The Lexicon Obscura

Relating to or resembling a swallow — specifically the bird’s characteristic qualities: the sweeping arc of its flight, its speed, the precision of its turns, the way it makes movement look effortless. Used occasionally in natural history writing and more occasionally in poetry. Almost never heard in ordinary conversation, which seems like a genuine loss.

Example

“Her hirundine movements across the dance floor left the audience breathless — swift, precise, impossibly graceful.”

Origin

From the Latin hirundo (swallow). Entered English in the 17th century and has been living quietly in natural history texts ever since, occasionally spotted in the wild by people who own too many field guides.

Rarity ●●●●●

A compliment so rare the recipient will have to look it up. This is not a flaw.

A deep, aching sadness about the state of the world — the gap between how things are and how they ought to be. Not a passing mood. Not simple pessimism. The specific exhaustion of a person who is paying attention, who understands perfectly well what is happening, and who finds the distance between the actual and the ideal genuinely painful. You feel this after reading the news for an hour. It has a name. The name is German, which is appropriate.

Example

“After reading the news for an hour, he put down his phone, overcome by a familiar weltschmerz he couldn’t shake.”

Origin

German: Welt (world) + Schmerz (pain). Born out of 19th-century German Romanticism, popularized by poets including Heinrich Heine. Borrowed into English because, once again, English did not have anything adequate.

Rarity ●●●●●

Currently the most useful word in this entire series. Conditions are favorable.

Having a warm, stuffy, slightly musty atmosphere — the specific quality of air in a room that has been closed up and left alone. Not quite a bad smell. Not unpleasant enough to be offensive. Just noticeably, unmistakably unventilated. The back room of an old library. Your grandmother’s spare bedroom. A vacation cottage on the first day. Frowsty is the precise word for this, and it has been waiting in British English for someone to rediscover it.

Example

“The frowsty parlour hadn’t been opened in years; the curtains held the smell of a dozen forgotten winters.”

Origin

19th-century British English, a variant of frowzy (slovenly, musty). One of the rare cases where a dialect word made it into standard usage and then — despite being perfectly useful — somehow failed to catch on.

Rarity ●●●●●

You have experienced this. Possibly this morning. Now you have the word for it.

The perception of meaningful connections between unrelated things — seeing faces in clouds, finding significance in coincidences, noticing that something happened three times and concluding the universe is trying to tell you something. The human brain is extraordinarily good at pattern recognition, which is mostly a feature. Apophenia is what happens when it applies that skill to noise. It is the engine behind superstition, conspiracy thinking, and a very large amount of stock market analysis.

Example

“Seeing faces in toast and finding meaning in coincidences — apophenia is the engine behind most superstitions.”

Origin

Coined by German psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in 1958, from the Greek apo- (away from) and phaenein (to show). Originally used in the context of psychosis; now understood as a spectrum that includes perfectly ordinary human cognition.

Rarity ●●●●●

Knowing this word will not stop you from doing it. It will at least give you something to call it.

Nocturnal study or literary work — the act of working late by artificial light, and the written output that emerges from it. Can carry a slightly ironic connotation when the resulting work is overly elaborate or pedantic: the product of too many late nights and not enough fresh air. There is something both admirable and slightly sad about lucubration. The lamp burning past midnight. The accumulated pages. The question of whether it was worth it.

Example

“His three-volume theory was the product of years of solitary lucubration — and, frankly, it showed.”

Origin

From the Latin lucubrare (to work by lamplight), from lux (light). Entered English in the 16th century. The same root gives us “lucid.” The connection between light and clear thinking runs through the etymology.

Rarity ●●●●●

If you are reading this late at night, you are engaged in lucubration right now. You are welcome.