced to an external provider, so it’s no longer necessary to have one on site.

From null, an empty set of values.

Hailbound

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

Elsing

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

Boorance

a group of objects on a table

Rasque

close-up of the shards of a broken vase

Pithered

stacks of papers and folders piled high on a table

Tillid

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