The Lexicon Obscura
Words Nobody Uses
(But Everyone Should)
(But Everyone Should)
Ten volumes. The collection is now undeniably a collection.
Vol. 10 · Fifty words. A milestone that nobody planned and everyone arrived at anyway.
Ten volumes. Fifty words. The Lexicon Obscura has now documented, in some small way, the existence of fifty pieces of vocabulary that the English language contains and almost nobody uses. This is not a complete inventory. It is not close to a complete inventory. It is, at best, a representative sample from a much larger archive of linguistic neglect.
For Vol. 10, the selection is deliberately considered. These five words were chosen not only because they deserve to exist in more conversations than they currently do, but because together they say something about what it means to pay attention to language in the first place — to notice that the world contains more than the words we routinely reach for.
Here are five more things you did not know you had a word for.
This Week’s Specimens
Phosphene
/ˈfɒs.fiːn/
noun
sensation
Greek
scientific
The stars and shapes you see when you press your eyes shut — light that comes from inside rather than out.
The visual sensation of light produced by pressure on the eyeballs rather than by external light — the blooming colors and shifting shapes that appear when you press your closed eyes with your fingers, or stand up too quickly, or sneeze hard. The light that has no source outside the eye itself. Every human being has seen phosphenes. Almost none of them knew the experience had a name, let alone one this good.
Example
“She pressed her palms against her eyes and watched the phosphenes bloom and shift — constellations that existed only inside her own skull, lit by nothing at all.”
Origin
From the Greek phos (light) and phainein (to show). The same phos root as photography, phosphorus, and the phosphorescent glow of deep-sea creatures. Light, in Greek, gets everywhere.
Rarity
●●●●●
You have seen these since childhood and never had a word. Here it is, fifty volumes late.
Antelucan
/ˌæn.tɪˈluː.kən/
adjective
time
Latin
poetic
Before dawn — of or belonging to the hours before the light arrives.
Relating to or occurring in the period before dawn — the hours between deep night and first light, when the world is at its most genuinely quiet. The antelucan hours have a quality distinct from both night and morning: the darkness is beginning to thin, the birds have not yet started, and whoever is awake in this window is awake for reasons that feel privately significant. The noctivagant’s natural territory. The scripturient’s preferred hours. A word that the English language has had since the 17th century and almost never used.
Example
“He did his best work in the antelucan hours — the city outside still dark, the rest of the household asleep, everything quiet in a way that felt borrowed and temporary.”
Origin
From the Latin ante (before) and lux / lucis (light). The same lux root as lucubration — studying by lamplight — which appeared in Vol. 3. The Lexicon Obscura now has words for both ends of the night.
Rarity
●●●●●
For the hours that feel like they belong only to you. Now they have a name.
Collywobbles
/ˈkɒl.i.wɒb.əlz/
noun
sensation
British
19th century
An unsettled feeling in the stomach caused by anxiety or nervousness — the physical sensation of being worried.
A feeling of nervous anxiety or queasiness, specifically as felt in the stomach — the physical manifestation of nerves before something important, uncertain, or dreaded. The butterflies before the interview. The stomach that drops before the difficult conversation. The intestinal expression of a mind that has gotten ahead of itself and arrived somewhere frightening before the body was ready. The word is both accurate and cheerful-sounding, which is precisely the right register for describing something unpleasant.
Example
“The collywobbles set in somewhere around the third floor — by the time the elevator opened onto the executive suite, she was substantially less confident than she had been at breakfast.”
Origin
19th-century British English, possibly from colic and wobble, or possibly from the Italian cholera morbus — a serious disease whose symptoms included severe stomach distress. The word has cheerfully survived its origins.
Rarity
●●●●●
Sounds exactly like what it means. A word so good it should be used daily. Start today.
Sillage
/ˈsiː.jɑːʒ/
noun
sensation
French
The trail of scent left in the air by someone who has just passed — the olfactory trace of a person no longer present.
The scent that lingers in a space after the person wearing it has left — the invisible trail left by perfume, cologne, or simply the particular smell of someone, hanging in a corridor or a room or an elevator after they have gone. In perfumery, sillage is a technical term for how far and how long a fragrance projects. In life, it is the moment of catching someone’s scent after they have already passed, and everything that comes with that — memory, recognition, presence felt in absence.
Example
“She had already gone by the time he reached the landing, but the sillage of her perfume remained — a presence more vivid, in some ways, than the person.”
Origin
French, from sillage (the wake of a ship) — the visible trail left in water by a vessel that has passed. The metaphor is precise: a person moves through a space and leaves a wake, invisible but perceptible, that persists after the vessel has gone.
Rarity
●●●●●
The most evocative word in this volume. Possibly in this series. Use it with care.
Velitation
/ˌvel.ɪˈteɪ.ʃən/
noun
conflict
Latin
A minor skirmish or dispute — a small, inconclusive argument that settles nothing and changes no one’s mind.
A slight skirmish or minor dispute — an argument or conflict that is real but small, inconclusive by nature, and unlikely to resolve the underlying disagreement. Not a fight. Not a debate. The brief verbal exchange in the meeting that generates more heat than light and is forgotten by the following Thursday. The comment thread that goes four replies deep and arrives nowhere. The discussion that ends not because it is resolved but because everyone runs out of energy. Most arguments are velitations. This is the word for them.
Example
“What he had hoped would be a serious conversation about process had become a velitation — ten minutes of mild friction that resolved nothing and left everyone slightly tired.”
Origin
From the Latin velitatio (skirmishing), from veles / velites — the light infantry skirmishers of the Roman army, who engaged at the edges of battles rather than in their center. Their job was to harass, not to decide. The word remembers this.
Rarity
●●●●●
The perfect word for 90% of arguments. They were never battles. They were always velitations.
A Note at Fifty Words
Fifty words documented. Each one real, each one unused, each one waiting. The English language contains thousands more like them — precise, evocative, and sitting quietly in dictionaries that nobody opens. The Lexicon Obscura will keep finding them. They will keep being worth finding.
· · · ✦ · · ·
Fifty words. Ten volumes. A collection that did not intend to become one
and has become one anyway.
Vol. 11 next week. The language is not finished with us.
and has become one anyway.
Vol. 11 next week. The language is not finished with us.
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