Anonymous asked: What's the word for a hard-won battle that has lost too many men, only to gain very little land?

I don’t know a single word for it, unfortunately. But what came to mind was “Pyrrhic victory”—a victory won with little gain and at tremendous cost. I hope that helped a little?

Anonymous asked: I don't know if this has been asked before but what is the word for the smell of ice or snow, the smell of rain is petrichor; is there one for crystallized water (it has a particular smell I'm not crazy right? lol)

I’ve had a number of people ask me about a word for this smell, so you’re definitely not alone. I know that smell too—it’s a high, sharp scent. I want to say that it smells like metal looks, but then I sound crazy.

The thing is that English has very few words for specific scents. I don’t mean words for smells that are related to the things that produce them—it of course has words like fishy or tang or pine—but words like petrichor. (Petrichor is actually not just the smell of rain, but the smell of dry earth after rain. We lack a word for the smell of rain, too.) To my knowledge, there’s only one other, and it’s nidor, which is, um, the smell of burning animals. Or burning fat. Gross, I know. Ozone might count too.

Anyways, I’ve been searching for this word for a long time, without results. It definitely doesn’t exist (yet) in English. But, if you speak another language and know a word for it, please let me know! 

Anonymous asked: Hello. Do you have a word for a person who has ALOT of ambition and goals ?

Slytherin!

Also aspirant, an ambitious person (usually young) with several dreams or goals. You can also try altitudinarian—someone who sets lofty goals and aspires to great heights.

Anonymous asked: What's a nice word for "special day"?

really now

“Red-letter day”? Sorry, I got nothin’. But on a related note, qualtagh means “the first person you meet on a special day”!

(alittlebirdysays: “吉日 (kichijitsu) means ‘lucky day’ or ‘special day’ [in Japanese]!”)

Anonymous asked: Hello :) I love the blog (I'm trying to work cryptoscopophilia into my uni application) Could you help me find a couple of words? The first one is: to protest lightly, hoping that the other person will prevail e.g. "Do you want free stuff?" "No, no, I couldn't possibly...". The other is the adjective of deity (not divine) e.g. He described her in *god-like* terms. I found 'deitical' in a Harry Potter fanfic and a jargon-heavy article on Sylvia Plath, but I wondered if you had anything better? x

Cryptoscophophilia is a good one! I used words from Otherwordly in my college applications too—I’m fairly sure it wasn’t what they expected out of the “describe yourself in five words” question.

The first: I wish there was a verb form of accismus (the act of pretending disinterest by protesting against something while actually desiring it—clearly you want the other person to go “No, I insist!” and give you the free stuff anyways) but I can’t find one.

The second: Deitical isn’t really a word. Sorry, Harry Potter fanfiction author. The more appropriate adjective form is deific. Loosely related, but not an adjective, is apotheosis—elevating someone to godlike status, or talking about them as if they were of such a status. The verb of that would be apotheosize, but there’s no real adjective form.

Sorry I couldn’t be of more help! Please let me know if you’ve got any more questions.

Anonymous asked: what's another word for a cheater/ someone having an affair?

…well, I have many words for a cheater. But not many of them are polite enough to use in this answer, if you know what I mean.

Philanderer works for a man who cheats, but it’s not exclusive to cheaters. It can also mean a man who chases women and has many insignificant sexual relationships.

Quisling is a good one. It means traitor, especially during war, but I’ve also known it used to describe a cheater. Spoken aloud, it has a nice undertone of disgust to it—doesn’t it just sound sort of slimy? Appropriate, I think.

Fun etymology fact of the day: Despite the appearance, the words “adult” and “adultery” come from two different Latin roots, so they aren’t related at all.

Anonymous asked: In the "-philia" vein, is there anything for fire? Not pyrophilia in the sense of lighting fires, but in the sense of arousal from being burnt. Cheers.

My search history right now is a thing of horror. brb clearing all of it ever

I tried, I really did, but I came up with nothing. And I am a search engine ninja. (So I like to think.) There have been academic papers written on the subject, but no one’s managed to come up with a name for it. I’m sorry!

Anonymous asked: Is there a word for someone get sexually aroused from being, or being bitten

Odaxelagnia is arousal through biting/nibbling or being bitten, so the word would be odaxelagniac, I suppose?

I have quite a number of entertaining arousal/sex/-philia words, but I refrain from posting all of them because I feel like it would get repetitive. But certainly some of them will come up from time to time!

Anonymous asked: do you have a word that describes someone who basically loves to do everything? something sexier than "renaissance man"

Tausendsassa! A jack-of-all-trades, or someone with many interests and talents. I’m not sure if it’s sexy, per se, but at least it’s interesting.

Honestly, I think “Renaissance man” (or woman!) is fairly sexy on its own. I like “jack-of-all-trades”, too. (Jill-of-all-trades?)

(EDIT Apparently tausendsassa is a bit of a “wacky” word in German. chenisthebestkitty suggested “Kavalier” (also German), traditionally someone who is elegant, intelligent, honorable, and worldly. In modern terms it’s something like someone who pursues women with elegance and class.)

(DOUBLE EDIT heavenshallremember suggested “bricoleur”, French for a tinkerer or DIY-er, and more broadly one who dabbles in many things. Several anons, bausteine, and elfflame suggested “polymath”, a person of great and varied learning, which I think wins here for sexiness. Good work, everyone!)

(so many parentheses)

Anonymous asked: do you know another word for blink? like as if you were breaking out of a daze.

“Don’t blink! Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t blink.”

…But if you really wanted to, you could also nictate or nictitate. Or I guess you could palpebrate. None of which are particularly sexy, so let’s pretend like I’m taking a day off from my role as Professional Sexy Word Hunter*.

If you wanted something from another language, you could try Kannada (a language spoken in India), which has mitakisu, which bears the slightly more interesting definition of “to blink, to twinkle, to beckon with the eye; to look at inquisitively with the eyes half shut”.

* WHICH BY THE WAY means “I’m a hunter of sexy words”, not “I am a word hunter and also sexy”. of course I realize that it could be read both ways after I post it

Anonymous asked: Is there a sexier word for "chuckle"?

what

I was actually going to say “no of course not because chuckling is not sexy in the first place”, but since I love you so dearly, I went and found you cachinnation, which is another word for a chuckle but is still not that sexy.

I also found boffola, which is so far down the sexy scale that it might as well be underground, but which sounds funny enough that it might prompt a boffola itself.

Newest in “bad ideas I have had”: Now I really want business cards that say “Professional Sexy Word Hunter”.

Anonymous asked: is there a word for someone who is terrified of phones? Like calling people and answering the phone?

Telephonophobia or telephobia, interchangeable. Not phonophobia, though, because that’s fear or dislike of sounds in general.

…is this a bad time to complain how “call me maybe” has been stuck in my head (again) for the past three days