Solysium

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

Solysium

n.
the unhinged delirium of being alone for an extended period of time— feeling the hours stretch into days until a weird little culture begins to form inside your head, with its own superstitions and alternate histories and a half-mumbled dialect all your own—whose freewheeling absurdity feels oddly liberating but makes it that much harder to reacclimate to the strictures and ambiguities of normal social life.

From solitary, being by oneself + asylum, a sanctuary for the mentally ill + Elysium, the Ancient Greek equivalent of heaven. Pronounced “soh-lee-zee-uhm.”

Proluctance

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

Midsummer

a person standing in a garden holding a clock

Thrapt

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

Fellchaser

a blurred shadow of a person in a dark room

Austice

a leaf imprint in the mud

Endzoned

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