The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Most of what we feel goes unspoken for lack of a word – the ache you can't place, the mood that arrives unannounced, the thought you've never said aloud.

John Koenig has spent over a decade naming them. What began as his blog in 2009 grew into a video series and, in 2021, a New York Times bestselling book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Inspired by his project, this site allows all of us to create new words of our own – each built like it had always belonged. Some will describe something you were sure was yours alone. Most of us are carrying the same unnamed things, just quietly.

Read one, and you might feel a little less alone in it. Read a few, and the world starts to feel different.

"I read the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything."

—Steven Wright

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Featured Word

Winnewaw

n.

an unexpected burst of good news that only makes you skeptical, believing that every sudden rise in your fortunes must inevitably be accompanied by an impending fall, which leaves you feeling uneasy at the end of a really good day, waiting around for the punch line.

Middle English winne, joy + wawe, woe. Compare williwaw, a sudden blast of wind descending from the mountains to the sea. Pronounced “win-uh-waw.”

Featured Chapter:

Between Living and Dreaming