Hemeisis

Cover image for the Hemeisis word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Hemeisis

n.
the off-putting awareness of how deeply your culture’s norms are ingrained in your psyche—arbitrarily defining what you find shameful and admirable, private and communal, attractive and repulsive, fair and unfair—as if you’d been programmed in a way that you can’t control or even perceive, until you happen to encounter someone who has slightly different code.

Ancient Greek ἡμεῖς (hēmeîs), we (excluding the listener). Pronounced “hem-ey-sis.”

Ecury

a close-up of cave drawings and symbols

Maugry

Cover image for the Maugry word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

La Gaudière

Cover image for the La Gaudière word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Wollah

a person with shapes raining on them

Aulasy

a blurry image of a house on the road

Rookish

a stone tower with a person seated on top