The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Do you ever have a particular emotion, a certain kind of feeling, but can't find a word to describe it? Like think about when you first walk into a bookstore. There's nothing like that feeling . . . but what the heck do you call it? Never fear, have I found the site to solve that little dilemma.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a site self-described as "a compendium of invented words" with the express purpose of giving a name to emotions we all experience, those that up to this point in time, have not been identified. Here are some examples . . .

Ambedo
A kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee

Zenosyne
The sense that time keeps going faster.

Onism
The awareness of how little of the world you'll experience in your lifetime.

Liberosis

The desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life.

Vemödalen

The fear that everything has already been done.

And last, but not least, my personal favorite:

Vellichor
The strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

Pop on over to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and check out some new words for yourself.