After Words With No Direct Translation To English, I give you the sequel. As always, if you happen to know better definitions, please let us know in the comments.
1- Saudade (n): A Portuguese word for a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves, which carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing may never return .
2- Sehnsucht (n): A German word for the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what; a yearning or craving for a far, familiar, not-earthly land one can identify as home.
3- Hiraeth (n): A Welsh word for homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed; a mix of deep longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past.
4- Boketto [ぼけっと] (adj. or v.): A Japanese word for gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking or doing anything.
5- Uitwaaien (v): A Dutch word for taking a break from the activities of the daily life to clear one’s head; lit. to “walk in the wind”.
6- Tacenda (n): A word from Latin origin for things better left unsaid; matters to be passed on in silence.
7- Ostranenie [остранение] (n): A Russian word for defamiliarisation, which is the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in a strange, wild, and unfamiliar way in order to enhance perception of the familiar, so they know it on a different or deeper level.
I specifically like this word because it describes that which I constantly had in mind while writing my book. Naturally, it is found in there.
8- Vorfreude (n): A German word for the joyful, intense anticipation which comes from imagining future pleasures.
9- Cynefin [ˈkʌnɨvɪn] (n. or adj.): A Welsh word which, as a noun, means habitat, and as an adjective means familiar. It is used to describe the state of being influenced and often determined by our experience; by the multiple pasts of which we can only be partly aware. It can also refer to fleeting moments in time; a place or the time when we instinctively belong or feel most connected; a place where nature around one feels right and welcoming, and where a person or even an animal feels it ought to live.
The latter meaning of Cynefin echoes with one more word with no direct translation to English: Querencia (n): A metaphysical concept in the Spanish language. The term comes from the Spanish verb ‘querer’, meaning “to desire, love”; from Latin quaerere ‘seek’. Querencia describes a place where one feels safe; a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn and where one feels at home.
The word is originally applied to the bullfighting ring: It is the place where the bull feels comfortable; where he prefers to be. In a broader context, it is the place where one feels most at home; lair, home ground. It can also means homesickness and longing for home.
10- Dérive (n): A French word for a spontaneous journey where the traveler leaves their life behind for a time to let the spirit of the landscape and architecture attract and move them. Lit. “drift”; unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct the travelers, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience.
11- Meraki (adj): A Greek word for the soul, creativity, or love put into something; the essence of oneself put into that which they love doing.
12- Fernweh (n): A German word for wanderlust; yearning to see distant places; craving for traveling.
13- Natsukashii [懐かしい] (adj): A Japanese word for sudden euphoric nostalgia triggered by experiencing something for the first time in a long time; the state of feeling nostalgic or a fond, sweet memory.
14- Orenda [oʊrɛndə] (n): An Iroquois Indian word for a mystical power inherent in people and their environment; remarkable invisible power which pervades in varying degrees all animate and inanimate natural objects as a transmissible spiritual energy capable of being exerted according to the will of its possessor.
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| “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in” |
ALSO VIEW:
Words With No Direct Translation To English
Unusual English Words I learned Later in Life
Words With Italian Origin That Are Still Used Today In Egypt
Some Arabic Sayings and Their Translations
From English as a Third Language to Author — How I Expanded My Vocabulary
Why Many Place Names End with ‘-Stan’
On Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing
Words I Made Up
Words I Made Up — The Sequel
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