Often there is a word for that. English, and the languages it borrows from, has words for many feelings, habits, and situations that most people would describe in a whole sentence. Here are 20 of them, with their meanings, that you can start using in your speech and your writing today.
Sometimes, when you struggle to find the right word for a situation or a feeling, you give up. Some things just seem impossible to sum up in one word. But there are far more words for emotions, events, and states of mind than you might think.
20 words you should start using now
1. Accismus
Pretending to refuse something you really want. It is a form of irony: you deny that you long for something although you are obviously craving it.
2. Agamy
The absence of marriage, or simply the state of being unmarried. A strong dislike of marriage has a word of its own: misogamy.
3. Apricate
To bask in the sun. Whether you get a tan is up to you.
4. Cunctation
A polite way of saying that you have been procrastinating. It means putting something off, whether you had good reasons or were just too lazy.
5. Deipnophobia
Not quite a fear, but rather the dread of attending a dinner party.
6. Demonym
A word for the people who live in a particular place, such as Parisian for a person from Paris, Texan for a person from Texas, or the informal Kiwi for a New Zealander.
7. Engild
To make something bright as gold. If something is engilded, it shines as if it were gilded, the way things do when the evening sun lights them up.
8. Epeolatry
The worship of words. If you are a logophile, a lover of words, you almost certainly practice epeolatry.
9. Eponym
A word that comes from a person's name, because that person invented or started something, or was well known for it. For example, chauvinism comes from Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier, possibly a legendary one, who was known for his extreme patriotism.
10. Litotes
An understatement that says something by denying its opposite, often for emphasis or out of modesty: "not bad" for "good", or "She's no fool" for "She's clever".
11. Malapropism
An eponym named after a fictional character: Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play The Rivals. A malapropism is the mistaken use of a word in place of another one that sounds similar, often with a funny result.
12. Metanoia
The process or act of changing your mind.
13. Parapraxis
You probably know the Freudian slip. Parapraxis is its technical name: a slip of the tongue or the pen, where you mean to say one thing but say another.
14. Quake-buttock
An old word for a coward.
15. Quidnunc
From the Latin for "What now?", a quidnunc is a nosy person who always wants to know the latest news, or who loves to gossip.
16. Thrasonical
Boastful. The word comes from Thraso, a bragging soldier in a comedy by the Roman playwright Terence. The next time someone boasts, tell them they are being thrasonical.
17. Schadenfreude
A German word for the pleasure you feel at someone else's misfortune.
18. Uhtceare
An Old English word for lying awake before dawn, thinking heavy thoughts and worrying.
19. Verbicide
The deliberate distortion of a word's meaning: using a word in a sense it does not have. A well-known example is the use of literally to mean "figuratively". The difference between the two is explained in easily confused words.
20. Waldeinsamkeit
A German word for the feeling of being alone in the woods. It combines a sense of calm and relaxation with a feeling of closeness to nature.
For more unusual words, see 15 crazy and weird words in the English dictionary, and for why a bigger vocabulary helps your writing, read why it is important to expand your vocabulary.