Little backstory: I started relearning Spanish last week and I’ve learned so much more than I ever have just by studying and discovering new words with and without context. Well, I found that there are words that I just love! I’m currently obsessed with salpicar and mapache (splash and raccoon).

Anyway, point of the thread: What are some of your favorite words, in any language, and why do you like them?

reminds me that i gotta start trying to learn Japanese again lol.

anyway, for English, i really like the word ephemeral (the quality of lasting for a short span of time). recently came across the word steadfast (adjective for loyal or constant) which i find pleasant as well.

i remember there being an art project where someone attempted to invent words (The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows). idk if thats still going on, but i like the word anemoia that they came up with, which is a noun for "nostalgia for a time you've never known". surprised that hasnt caught on, very pretty and very applicable for...a lot of media these days lol

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

recombobulation

scrumptious
garbanzo
Bagatelldelikt

doohickey

Is words an entry?

"Evaluation" is such a cool word simply because its not a compound word or otherwise made up and still includes all vowels of the Roman alphabet in a neat way.

"gerizekalı"
turkish for "idiot", lit. Back(wards)-smart, it's such a roundabout way of calling someone dumb and I love it

"Lagom" - A Swedish word that roughly means "just right". It is a satisfying word to say and use!

favourite word?


real

don’t have a specific word but i like that feeling when you say a word so much in a convo that it temporarily doesn’t sound like a word anymore and for a short while, you hear the sounds of the word for what it is

melancia

Yes, goluigi! I did that with “should” and “ice” in a conversation and then I realized how weird they actually look.

mi palabra favorita? I guess como.

Technically three words, but Creedence Clearwater Revival.
I don't even listen to their music, their name just has such a good mouthfeel.

From Anglo-Saxon: fús. Also Kroger and barnyard

I'm glad this thread has more explaining neat words than just listing off random favourites without explanation.

Some of my favourites
Banjax - To break, usually in reference to a limb.
Wean - A young child, my granny uses this alot in her thick Donegal accent and it's pretty funny.
Mañana - Tomorrow and also morning in Spanish. I love how it means both.
Bally - Old Irish for settlement, said like "BAH-Le" not "Ball-Le". Tons of towns or villages have in their name, some sound a bit silly like Ballybogey or Ballymoney.
Rime - Frost in the air, just a cool word to describe that.

Not one of my favourites but Dobra is Polish for Okay and is also appartently a small village. It is also the currency in São Tomé and Príncipe. Didn't know either when I stole Dobra as my username.

current small selection

envelope
purloin
deem
exquisite
neidbau
koinonia
molecule
err
cirrus
legume

Antidisestablishmentarianism

goluigi: this feeling is called jamais vu

speaking of french, they call a ham melt (sandwich) a croque monsieur

Shuumatsu - Japanese for weekend.

At some point in my life I was learning Japanese and French at the same time. Usually, French tries to structure a French word for foreign concepts whenever possible (they even use the word octet for byte -8 bits-). Japanese, on the other hand, doesn't worry anymore and generally slaps an English word for non traditional Eastern concepts.

That said, French for weekend, is weekend; but they say le weekend (Pulp Fiction's Big Mac dialogue reference). Well, I immediately imagined that the Japanese word for it would be WIKKUENDO or something like that. But I was happy to know that they have their own word for those elusive two days ^^ .

simultaneously just learned 潔癖 keppeki and fastidious in english
https://youtu.be/K_wx8VYTln0

i like when i don’t know what either the english or the japanese is

favorite word in English: defenestration

has a lot of backstory and just sounds funny

favorite word in Nigerian Yoruba: wahala

it means unfathomably nonsense, in words that English cannot describe

favorite word in Spanish: Suavemente

The terminal montage bit made me laugh

favorite word in Latin:

I don't really have a favorite word, but... I do have a favorite sentence...

mater tui magna chunga est

i really like saying "peanut oil" its very fun to say

Shenanigans

Claire

What I like about the word "skepticism" is that typing it feels like playing ping-pong.

БЛЯТЬ

fish (for some reason)

booty (🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️)

I really like compound words like these -

wherewithal
heretofore
notwithstanding
nevertheless
inasmuch / insomuch
whatsoever

Defenestrate:

an English word for throwing someone out of a window. It comes from the Latin word "Fenestra" (window). The term was coined during the height of the Protestant reformation when a certain bishop was thrown out of a window (the defenestration of Prague)

One would think that such a specific word wouldn't get much use but ohhhhh boy it does. I'm recent times, there was a certain lawyer who believed the window of his office was unbreakable so he threw himself into it at full force. The window did not break. It popped out of the wall... With him. Thus he defenestrated himself.

The nation that holds the record for most defenestrations is Russia.

Sadly, refrenestration does not refer to throwing someone back through the same window. Instead, it is an architectural term referring to replacing windows.

(Oh crappa I did notta see my earlier commentah)

cheeseburger

Whilst my speech has occasionally yielded confused comments of perplexity from my peers, typically on account of a verbose and sometimes superfluous vocabulary, I am remissed to report a depravity in the subject of "favorite words"... A larger verbal lexicon is often called for, I feel, to express certain particularities as a situation may dictate.

Idk, maybe "phenomenal" or "esoteric". Fun words I guess.

consociationalism

凸凹 - Dekoboko, meaning unevenness or imbalance.

凸 means convex and 凹 means concave.

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia solely because of the irony of it being the fear of long words

anemonia

Backfisch.