Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth

January 13, 2012 10:38 AM

What words have you made up that you use regularly?

I have been doing some reading on the invention of words and how language evolves, etc and am curious what words MeFites have made up that you use in your day to day life? Please give the word and the definition, part of speech etc. The more detail the better.

I am looking for words that can be pronounced using standard rules of the language it is in.

To be specific, I am not really looking for existing words that you have repurposed, puns, acronyms, just random letter combinations that can't be pronounced, proper nouns (mainly names) used as words (for instance, for fans of the US version of the office "schruted"), combinations of existing words (like assplate) or just some random words that you can make up on the spot that you have never used.

In addition, if anyone has any stories to tell about using their invented words or if you can detail the etymology and creation story of your word, that would be awesome.

I am curious about words that you yourself have come up with, stuff that I can't necessarily find on the internet, unless there are new words that have gone mainstream that you are personally responsible for (bonus points for those words).

Also, I only speak English but please words in any languages will be awesome.

Mrs. Holdkris99 says I am putting too many restrictions on this and should just let people answer and that their should be a word for doing that. I told her there is: asshole. But that is not my intention.

posted by holdkris99 to writing & language (207 answers total)

I call my cats "crittens," a mixture of "critter" and "kitten." Does that count?
posted by vickyverky at 10:43 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

My wife and I use the word "dironic" (die-ronic) to refer to an ironic death.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:45 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Have you ever heard of Sniglets? I used to love those when I was a kid, and some of them made it into my personal lexicon. I think what you're looking for is basically people's Sniglets (which is itself, of course, a Sniglet).
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:45 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

I made up the word "ponks" when small for the lugs on jigsaw puzzle pieces (I need a piece with 2 ponks) and also lego bricks (an 8-ponker, etc.)

I don't think that's a repurpose of an existing word. It can be used for any protruding part, e.g. the thing that connects pieces of toy train track.

I've been using that word for about 35 years and have introduced other people to it.

A friend's family invented "windypins" for hiccups and "peffling" for that small annoying cough that's not a proper cough. I now use these words.

Finally, I call a staple remover an "elephant's ears", because it looks like a set of ears, have done so for 20 years and have made other people use it too.

Hope that helps!
posted by LyzzyBee at 10:46 AM on January 13 [13 favorites]

To moosify something is to break or damage it by being too big or strong for the task. You know, like a moose?
posted by workerant at 10:46 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]

"Brrr-ing" to describe a very cold climate.

"It's brr-ing cold out there today!"
posted by Aquaman at 10:47 AM on January 13

I didn't make this word up, but it's been in my family for about three generations so far, coming from my mother's side of the family when she and her siblings were little. The word is "doot-doot" and it's the cardboard tube that's in a roll of toilet paper, paper towels or gift wrap (there are varying lengths of doot-doots).

Obvious etymology: the instinct to put the tube to one's mouth and go DOOOOT DOOOOOT throught it. (I dare anyone to tell me you've never once done this.)
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:48 AM on January 13 [14 favorites]

My partner and I frequently call things by incorrect/new names and mispronounce things because it amuses us - Doctor Who is Doctor Whoodle, Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy is "Dinker Dinker Dinker Dinker", etc. Once he was trying to prove to me that this is entirely silliness, so he decided to make up a new word that could not possibly be useful:

Foonsockled (deverbal adjective; verb form doesn't see any usage): To get one's socks wet by stepping in a small puddle while walking around the house (e.g. after emptying the dishwasher.) "No, I'm not ready to leave yet, I got foonsockled in the kitchen and I have to change my socks."

We now use this word constantly, of course.
posted by heyforfour at 10:48 AM on January 13 [52 favorites]

Well, I don't know if this fits squarely within your technical specifications, but I made up a word to describe the noises my dog makes when he's playing with our kitten: snarfelgarf (SNAR-full-garf).

As in:

Emery is snarfelgarfing again!

Emery, that is one loud snarfelgarf!

The noise itself is a combination of heavy panting and little tiny growls.
posted by cooker girl at 10:49 AM on January 13

Back when I was in electronics school we had all the components laid out on snap-together plates that could be connected quickly with wires that had the same snaps on them. They were the exact same snaps you get on jeans and jackets. We called the "outie" snaps "Ghuzintas" and the "innies" were "Grabzontas."

Winter hikers, especially ones with beards and mustaches, often have to deal with "snotcicles", which are exactly what they sound like.
posted by bondcliff at 10:50 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

OK, this isn't my word, but it's a good one, so I'm going to tell it :

My dad had a friend back in his oil field days that would say, "For your prelutification, blah blah blah" - and by that he meant "For your information."

I still use it, just because it means a bit stronger than "information", and because it sounds good. Pre-loo-tih-fih-CAY-shun.
posted by HopperFan at 10:50 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]

My Boy and I use the word "smeet." It's for when you can't promise something because too many factors may be out of your control, but you mean much more than "try." As in "I smeet that I will take you to Hawaii this year." It goes like this try
We also say "pig in a blanket" for sympathy. It means "This thing that has happened to you is so awful, there are literally no words. 'I'm sorry' doesn't even begin to cut it, but I can't say nothing, so this is just to say I am filled with an intense, unspeakable amount of sadness for you and your situation." The abbreviated form is Pib.
posted by mostlymartha at 10:51 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]

My wife uses the word "lummy" in place of idiot. Pretty sure it's not a real word. Though according to Mirriam-Webster online it is British slang for "first-rate", which is funny because my wife lives in London right now. I wonder if I should tell her or let her find out on her own? Heh.
posted by Grither at 10:51 AM on January 13

Nooky nooky moo moo. Originally a reference to mueslix, but now a surprise word, as in "Oh, and you forgot something?" - "What?" - "Nooky nooky moo moo!"

Also, we have a family dish called squasage, whose main ingredients are squash and sausage.

When you hang around a 3-year-old long enough, new words come up pretty much daily.
posted by swift at 10:51 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Whoa, part of my comment disappeared. I meant:

I goes try--< smeet--< promise--< pinky swear.
posted by mostlymartha at 10:52 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Oh, also, "snorgle" is to bury your face in the tummy of a person, baby, cat, or dog, and kind of sniffy-smoochy-huffle. It's lovely. If you have just had a good snorgle, you got a "snorg."
posted by mostlymartha at 10:55 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]

My wife uses the word "lummy" in place of idiot. Pretty sure it's not a real word.

Is it possibly a shortened form of "lummox?"
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:56 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

At home, we regularly use "meepy'"or just plain "meep" instead of "sleepy," because when you're drifting off to sleep on the couch it's too hard to enunciate clearly but somebody's gotta be alerted to drag you off to bed. Now "meepy" has turned into a normal daytime word to describe how long the day is dragging on when you'd really prefer napping to working.
posted by sestaaak at 10:58 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

I get so much grief for my family for this one: underpit. It's a mashup of underarm and armpit I started using as a kid, and I've never really been able to break myself of it. (Can't say I've really tried too hard though.)
posted by cgg at 10:59 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

The Washington post has been running a neologism contest since 1993 - The Style Invitational. Unfortunately I can't find a list of winners anywher, but it's up to a 1000 contests or so by now, each with a new word.
posted by empath at 11:00 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

A friend of mine taught me "snorfling," which is when your nose is running and you try to suck all the phlegm back into your nose instead of blowing it, resulting in a loud and disgusting sound like slime going through a vacuum cleaner. DO NOT SNORFLE IN MY LIBRARY OR YOU WILL EARN MY ETERNAL DISDAIN.
posted by prefpara at 11:00 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

A group of people I knew in college (c. 15 years ago) used the word (?) "jo-jo" to mean, roughly speaking, skeevy. The word can be abbreviated to "joj" (pronounced dzhodhz), and works as an adjective but also as a noun, as in "what a jojo!" I still use this word, but increasingly just in my head, since no one I still hang out with uses it.
posted by mskyle at 11:00 AM on January 13

We call our children "shumpy" and "fumps." These are not appellations for particular children, but general terms of endearment for any of them. I cannot claim to know why.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 11:00 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

When my son was four, he asked for bobuck for dinner. When inquired as to what bobuck contained, he replied, "Corn, tofu, rice and butter". A variation thereof exists in our kitchen to this day. To add cheese to it makes it "mo'buck".
posted by msali at 11:01 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]

Hillbillers instead of hillbillys as of two days ago watching Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I liked the sound of it.

Ojimbagawa is our noise of utter joy and happiness. Best shouted in triumph. (oh-jim-buh-gow-WAAAAAA). I think I just said it once as a nonsense word but in the context of shouting YEAH! and my friends decided it was the best word. One even wrote a (kind of creepy) song for the word.

Woozle wuzzle is something a few friends and I agreed was unpronounceable without laughing. Meaning wasn't important.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:02 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Growing up, my folks had a moveable island in the kitchen that they referred to as a "roundabout". As in, "Put the chips back in the roundabout when you're done with them." It was a pair of corner cabinets screwed together that had casters at the corners and was topped with butcher block. This is in California. I have no idea why they chose that term for this item, but they did, and now I have one and I use the same term. A little Googling seems to indicate that we are the only people in the world that use this term for this item, but the Googling was cursory, so maybe this is a common term and I'm just feeling all special about it...
posted by mosk at 11:02 AM on January 13

Trints: (from tootie prints) muddy footprints made by a dog coming inside on a wet day

Nrints: nose prints, generally made by a dog on a window
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:04 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Cattens, for our adult cats that still act kittenish.
posted by mollweide at 11:06 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]

A Mefite posted that they use pooparazzi to describe the phenomenon of cats always following you into the bathroom. (or being really upset about the shut door.) Sadly, I can't find the post.
posted by sadtomato at 11:06 AM on January 13 [30 favorites]

When my husband is driving and needs to call some other driver a bad name but the kids are in the car he uses "Motard'. I think it's obvious that it's a rather mean term for someone who was a little slow mixed with someone who fornicates with their own maternal unit.
posted by TooFewShoes at 11:06 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]

Conspicurious is a word I invented to define when a person is so obviously interested in a person. I.e, did you see how conspicurious David was when he met Krista?
posted by Rodrigo Lamaitre at 11:08 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Ibble- v. eat to the point of feeling ill (I ibbled myself on M&M's)

Shnorgle- n. A duvet or v. wrapped up and cozy (The cat barfed on your shnorgle, I'm totally shnorgled in my new hat and scarf)

Drug cheese- yellow american cheese slices (derived from how we reliably delivered pills to our cat. He's off the pills, but the slices are still drug cheese)
posted by kimdog at 11:08 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]

My siblings and I called the inner elbow the 'krelbow.'
posted by misskaz at 11:08 AM on January 13

Meedlenouche (MEE-dehl-noosh): the name my mother has used for "Swedish meatballs with noodles" since the day she was trying to prepare the aforementioned dish, and someone walked into the room and asked "what's for dinner" at the exact moment she was at her most flustered.

Nacits (NAK-its): My family's term for a beautiful day. Taken from an acronym my grandfather coined when recording the weather in his day planner: it stands for N.ot A C.loud I.n T.he S.ky.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:10 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]

Snerk: the noise the baby makes when her nose is stuffy.
to snerk: to make such a noise
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:11 AM on January 13

"Hinderbooten" is my fake German word for "butt."

I am trying to get "pajomblies" or just "jomblies" (for "pajamas"/"jammies") to catch on in my household, but that's not going too well.

I've repurposed the phrase "bucka bucka" from a Simpsons episode to act as a replacement for any word or song lyric as needed, with variants and "buck" and "bucka buck" depending on syllables needed.

As a kid, I used "antiminers" to mean "ants," particularly not-so-threatening ones. A few sugar ants, for example, would be antiminers. But a big carpenter ant would not be.
posted by dayintoday at 11:11 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

This is awesome. Keep em coming. The one word I have made up and use is:

Sequentrillity n. which means a series of coincidences that create a lasting positive outcome

It kind of grew from explaining how I met my wife through this, well, series of coincidences. Once I said it was sequentrillitous, and that kind of stuck.
posted by holdkris99 at 11:12 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

An aunt used to threaten us with defamotication. "If you kids don't go outside and play, I'm gonna defamoticate all of you." Sounds kind of like one of those commercials for a new drug with 361 possible side-effects.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 11:12 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]

I just discovered, to my great dismay, that "demolicious" gets 43,900 Google hits. I can only weakly insist that I made this word up independently. My meaning is: the secret delight that you feel when something is utterly destroyed, particularly when your feeling is completely inappropriate and can't be expressed to other people. An example off the top of my head: watching the news with my parents, seeing a clip of a NASA rocket lifting off, going up about 100 feet then falling straight back down and exploding. Me laughing hysterically. Them not. Me stopping but continuing to think "Man, that was demolicious."

My wife and I privately call Germans "Hermans" and indicate the German language by saying "Heinschleifenreifen". I have no idea why.

Happily, "psychartizen" only has 5 Google hits and they all originate from me.
Psychartizen: noun: a person who is a mixture of a psychologist, an artisan and a Zen Buddhist. Can also be used as an adjective.

snivelization: Okay, I stole this from a friend years ago. A derisive term for modern, industrial civilization, referring to the fact that it is filled with weak, helpless people who complain a lot and can't do much for themselves. Rough synonym: syphilization.

"alchemical amnion" - These are both real words but I created the phrase. An alchemical amnion is the psychological equivalent of a physical amnion, which is the sac that a fetus is contained in before birth. The alchemical amnion is the personal myth with which a person with very divergent views surrounds his/her mind and perception, and through which he/she views the world.
posted by crazylegs at 11:12 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Oh, another one:

Friend-boy/Friend-girl: the exact term for that nebulous relationship you have with someone who's a little more than just "friends with benefits" but isn't quite "dating" yet. Coined by an old roommate who found herself in such a situation with a guy, who was a bit more into her than she was into him; I overheard her trying to set him straight over the phone, and when she blurted out, "No, Sid, you're not my boyfriend, you're more like....you're...you're my friend-boy," I actually leaned into the room and told her "I'm using that from now on, just so you know."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:13 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Also my husband got a pedometer as a gift, and of course my consistently calling it a Pedobear seemed to good of an opportunity to pass up, but we already alarm our neighbors for being scruffy so we've dropped the first and last letters and Pedometer / Pedobear is now Edobea.
posted by sestaaak at 11:18 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Here's one. One time, I was playing scrabble with friends, and the word "agree" was on the board horizontally, and a word with a q in it was placed vertically in a way that left this pattern Q_AGREE . The person who had the lowest score had terrible letters, including a W. He frustratedly put the W between the Q and the AGREE, and we all agreed he could do it and make "qwagree" as long as he 1) defined the word and 2) agreed to use it forever. He defined it as "to pretend to agree with someone to make him shut up," as in "the guy sitting next to me on the 8 hour flight said that george w. bush was the best president ever, so to keep the peace, i qwagreed with him." I, at least, still use it.
posted by millipede at 11:18 AM on January 13 [15 favorites]

Oh, and I thought of a celebrity example! I read this in the "Live From New York" book (it's the oral history of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE), and Conan O'Brien had a story from when he was on the writing staff. Apparently there was someone mid-level senior on the production side (not Lorne Michaels, but one of the under-producers) who was a really great guy that everyone liked, except he had a knack of occasionally doing really annoying things. And Conan noticed that anytime anyone complained about the guy, they always went through a really long series of disclaimers: "okay, look, Hank's a great guy. Nice guy. Stands up for all of us, fair, honest, great guy....but he [did this awful thing]."

And after the umpteenth time of hearing someone launch into the whole "hank's a nice guy, hank's a great guy, but..." Conan apparently stopped them and told everyone that from now on, rather than going into the whole lengthy rigamarole about what a great guy Hank was, they should all from now on just say the word "Chipple". And everyone followed suit, so then it became "Okay, chipple, but Hank stiffed me on drinks last night."

So I suppose "Chipple" is "the general series of disclaimers about what a nice guy [whoever] is, but...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:20 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]

Boolah. Noun. Cute little beloved thing, usually small child.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 11:20 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Snarf is a noun that describes the combination of snot and slobber that dogs leave on windows. I was totally squicked out when an adopt-a-highway sign near our house proudly states that "Snarf Foods" is responsible for cleaning the roadside.
posted by DrGail at 11:21 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Years ago, before I heard anybody else say/type it, I would say "woob" sometimes. Imagine the sound effect of a pulsing sphere... (woob..woob..woob) Then I noticed other people saying it. I don't attribute any real meaning to it, but I think the others have been substituting it for "woot"

I also call human kids "chiddlers" on a regular basis.
posted by Seboshin at 11:23 AM on January 13

foma = food coma. "i ate myself into a foma again." loma = love coma. "my boyfriend was in town, i spent all weekend in a loma."
posted by thisisnotkatrina at 11:24 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

I have two, and they're both invaluable but adoption is probably unlikely because they're rooted in stories.

#1: We were on the train from Havana to Santiago, which is like more than two days or something and was leaving 18 hours late (this was in the 90s). As we pulled out of the station, the whole car was busy setting up its little society and making friends with us gringos. An attendant wheeled a cart down the aisle with little cups of coffee and said distinctly “hello, I will be your Gladys today!” So now anyone in an attendant-type job is Gladys until we learn their names.
Definition: Un-named attendant. Usage: “Go talk to the Gladys and ask him what his name is.”

B: We go to a place that's new to us for dim sum in Manhattan chinatown. We're with a serious foodie who's a regular. Someone is asking her to ask someone she knows on the staff to get us some of the incredible ginger-scallions sauce. It's really loud, so it's hard to hear our friend's reply—she's yelling something like “Guyensu! Guyensu!” We thought maybe it was a Chinese expression. Eventually it came clear that she was saying “don't ask the waitresses with the dim sum carts—you need one of the guys in suits.” So we talked to one of the guys in suits and got our sauce.
Definition: the next most empowered person you want something from. Usage: “Don't bother with the receptionist—ask for the guyensu."
posted by Mngo at 11:24 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]

At my job, the "dickbutt" is a little piece that attaches to or sticks out from the main piece. A "slar" is a screw down brass cover that covers a floor mount outlet in the orchestra pit.

In my family, one's "gongie" was the throw blanket that my grandmother had crocheted for that particular individual. (Mine's been on my bed for 20 years now.)
posted by mollymayhem at 11:24 AM on January 13

"Chumpkins," according to my parents, is a term of endearment for my future spouse.

I am 22, single.
posted by yaymukund at 11:26 AM on January 13 [7 favorites]

These probably don't count as we didn't really make them up, but my partner enjoys learning and using some of the unique words of my family of origin/region. Here's the top 3:

Going to get the order = going grocery shopping; from when my mother was a child and my grandmother would call in her order to the local grocery, and my mother would go pick it up.

Divan = coach, sofa, davenport; my Nova Scotian grandmother is also blamed for this one.

Tonic = soda, pop, soda pop; very narrow usage in the Boston area where I grew up. "What kind of tonic did you get?" "I got diet coke and orange-ade."
posted by hworth at 11:26 AM on January 13

I add "al" to many words to create a new word.
"This pasta would go good with some sort of breadal item."
"My footal area is hurting."
"Maybe I'm just not smart enough; I might have a brainal issue."
"I'm so hungry! Let's stop and get something foodal."
posted by The Deej at 11:26 AM on January 13 [6 favorites]

I coined an obscenity once when I was really bad at a former boss -- none of the standard obscenities seemed strong enough, so I informed my roommate, when I got home, that my boss was "an anal pucky-head."

I don't know exactly what it is, but it ain't good.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:28 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Back in the early-to-mid 1960's, members of my family made up the word "crunchies" as a generic name for dry cat food. It seems to have made it into somewhat common usage, probably because one branch of the family were professional cat breeders.

I realize this may not exactly meet your requirements, but I wanted to mention it because it seems to have passed into general usage.
posted by MexicanYenta at 11:29 AM on January 13

A "nurflin" is a large, round, slightly alarmed and extremely loudly-purring ginger and white cat - used as an excoriation thus, "He's such a nurflin - he's fallen off the back of the sofa again". "To nurfle" is the verb, as in "Robert's nurfling round the cat treats again." Particularly satisfying when pronounced in an exasperated tone - "You idiotic NURFLIN!".
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 11:30 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Broctoon = sticky lint brush, for reasons that have the vaguest tangential connection with this SNL sketch

Also I grew up thinking that the actual word for dustpan was a "Gride", because that's what our dad called it. It wasn't till at least college that he said that he just called it that because gride went so nicely with broom.
posted by Mchelly at 11:31 AM on January 13 [20 favorites]

I use dandyrific when people ask how I am doing. It is copyrighted so please send me a nickel every time you use it. Have a good day!
posted by Mr Subway at 11:38 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Gride and broom is a spoonerism for bride and groom.
posted by Mr Subway at 11:40 AM on January 13

cgg: "I get so much grief for my family for this one: underpit."

Oh yeah! I use 'kneepit' to describe, well, my kneepits. You know, the area of your leg behind your knee. Analogous to armpit, obviously.
posted by workerant at 11:40 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

workerant: Oh yeah! I use 'kneepit' to describe, well, my kneepits. You know, the area of your leg behind your knee. Analogous to armpit, obviously.

Also "elbowpit" or, since we call that part of the body the "melmo", it's actually the "melmopit"
posted by mostlymartha at 11:44 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Shoopsed, as in "You've been shoopsed again!" That means that our cat has been at us and has won some kind of mind game.
It comes from the name of the cat, Shoops, which in turn came from the plural of sheep: 1 sheep, 2 shoops. It does make sense when you follow from 1 foot, 2 feet; 1 tooth, 2 teeth and you try to apply it to sheep!
posted by tweemy at 11:46 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

which in turn came from the plural of sheep: 1 sheep, 2 shoops. It does make sense when you follow from 1 foot, 2 feet; 1 tooth, 2 teeth and you try to apply it to sheep!

My husband has used this logic to singularize "rice"--i.e., one grain of rice is a "rouse."
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:48 AM on January 13 [9 favorites]

TooFewShoes: "Motard"

Motard is a real word. It describes a type of motorcycle (and motorcycle racing) that is a cross between a dirtbike and sportbike. The Suzuki DRZ400SM is the canonical example; most motards are 200-600cc singles with 17" front wheels fitted (instead of a dirtbike's 21".) The racing looks like this.
posted by workerant at 11:49 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

The brilliant Douglas Adams wrote an entire dictionary of made-up words, although there are some in there that don't fit your parameters because they're place names repurposed as verbs, etc. But The Meaning of Liff has all sorts of good stuff in it, such as:

Fiunary (n.) - The safe place you put something and then forget where it was.

Glassel (n.) - A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet, and which is
now a lump of rock, which children nevertheless insist on filing their
suitcases with after the holiday.

Happle (vb.) - To annoy people by finishing their sentences for them and then telling
them what they really meant to say.
posted by colfax at 11:51 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Snuzzle = portmanteau of snuggle + nuzzle. Learned this from a loved one, but it seems to have currency elsewhere in the world too.

I learned from the Internet that an associate of the band My Chemical Romance coined "the motts" (as in "see also "epic motts" or just "motts") to refer to the emotion of vicarious embarrassment. (I may have been known to use it myself -- everyone needs a word for vicarious embarrassment.)

I thought I made up "nubble", the noun form of the adjective "nubbly", but I just double-checked and Merriam-Webster told me it's been a word since 1818.

I've adopted "flump" from Mefi's own Jason Scott's cat's Twitter. It seems to be a portmanteau of "flop" and "thump" as well as onomatopoeia for the sound a cat makes when it flops on a soft surface. My rabbits flump frequently, and in my household the term has undergone semantic extension and now also refers to the act of a human going to bed or lying down to rest, as in "I'm flumping soon, I have to be up early tomorrow" or "I spent the whole afternoon flumped on the couch." "Kerflump" may refer to an especially emphatic flump: "KERFLUMP so fucking tired!"

"Woobity" describes the texture of Jello, a person who is hung over, or anything else that figuratively or literally wobbles. Derived from cartoon sound effects that go something like WOOBITYWOOBITYWOOBITY, like when Bugs Bunny shakes his head back and forth and his ears flop around.

A friend uses "foob," i.e. almost food but not quite, for uninteresting snacks or processed foods that are eaten only because you're hungry or need to eat, not for pleasure.
posted by clavicle at 11:52 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]

Actually, the Meaning of Liff isn't made-up words as such -- Adams took names of actual places and came up with definitions for them as if they were words.

Just wanted to make that clear, as the question ruled out the "repurposing" of existing terms and maybe this counts as a repurposing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:53 AM on January 13

"snorgle" is to bury your face in the tummy of a person, baby, cat, or dog, and kind of sniffy-smoochy-huffle.

I beg to differ. Every schoolboy knows that the proper term is "foof", as in "I foofed her belly until she peed".
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:55 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]

wikipudiate: to prove someone wrong by looking it up on wikipedia
posted by polecat at 11:56 AM on January 13 [11 favorites]

my 4 year old son coined the term "hanitizer" for hand sanitizer gel, and now the rest of our family uses it too.
posted by netsirk at 11:58 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]

I don't know where it came from, but my Dad would always have us make a bazoo (Bah-ZOO) when we were packing to go home from a trip. That meant looking around at all the nooks and crannies, under the beds, &c., to locate items that needed to go home with us. I see that bazoo is slang for mouth, so I'm confused as to how it came to mean what it did in my family. But I still "make a bazoo" every time I check out of a hotel room.
posted by kamikazegopher at 11:58 AM on January 13

Hilaritragic.

"Tragicomic" is more about black comedy. Hilaritragic is when something so absurdly awful happens that you have to just sit back and laugh at it.

I have infected my entire friendship circle with it and I am NOT SORRY.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 11:59 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]

a schmeh at work is a USB drive. "Do you have a a free schmeh?"
posted by FatRabbit at 12:00 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

"snorgle" is to bury your face in the tummy of a person, baby, cat, or dog, and kind of sniffy-smoochy-huffle.

I beg to differ. Every schoolboy knows that the proper term is "foof", as in "I foofed her belly until she peed".

Um, uh-uh. The schoolboys are clearly bypassing the appropriate term, "zerbit." (The Urban Dictionary cites this as a noun, but I've certainly heard it used as a verb also.)
posted by dlugoczaj at 12:01 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

When I was young, a friend used the word "texet" (pronounced 'tech-sit') as a synonym for twist-tie. I didn't know it was a made up word until I used it in front of him 15 years later and he called me out on it. I got word-trolled for well over a decade.
posted by seppyk at 12:01 PM on January 13

My daughter made up the word tonypails for you know, pony tails, and now that's what we all call them.
posted by tamitang at 12:01 PM on January 13

My husband and I use the word "neep" and its various forms to describe dear husband's tendencies to do, and participate in, extremely nerdy activities. For example, if he's timing himself while doing a NYT crossword puzzle and I ask what he's doing, he might respond that he's "neeping". If he gets pedantic while trying to explain something, I may zone out and tell him there was too much "neepage", or he was getting too "neepy". This is all endearing, of course ;)
posted by Piglet at 12:01 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]

I made up "grundular." I've used it to mean whatever I need it to at times, but usually it means "pretty okay," as in, "I'm having a grundular day."
posted by Shohn at 12:03 PM on January 13

Um, uh-uh. The schoolboys are clearly bypassing the appropriate term, "zerbit." (The Urban Dictionary cites this as a noun, but I've certainly heard it used as a verb also.)

Where I'm from, it's spelled "zerbert", and it refers only to the vibrating exhalation against the tummy skin. Snorgling is more like a rubby, cuddly smooch session that may or may not culminate in a zerbert.
posted by mostlymartha at 12:04 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]

My mother recently reminded me of something I coined at age 4 -- you know how in the PEANUTS comic strips, they'd sometimes show Snoopy so surprised or shocked by something that his ears were standing straight up on end?

Apparently my "Li'l EC lexicon" word for this was "streep" -- as in, "And then Lucy said she was going to steal Snoopy's supperdish and Snoopy streeped his ears up and ran away."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:07 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

My husband and I can't be the only ones who have adopted the Bushism "strategery" for when you're trying to be strategic about something (the connotation being that you are being strategic to a foolish degree or about something non-serious).
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:15 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

A friend coined "graken" to mean manly/ballsy without being gender-specific
posted by thewestinggame at 12:15 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Its pronounced "pitoze" but my son claims it is spelled "pitose" - to unnecessarily prolong an activity, to the annoyance of those around you.

When my oldest kid was 3, he realized that he could drag bedtime out indefinitely by firing a series of educational-sounding questions at me. At least until he ran out of things to say. The word originated in this conversation:

"Mom, how do you spell "bed"? How do you make a raisin? How do you spell "toothbrush"? How do you spell "sky"? How do you... um... how do you... um... (long pause while he thinks, then randomly yells out) ...PITOSE!"

"Buddy, I think you already know how to pitoze."

My kids are now 8 and 5 and we use the word every day.
posted by selfmedicating at 12:17 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]

We say "ensmallen" to mean the opposite of the simpson's "embiggen."

From small children, these have becone family terms:

Nichels=nickels
Hitchens=chickens
Unjuns=onions
posted by Occula at 12:23 PM on January 13

Back in our high school band, a "phlarnge" was a very noticeable error during a public performance. At the end of the year, the performer who made the worst (best?) one would receive the Golden Phlarnge award.
posted by penguinicity at 12:25 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Somehow in my household, what started out as "ich muss jetzt gehen" (I have to go) morphed into, "my moose is gay" (I have to go).
posted by found missing at 12:28 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

The Washington Post style invitational has a few of these each year, and they are hillarious

e.g. 1, 2, 3
posted by lalochezia at 12:29 PM on January 13

Cattitude = cat + attitude
posted by annsunny at 12:35 PM on January 13

Breasticulate - You know how, for example, when Marilyn Monroe was being campy and would sort of slightly shake her upper torso or make some other similar "subtle" move that might center attention to a certain area of the body? That's "breasticulation"
posted by Carbolic at 12:35 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]

Link with example. Don't know why it didn't work the first time.
posted by Carbolic at 12:37 PM on January 13

peripheridge (noun): a word for styrofoam peanuts. According to my mother, I invented it when I was a young person. Pronounced per-RIF-er-idge.

beany (adj.): very much what it is, as beans are. Often has a positive connotation. "How's the new book by your favorite author?" "Oh, it's beany!" My mother and I started using this at some point, but I can't remember how we came up with it.

aga vooga (phrase): I'm cold. I started saying this at camp one summer and have never stopped.
posted by newrambler at 12:38 PM on January 13

toastchee is toast with melted swiss on top of it, which was the only thing I could eat for breakfast when pregnant, and I got tired of asking for "toast with melted cheese -- make sure it's swiss!"

Jack-help is when your genuine attempt to help makes things worse. (Although this one is named after my cat so it may not fit your criteria.) We use this so often all our friends have picked it up. "I can put the groceries away myself! I have a system! Stop jack-helping!"

Flumpy-bumps are when you try to make a ponytail and you get funny lumps sticking up on the smooth part of the hair that's meant to be tight to your head. (More common for curly girls.) Flumpy-bumps can also be when you try to make the bed and the covers won't flatten out properly but insist on having flumpy-bumps.

Zizzy-zazzy is the reflected light your watch (or mirror or other item) throws on the wall when it's sunny out. Most often used when teasing cats or babies with zizzy-zazzies, but also used when there's one that keeps slightly moving and catching your eye when you're trying to read and you have to move your arm around in front of the reflective surfaces in the room to try to find the source of the zizzy-zazzy so you can kill it dead. "ARGH! What is making that zizzy-zazzy???"
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:50 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]

Catful - adjective: a neighborhood or other area with many obvious cats. Whatever level of feral the cats maintain is immaterial to the use of the terms.

degoddamnlicious - came from my brief obsession with infixes. It means goddamned delicious. Yes, I get that the words are "mashed together" but they're...ingeniously mashed together.

The 13 year old daughter of a doctor I once worked for coined the term chesticles for her just beginning to form breasts. Of course, she was mortified when he told everyone at the office. I still use the term for my own rack.
posted by bilabial at 12:51 PM on January 13

Oh man, these are awesome! And reminds me that spouse and I sometimes have our own lanaguage. Examples:

"Wibbly": To feel nauseous or unwell, can also be used as "having The Wibbles."

"Snoogle": Aggressive cuddling, especially useful on cold nights. "Let's snoogle and get warm." Is also used to describe being cuddly, "For some reason, our cat is being super snoogly tonight."

"OOFLab": A sort of acronym inspired by our dear departed cat Ozzy (whose nickname was Bubby). He was a largish cat and when he leapt down from things, they were always accompanied by a distinct feline "oof." So "OOFLab" (Oof Like a Bubby) describes extreme tiredness, or heaviness.
posted by Kitteh at 12:53 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Nephling - (n.) young nephew
Nieceling - (n.) young niece

I love my nieceling and nephling.
posted by Falwless at 1:02 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Chumpy: an idiot, poltroon, moron, dolt, imbecile, wetbrain, mooncalf. A standard-issue fool seen through the lens of a cranky matriarch.

Chumbly: like a chumpy, but more bumbling and foolish than dangerously stupid.


Both are from (sigh) the imagined things our cats “say” when my wife and I pretend that our cats are talking to us and decide to say what we imagine the cats to be saying in character voices representing the cats.
posted by Shepherd at 1:12 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

You know that bulb syringe you use to clean out a baby's nose? It's called a schnoffler. Used for schnoffling schnot.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 1:18 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]

I picked up "noodge" from my mother - a noodge is someone who is being annoying, but not enough to get the other person really angry. "Stop being a noodge!" was the common cry at home growing up.

"Deelieboppers" would be the pompom-spring combination that often make up fake antennae that you can wear on your head. Could also be the name for that thing that you just forgot the real name for. "Deelies" for short.

"Borked" is fairly common, I think, but I feel like it entered into our household lexicon somewhat independently. Something is borked when it is not working correctly, usually referring to electronic equipment and definitely repairable. "The cable's borked," etc.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:20 PM on January 13

As I small child, I made up "elsebody", as in "I don't want to pick up the toys. Elsebody should do it." I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a word -- we have "elsewhere", after all.
posted by duien at 1:20 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Deelieboppers

We called them that growing up too - that was sort of their name, I thought.
posted by Miko at 1:27 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

idk whether or not Cleolinda on lj was the original source of "hilarrible" (something hilariously terrible) but I shall credit her nevertheless. Originally used to describe all things Twilight-related.
posted by elizardbits at 1:28 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

A friend and I decided once that there should be a new letter of the alphabet: a B and a G combined. Naturally, it's called the "b'gee" (buh-GEE).

For your viewing pleasure.
posted by harperpitt at 1:29 PM on January 13

"zerbit."
"zerbert"

"Flurburt", shurely!
posted by Kabanos at 1:31 PM on January 13

I love my nieceling and nephling.
Collectively, they are niblings (children of siblings), but I just looked it up and it seems this is already a widely-used term.

So, our household word is "zalesed," pronounced sort of likes "sales" (if you added past tense -ed) but with a Z, stemming from the Zales diamond shop (not that we've ever shopped there). It refers to being bombarded by pushy salespeople or cheesy marketing tactics.

"I wanted to browse but I was being zalesed so I left."
"That street is too touristy and zalesey for me."
"He was zalesing me big time!"
posted by (alice) at 1:31 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Deelieboppers
We called them that growing up too - that was sort of their name, I thought.

Ditto. (Or, variant, deeliebobbers.)
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:31 PM on January 13

Not to speak for him, but MeFi's own peterme both coined and uses the word "blog".
posted by anildash at 1:33 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

"To schnook" is to rub your face against a stuffed animal or other loved thing, possibly drooling on it.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:35 PM on January 13

My husband calls the lips-to-skin-and-blow action a zert.

When I was a kid I invented the word flurp to describe the way the milk came out of the glass when I laughed in the middle of taking a sip. It flurped.

And re:underpit, I have always called sleeves "arm sleeves," analogous to pant legs. My family still makes fun of me but I think it makes perfect sense.
posted by TallulahBankhead at 1:37 PM on January 13

My dad made up the word "Decleviate." As in, "It's time to go. We must decleviate." And it totally sounds legit. In fact, I was giving the closing prayer at church one time and I asked that we all be blessed as we . . . . I almost said decleviate, but caught myself.
posted by Sassyfras at 1:39 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

I once dreamt that a friend and I were getting into my car, and that she put her takeout container of leftovers on the dash. Irked by the resulting reflection/glare, dream-me uttered the phrase, "Hey, get that dashmuffin off of there."

We have used the word "dashmuffin" to denote anything on the dash of a car during the ensuing decade.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 1:57 PM on January 13

Well, our word is a character's name that we now use as a word, though in the Urban Dictionary it means something else entirely. "Trumpy"

It stands for something that was really magically awesome for a while that you sour on and get completely sick of, sometimes through no real fault of its own but occasionally because of bad experiences having to do with it.

In use:

"Hey - I'm surprised it's a week later and there's still a piece of that pumpkin cheesecake in the fridge! You gonna eat it?"

"No - you can have it. It was the best cheesecake ever and I ate as much as I could, but with all the other stuff in the house, it's trumpy to me now. Go away Cheesecake - I don't love you any more. But I'll always remember you, Cheesecake."

or

"Hey, I'm leaving the show early. Like, I'm glad to see the Dropkick Murphys, but you know how every song sounds like the Dropkick Murphys and the audience is full of rabid drunken Dropckick Murphy fans? It was great for like, the first hour but they're trumpy to me now."

If there's another real concise word for that feeling, I'd be glad to know it. That said, we've used trumpy for years in front of people, and nobody ever let on that they didn't know what we meant by it.
posted by peagood at 2:00 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Brumps are those grooves in the pavement that wake you up when you drift out of your lane (or, in Iowa at least, are approaching a stop sign on a county highway).
posted by bricoleur at 2:09 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

My family- specifically, my mom's family- made up a word: "crumpy." (on preview, rhymes with "trumpy" but is not the same!)

Crumpy (adjective) - describes a situation that is unpleasant or uncomfortable. Possibly a portmanteau of "crappy" and "frumpy" but that information is lost to the ages. Sample uses:

"Their house was so crumpy. Dirty diapers piling up in the garbage and the ceiling tiles were yellow with cigarette smoke. They offered me Fresca and then Carol started fighting with her mom on the phone. I tried to excuse myself but they insisted I stay for lunch. The kids wouldn't stop screaming at each other, it was horrible."

"I felt really crumpy. Everyone else had remembered to bring these super stylish umbrellas but all I had was a wrinkled old poncho in my car trunk. It smelled like motor oil but I wore it anyway."

"Oh my God, 'Leaving Las Vegas' was such a crumpy movie."

For years my brother was unaware that "crumpy" was not a real word, and did not catch on until he began living with roommates who would look at him weird whenever he said it. Crumpy!
posted by castlebravo at 2:14 PM on January 13

A Finnish colleague of mine uses a contraction to say "most probably," as in, "Let's meet after lunch; I'll mostably be in my office."

Another friend used "frinkled" to describe an emotional state that's like being frazzled, but with less exasperation and more worry.

My children like it when I call them "kidlets."
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 2:17 PM on January 13

A friend of mine came up with tatta, tatatuous and maltatuous. Tatta is good, edifying, morally upfliting.

A tattatuous movie would be have high moral fiber. While maltatuous is an antonym thereof.
posted by zinon at 2:23 PM on January 13

An old boss once called a 3-outlet wall plug adapter/extension (like this) a "fat phoebe" and we all looked at her like she was crazy.
posted by sarahnade at 2:27 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Kabanos: ""zerbit."
"zerbert"

"Flurburt", shurely!"

You're all wrong. It's "zlurpy kisses".
posted by SuperSquirrel at 2:28 PM on January 13

More than 20 years ago, I said to a friend, "Can I have a sip of your water?" Misunderstanding me, he replied, "Spare otter? I don't have one otter, let alone a spare, and I wouldn't give it to you if I did!" We started using "spare otter" as a shorthand for "Can I have a sip of your water?"--as in, you'd gesture at the water bottle and say, "Spare otter?"

Eventually this morphed into replacing the initial consonant of any drink's name with "sp." So, "spoke?" means, "Can I have some of your coke?" and "spemonade?" means, "Can I have some of your lemonade?" My partner, this friend, and I still use this. It's not really a word, though. More like a strange prefix-like-thing.
posted by not that girl at 2:48 PM on January 13

Strategery: the strategy one is employing when they are losing a game. "I'm only trying to lure you into a false sense of security. It's strategery!"
posted by Weeping_angel at 2:48 PM on January 13

"administratia" -- all things involving forms and filings: submitting insurance forms, filling out time sheets and expense reports, doing your taxes, etc.

Interestingly, this covers some of the same ground as the difficult-to-translate Spanish word trámites (roughly, administrative steps/procedures/paperwork), a term I sometimes have to wrangle into English in my job as a Spanish-to-English translator.
posted by drlith at 2:52 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Coolth.

Cloe = singular of clothes.
posted by tel3path at 2:57 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

I call the language babies use when they're first learning to speak "Turkey French". 'Cause I think it sounds a lot like "Gobble-mer-vous", etc.
posted by devymetal at 3:03 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Legpits = the place on the back of the leg behind the knee
Trumpwit = annoying person, loud, lack of social graces
posted by Prof Iterole at 3:18 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

I use the handicrap stall at work. It's way roomier than the other stalls.
posted by dotComrade at 3:19 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

"Bird term" for "bedtime" and "snurgle" for "snuggle"—a few years ago my partner and I decided that it was extremely funny to substitute an "er" sound for other vowels, and these two seem to have stuck.
posted by bewilderbeast at 3:50 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Schnolly = booger
Thneed (borrowed from The Lorax) = an old t-shirt or sweater that has been relegated to pyjamas
Bubblewish = iPhone (a word my daughter made up and now we all use it)
posted by snarfois at 3:53 PM on January 13

I'm aware the word exists as slang in Australia (among other places), for 'something great', but my wife arrived independently at the noun 'snodger' to describe something that 'snodges'. To snodge is to push one's nose against an object, then to follow through by brushing one's face and scent glands past that object. Namely, our cat Charlie is The Snodger (he does this excessively), and he now rarely gets called by his real name.

Over time, things associated with our cat and his behaviour have come to be described as 'snodgy'. For example, 'snodgy bits' are the tiny bits of evergreen bush that frequenly get stuck in his fur and later inadvertently deposited all over the house.
posted by _ade at 4:04 PM on January 13

My sister used to call pine needles (and other coniferous tree needles) porks, due to a lie I once told her that pine tree was short for 'porcupine tree' and that porcupines sometimes liked to hide in them and jump down on unsuspecting little girls.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:25 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

From drafting old school style: groids and noogies. Groids are crumbs from an electric eraser ("never draw more in a morning than you can erase in the afternoon"), and noogies are the bits of drafting tape that get pulled up by the parallel rule and rolled into tiny, sticky tape tubes.

Stumbletech: a serendipitous wander or undirected search that leads you directly to the thing/place/happening that was in the back of your mind. (wandering right up to the best Ethiopian restaurant in a city we'd never been before; didn't even know we were in the neighborhood or have the address.)

A differing from snarf above: snarf is to gobble food down quickly. Dog nose tracings on glass doors and windows are snart, obvs. Snot art.

Fleep is a command to my cats to jump up here now; it's a flying leap. Been in use for over 25 years. Various cats, obvs.

Trauminal. Traumatizing to the point of being terminal. (My work week was trauminal.)

Biffs. Basic (in)edible) food for subsistence. I still call my soups and stews biffs.
posted by vers at 4:30 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

"Jerklet" for when you're doing something slightly annoying but not full out assholish - usually used in the context of "Don't be a jerklet" as a response to a snippy remark.

Abyss as a verb - The Abyss is a cat's butthole. "I've just been abyssed!" Again, what you think it is.
posted by sonika at 4:41 PM on January 13

in undergrad someone made up the word "respaculatory" which can be conjugated:
respaculate, respaculated, respaculators, respaculation, etc.

it never had a meaning and only existed to be used in papers and tests for one particular professor (whom everyone disliked for some reason).

I used it in a paper and got back the comment, "This word is not in my Webster's."
posted by daisystomper at 4:57 PM on January 13

also! "duckblur" I use a lot, meaning any confusing or horrendous situation; it's a nicer version of "shitstorm" or "clusterfuck".

and yes, it's from the theme song from "Duck Tales"...it's a...duck blur....
posted by daisystomper at 4:58 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

This one was quite the hit a few years ago: "ridickerous" which I believe needs no explanation.

Chewbacca's = Teeth
Flooglebinder = Anything that you don't know the name for ( ripped from the movie Cocktail )
Sloopy = A sluty girl who is a groupie
Stilled = To hit someone so hard they become 'still'
Jangky = Something that is of low quality
posted by jasondigitized at 5:11 PM on January 13

Kinnipling Pin - a fabricated car part that we came up with in shop class to totally confuse our (very unqualified) shop teacher.

Us: "I think there's something wrong with the kinnipling pin."
Teacher: "The what?
Us: "You know the kinnipling pin?" of course said with authority and a little condescension
Teacher: "Well, we should work on that then."
posted by Sassyfras at 5:25 PM on January 13

shrinkled. ya know, like a raisin.

snart: sneeze + fart. example: "I just snarted, sorry!"

and this isn't a made up word, but I usually say "I feel scary" instead of "I'm scared" or in a situation where I'm worried about something. It started with us making fun of my boss who says that without knowing it's not right (bad English, but he is just a terrible boss (not because of the English) so it's OK to make fun of him.)
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 6:09 PM on January 13

Whuffle! My mother invented the word, and I helped make it popular on MetaChat.

Explained on MetaChat as such: I learned whuffles from my mom, who used to wake me up in the morning by lightly snuffling my cheeks and nose. The trick to a good whuffle is to breathe in and out quickly, like a dog smelling something really interesting. If you like, every once in a while you can exhale forcefully to get rid of accumulated air, again, like a dog will do. This usually makes the whufflee giggle. To make sexy whuffles, you go slower, on more sensitive parts of the face and neck. Include the ears, maybe lick the earlobe, and say "mmmmm".

Tel3path, my sister used "cloe" as singular for "clothes" when she was learning how to talk!
posted by Specklet at 6:15 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

Just wanted you all to know that "zerbert" was coined on the cosby show. I remember watching it at the time, and everyone in grade school was talking about it the next day. Zerbert swept the nation!
posted by frecklefaerie at 6:16 PM on January 13

For instances when "possibly" is not strong enough and "probably" is too strong, I use prossibly.
posted by 23skidoo at 7:12 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]

Mothercrapper. My favorite non-expletive expletive.
posted by SoulOnIce at 7:20 PM on January 13

A raspberry fizzydip is any flavor delicacy similar to an egg cream or a milk shake, but made with soda instead of milk - more like a cherry limeade from Sonic. Thank my mother for that one and sorry to all the sonic waitresses I've confused over the years.

My husband's family describes cold weather as "chili beaners" which always cracks me up.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 7:42 PM on January 13

"Soot-c-soot" for "short sleeved shirt", from my brother when he was about two.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:46 PM on January 13

a "kneehawk" is the strip of hair you always miss when shaving your legs.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:25 PM on January 13 [8 favorites]

Oh and "versed" is the word that describes which team you played; my son would say it. I thought it was cute and never corrected him.

As in, "Today we are versing the Pirates."

"Yesterday we versed the cowboys."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:28 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]

I've got lots. See their listing here.
posted by Rash at 8:32 PM on January 13

I picked up "noodge" from my mother - a noodge is someone who is being annoying, but not enough to get the other person really angry. "Stop being a noodge!" was the common cry at home growing up.

Same here. It's of Yiddish origin.

When my daughter was little, she used the phrase "icky ews" for poop. She's ten now, and it's still said every once in a while in my house. Etymology - poop is icky, ew.

Instead of thank you and you're welcome, we say tunkoo and twekkim.

Although it's not really what you're looking for, we also call chicken sauce "Shaun White."
posted by Ruki at 8:50 PM on January 13

scrint = buggered if I know. Usage, where are my socks? Answer: Scrint.

kadunt = sound of head as a body is dragged downstairs
both from a scrabble game where the rule was you could put down any word if you could define it.

Little toilet rolls were to-doot-ta-doos.

Our cat does this thing where he flicks just the tip of his tail sideways when he's peeved, known as a "doot" (rhymes with book, not who), and now is known primarily as Dooty.

Talling space: when someone grows a lot, s/he takes up talling space.

Squeeze the breeze = pass wind / fart. From a hilarious game of charades.
posted by b33j at 9:26 PM on January 13

Fake Dad, the (very nice) man you hardly know who marries your mom after you are all grown up and married with your own life but isn't a stepfather because you never lived together and you no nothing about him.
posted by saradarlin at 10:06 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]

oh man, my family has a ton of these, but right now I can only think of chirdlen, which was how my sister used to mispronounce "children" when she was about 4.
posted by scody at 10:32 PM on January 13

I picked up "gradoo" (grungey dirt) from a coworker. We say "mendik" for music, learned from a two year old friend. I say "ouch, mowch" when I hurt, dreamed it.

My family says "hang" as an agreement or affirmative. Whaa is said as a cry of mild woe (not a new word) but "wet whaa" is used for deeper woe.

Of course, Meta has had its influence and we regularly say such stuff as taters and meatspouse and crouton petters around the house.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:35 PM on January 13

Thank you for helping me remember that when I was a kid, my late father had a term for when you pull off a shoe and your sock pulls far enough down with it that you have a few inches of empty sock toe flapping around. That's called "nobberfoots." you don't even really use it in a sentence; you indicate it and walk floppily around saying "Nobberfoots, nobberfoots!"
posted by Occula at 11:09 PM on January 13

Miking Bouk = Mountain Bike
Clunt / Cluntish = Clumsy err...person / behaviour
Slig = Dog. As sung in the hilarious and oft repeated bastardized Subway jingle, "Sub-way, eat sligs." and followed by the mandatory and shocked rejoinder "No! you mustn't eat sligs!"
Earballs = Ear canals. Like eyeballs. "Don't stick q-tips in your earballs"
Par Cark = Family spoonerism for Car Park in frequent use
Nignogs = spiky seed pods from chestnut trees
I rapies you = I love you
Fuckery-Pokery = Catchall substitute for a noun, proper noun or even sometimes a verb which you've temporarily forgotten the real name for.
posted by juiceanddoom at 11:12 PM on January 13

Uppgefucken, uppgefuckt; When something is fucked up, it's either one of these two...not sure which applies where, but I've always used them interchangeably and 99% of people know exactly what I mean when I use one or the other.
posted by motown missile at 12:35 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

In my world, a teddy bear is a koonkie.
posted by MT at 2:38 AM on January 14

Cubby. You can cubby up with someone (snuggle) or have a cubby of their food (a tiny piece of it).

Couple good Nigerian ones (there are tons):

Jollification - to make merry, to become jolly and have a good time. "There will be plenty of jollification at Christmas"

Impossican't - totally out of the question. "Fix that air conditioner by Monday? Impossican't"
posted by pick_the_flowers at 3:36 AM on January 14

My boyfriend just made up "introvegging" to describe the long, quiet vegging-out an introvert needs to take on the couch after an intense period of socialization.
posted by sarahsynonymous at 5:34 AM on January 14 [8 favorites]

Original credit goes to a friend of mine:

Schnozzled: a combination of brain-fried, bored and tired, mostly out of too much computer use or studying.

My only contribution here is adding the "c" for a more Teutonic effect.
posted by Senza Volto at 6:13 AM on January 14

The word for lice in my house is 'greeblies'.
posted by h00py at 6:23 AM on January 14

Snug - a hug and/or squeeze applied to a cat or occasionally a baby. Can be used as a verb, noun, or adjective. "I gave the cat lots of snugs." "I snugged the kittyyyyy." "Kitty is so snuggy today."

Bink - a verb meaning to insert a pacifier into one's mouth. "Aww, he just rebinked himself and went back to sleep." "Whoa, dude's double-binking!" (for when he has one pacifier clipped to his shirt and another one in his mouth)
posted by agress at 6:40 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

On a road trip many years ago I was sent into a gas station quick-mart to grab snacks and a beverage while the driver gassed up his Chevelle. Seeing him finish while I was still shopping, I grabbed the first big bottle at eye level and ran out to the car.

Our word for "made a terrible and inexplicable choice under mild pressure" is still "crangraped".
posted by nicwolff at 7:24 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]

"blatherpate": as in blabber and twitterpated. "That guy on WWE wrestling always comes out and blatherpates before the beginning of the match. Too much blatherpating! Get on with the match!"
posted by cass at 8:06 AM on January 14

in the condour75 household, "Ablute" is short for shave / shower / etc., verbized form of ablution.

We also like to make up irregular past tenses (sneeze / snoze, etc.), so if I've already showered, we say "I already ablote."
posted by condour75 at 8:27 AM on January 14

My college friends and I used the verb "squeeb" to refer to engaging in any geeky/nerdy hobby-type activity that was unproductive or helped us avoid doing what we really should be doing. As in:

"What are you up to?"

"Oh, I'm just squeebing." (Could mean "I'm just messing around on my computer/reading comic books/playing video games" etc.)

I have to say I really enjoyed reading this thread. I think I'll be adding the terms "ponks" and "drug cheese" to my vocabulary!
posted by Boogiechild at 9:54 AM on January 14

I can't believe I am either the first or second to come up with this,
Develostrate (verb) to get off, or more specifically be removed from, a bicycle. See also Autodevelostrate for when its your own damn fault.

From my grandfather,
Blivot (noun) Thirteen pounds of shit in a 7 pound bag, or more generally the state of being that exists when something overfills its container.
Whenever I make soup it always ends up as a blivot when I cut to many vegetables.
posted by Blasdelb at 10:49 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

I'm not exactly sure how to spell it, but "beekle" is the act of affectionately tapping a cat or dog on the nose with one finger where I come from. Over times my cat has learned to return the gesture, usually without her claws.
posted by _cave at 10:50 AM on January 14

DeQuon (I have no idea how I would actually spell this, but it looks right - pronounced duh-KWAN) is me & the boyfriend's slang for idiots or morons. We were once walking out of a gas station and we heard a girl call for her friend DeQuon, which at the time sounded to us like "dickwad," and we laughed hysterically. So now when someone is being stupid we call them "a DeQuon." May have first stared off as DeQuad but has morfed into DeQuon. Can be pluralized to DeQuons. Usually used when in a store behind a bunch of irritating people or in the presence of bad drivers. "A bunch of DeQuons" is the preferred collective noun.
posted by jabes at 11:49 AM on January 14

And we also use "snugs" for that spooning period before we fall asleep at night. "Flip it and give me some snugs!" is usually the last thing I hear before I fall asleep.
posted by jabes at 11:51 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

....Is there a word for "mis-reading someone else's word because you've divided the syllables up in the wrong place"?

Because I totally just did it with Nicwolf's "crangraped" example -- it took me a horror-struck and uneasy 90 seconds to realize that wait, no, you were actually talking about a cranberry-based beverage.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:31 PM on January 14 [5 favorites]

Böp is how you are feeling when you are a little low. Pronounced "buh-p" I guess.
We have a form of grammer that has spread among a subset of our friends, based on the word "is". I can't think of any examples now of course. "Is hungry?" "Is!". Windscreen wiper fluid is "thing".

To all the "sn" words already listed you can add snurfle/snurfling, which is it seems a combination of snargling, snoogling and whuffling.
posted by Iteki at 2:56 PM on January 14

When my wife and I had just gotten engaged, she thought fiancée was too fancy a word, and needed a more regular one. Painted on the wall of the room we had this conversation in was (among other things) a rope (actually like a lariat or lasso). I mushed this together with chair (also in the room) and we became each others' "chope". We would sometimes re-fancify it to chopé, the Italian form, pronounced cho-PAY. (This was a riff off an inside joke with a mutual friend, who when asked what her love language was, responded, "Italian.")

I frequently use "ness" in place of pretty much any word ending in -ness, or generally meaning "stuff". Messiness, business, craziness. "What's all this ness in the living room floor?" or "I'm not sure I want be around those kids and all their... (vague hand motions) ...ness."
posted by attercoppe at 4:27 PM on January 14

So funny re: hanitizer for hand sanitizer! I teach preschool special ed. and one of the kids used to say this (she says it correctly now, somewhat unfortunately). One of the other kids says "sandground" for playground. Adorable.
posted by sucre at 4:55 PM on January 14

Discocombobulation: The state of confusion that forces you to turn down the car radio when you're parallel parking. Coined by a fellow mefite.
posted by funkiwan at 6:11 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]

My wife and I use the term "perpentangular" to refer to anything that has anything to do with 90-degree angles. More general than / encompassing any of square, rectangular, cubular (actually, that's another one we made up...), perpendicular, etc.
posted by madmethods at 8:13 PM on January 14

cousinlets: a collective term for the variously ambulatory spawn of the first cousins on my maternal side (of which I have 15). they're currently ages roughly 18 mos - 7 years, and in seemingly inexhaustible supply.
posted by lonefrontranger at 8:20 PM on January 14

I was a wee one when I asked an aunt why toenails weren't called footernails. They've been footernails ever since.

My mum made up "frabbit". It's when a cat or dog lays down with his/her rear legs stretched out behind him/her instead of tucked up. It's a combo of frog and rabbit.

A cousin of mine used "touron" back in the late 1970s to indicate tourists who weren't as smart as they might be. (Mid 70s seems to be when it came into use, so that makes sense.)
posted by deborah at 1:01 AM on January 15

OMG dlugoczaj, I've always called cardboard tubes "dun-dun-dun"s for the same reason: we always put them up to our mouths and did the Superman theme: dun-dun-DUN!...
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:25 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]

And like clavicle, "snuzzle" is a part of my personal lexicon. I'd never heard it before, and it sort of spontaneously evolved with me and one of my sweeties.

My primary partner and I call lens cleaning cloths (y'know, the little microfiber cloths you clean your glasses or cell phone screens with) "swish-swish"es. It comes from the gesture we make when one of us is asking the other to hand them the cloth but can't think of the word or otherwise can't/won't speak: thumb and first two fingers together, moving back and forth, as if we're swishing the the little cloth back and forth. Daily usage: "Have you seen the yellow swish-swish?" or "I need to get another swish-swish to keep at work." (Where'd the gesture come from? Who knows? Our brains are weird.)

Not me, but my maternal grandmother made up the word "pezzle" to mean "break wind." At least, family lore holds that she made it up, and I've certainly never heard anyone outside of our family use it. It used to get used a lot: "Oops, I pezzled." "Did you pezzle?" "Mooooommmm, he pezzled!"
posted by rhiannonstone at 1:36 AM on January 15

The detachable/universal handle used for lifting/moving camping cookware has forever been known in my family as a "krangbanger" or "kranghopper" (interchangable) or simply "kranger" for short.
posted by raider at 8:29 AM on January 15

Crandle = Person who is grumpy and crabby. My boyfriend and I say to each other, "Stop being such a crandle." I'm not sure about the etymology. I know it comes from "crabapple" and perhaps something else, but probably not "candle."

In that same vein: the Grumps are like the Blues, but grumpier.
posted by a.steele at 10:16 AM on January 15

Ah! Mr. Boyfriend says "crandle" (or perhaps "Crandall") is from an episode of the Simpsons, wherein Homer discovers that he's been calling Ms. Crabapple the wrong name.
posted by a.steele at 10:43 AM on January 15

For a while my aunt used to use the term "grode" to refer to any vaguely unpleasant messy thing -- "I was making pudding and left the pan on the stove a little bit too long, and all this grode got baked into it."

Coined at the height of the the "Valley Girl" craze, adapted from the expression "Grody to the max."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:42 PM on January 15

My cat is a "squealoid posifrous" and when he is rolled over on his back, flopping back and forth, those are his "squealations."
posted by Demogorgon at 3:40 PM on January 15

A borry, or a sorry borry, is someone who is apologising about everything and is a bit confused (and possibly drunk) - eg, "You silly old borry, shhhh go to sleep."
posted by gerls at 8:09 PM on January 15

Chocalolly is confectionary which includes chocolate, but is not necessarily entirely made of chocolate. (Comes from a combination of "chocolate" and "lolly")

E-good is a word my partner accidentally coined when he was a small child and was trying to say the word "excellent" but wasn't sure how, and turned it into "good" at the last minute.

The word for knife in our house is "knife" but pronounced "k'niffy" (because you pronounce all the letters).

The noise I make when I see a cute critter (whoozjha-whoozjha) is now a verb. "She just whoozjha-whoozjha-ed a lizard!"

The cat, when annoying, is a pesticle. (pest/testicle)
posted by andraste at 8:16 PM on January 15

Oh, and whoozjha-whoozjha has lately evolved into a faster version, wadda-wadda.
posted by andraste at 8:18 PM on January 15

From my parents:
"Fish in my mouth" - means "I'm full" - this is a reference to family friends who had attempted to teach their child to say "I have had a sufficient amount" rather than "I'm full" but the child pretty much always mangled it in some way, and "Fish in my mouth" was the best one.
"Booglet," also be shortened to "boog," - started out as generically meaning "small child" but then came to mean me in particular. Not sure where it came from. Urban Dictionary defines these in a weird variety of ways, mostly involving boogers but a few that are apparently some sort of racial slur, and my parents mostly gave up on using it publicly when they got some weird reactions.
From friends:
"Blobbeh" - Lazy, a state of being lazy, a lazy person, to be lazy, (can be any part of speech) - it's a specific sort of laziness though - basically, "to blob" or "being a blob" meant to sit around the house watching tv or surfing the net or otherwise being useless, preferably in one's pjs.* From this, "blobby" arose, which then became "blobbeh" (like "kitty"-->"kitteh"). Generally used in a Gchat conversation with someone you know has had a lazy day: "Hey, blobbeh". "How goes the blobbeh?" "Having a blobbeh day?" etc.
"Grump" - While Urban Dictionary also defines this as a large or difficult poop (among many other unrelated definitions), I am pretty sure we came up with this independently - we being the group of girls I went on an Outward Bound-type trip with as a teenager (teen girls, if in the wilderness for long enough and without interaction with teen boys, will become totally disgusting and shameless about bodily functions - it's awesome). I believe it came about as a portmanteau of either "great" or "grand" and "dump," and it was very important to announce to the group if you had just had one.

*Also, I am pretty sure that other people do this, but pajama bottoms, yoga pants, and similar all fall into a category that I refer to as "comfypants."
posted by naoko at 11:02 PM on January 15

Slowgress - exactly what it sounds like.
posted by primer_dimer at 2:07 AM on January 16

which in turn came from the plural of sheep: 1 sheep, 2 shoops. It does make sense when you follow from 1 foot, 2 feet; 1 tooth, 2 teeth and you try to apply it to sheep!

My husband has used this logic to singularize "rice"--i.e., one grain of rice is a "rouse."

Around my house, the plural of box is boxen.

My five-year-old also came up with hanitizer. How funny.

We also use "peefy" to mean something weak, tired, small, or insignificant. "Did you see that sandwich? Peefy little thing."
posted by marmot at 10:14 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]

Oh - a friend has used the term "gak" to refer to "generic refuse/clutter/mess that's in your way". Last heard him using it when we were moving into a just-being-renovated office space and he told our ew landlord "well, we'd like to move in soon, but there's still a lot of gak the contractors left there..."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:28 AM on January 16

Um, uh-uh. The schoolboys are clearly bypassing the appropriate term, "zerbit." (The Urban Dictionary cites this as a noun, but I've certainly heard it used as a verb also.)

'Zerbert' is correct. 'Zerbit' is what Zoidberg calls it.
posted by Twicketface at 10:36 AM on January 16

An ex-beau and I invented ilydyfi, pronounced illy-diffy.
It's an acronym for I Love You and Don't You Forget It.
Usage:
Me: "Bye darling"
Him: "Bye. ilydyfi!
Me: "ilydyfi!
posted by Kerasia at 10:10 PM on January 16

Not a new word, but an unrelated repurposing of a phrase:

On a submarine (US), the control station for the engineering plant is a very small room. The formality is supposed to be really high. If you have business in there or you need to talk to someone that's in there, you can't just walk in. You have to say "request permission to enter." Which, if you mumble just right, sounds like "Christmas dinner."

Now I work where there are a lot of ex-submarine engineering-type guys and I hear it every once in a while. Entering someone's office or walking into the lunchroom, "Christmas dinner." It's more of a statement than a question.
posted by ctmf at 8:13 PM on January 17

EmpressCallipygos, if you've been traumatized by misreading "crangraped" you could see an analyst, or a therapist – or the one man who is both!
posted by nicwolff at 9:47 PM on January 17

We like "Pogged"...

Meaning: the feeling of having eaten to, or often indeed beyond, the point of satiety. As in, "No more for me, thanks, I'm pogged."

Derivation uncertain. Probably starts from verb transitive: "to pig" (meaning self explanatory); past tense and hence past participle: "pogged".
posted by genesta at 11:36 AM on January 18

Frutile, which compounds "futile" and "fruitless" for all those things which are both pointless and sure to never produce results. As in, "This software project is utterly frutile."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 3:15 AM on January 19

"Gullywhumper", which means "a really big thunderstorm."

Popularized in Connecticut by erstwhile weather reporter Hilton Kaderli, who blurted it out during an early forecast; apparently the station was flooded with calls asking precisely what a gullywhumper was and if people should take special measures to prepare for it. Kaderli later apologized, claiming it was a term he'd heard while growing up in Oklahoma, and the term passed into the lexicon of WFSB viewers. However, I haven't found any evidence it's a well-known regional term, so his own family could have coined it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:38 AM on January 19

I say "gullywasher" which is a well-known regional term in East Texas and might be related to an Oklahoma version. But I never heard "gullywhumper," so he could have also just misremembered it.
posted by Miko at 9:41 AM on January 19

Sorry, that should be "gullywasher"
posted by Miko at 9:41 AM on January 19

Yeah, probably related at that, Miko. I leave it to holdkris to decide if this counts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:47 AM on January 19

Some friends and I had a professor, whose name I will not mention here but we shortened it to "Foogs." Oh, you do the Foogs paper yet? I saw Foogs on his bike the other day and ducked behind a bush just in time. Etc, etc. This mutated into calling the grocery store Whole Foogs, which I still do now (5 years later). It caught on with an entirely different group of people.

The gentleman and I play a lot of Words with Friends, and have taken to calling words that we didn't think would work (a scrabble Hail Mary pass) "worgs," which evolved into calling the whole thing Worgs with Frangs. Which makes him my boyfrang.

Our cat treats a squeaky snake toy like a security blankey, it is his snok. When the cat behaves poorly we call him Moriarty, when he behaves poorly and has gas we call him Morifarty.
posted by troika at 12:59 PM on January 19

This may or may not count but I am terrible at placing commas (see above comment) and have taken to calling the resulting mess 'comma kudzu.'
posted by troika at 1:08 PM on January 19

'psycling' refers to the state of alternating between bouts of depression and mania that occurs for people within the bipolar spectrum.
posted by PsyclingJunkie at 3:41 AM on January 20

I know this is much later but I've thought of another one: my grandparents referred to their household's "secret hiding place" for candy as "the abbiter." I'm not really sure how that's spelled (it could be "abbiter", "abbider", "abboter," or even "abida"), and I have NO idea where they got that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:11 PM on March 2

EmpressCallipygos - the were not referring t their househod's "secret hiding place" for candy as the abattoir, were they? (Because that would be kind of awesome, maybe in a Hansel and Gretel kind of way.)
posted by peagood at 7:34 PM on March 2

Any chance they were French or French-Canadian? Wonder if it's related to habiter.
posted by Miko at 3:39 AM on March 3

Any chance they were French or French-Canadian?

Grandma was, as a matter of fact. What is habiter? (Googling it only gives me the verb definition.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:24 AM on March 3

My Spanish speaking family always called the electric drill "el tarracataca". It was my grandfather's word, and it must obviously been a hammer-drill.
posted by kandinski at 5:05 AM on May 17

Words that friends have made up and I use:

shuckling--when you have a flirty "connection" with someone, e.g. "You and that park ranger were totally shuckling at the ticket booth."

snoaches--dirty kleenexes, e.g. "I'm sorry you have a cold, but can you please stop leaving snoaches all over the living room floor?"
posted by exceptinsects at 1:45 PM on May 18

The word is "doot-doot" and it's the cardboard tube that's in a roll of toilet paper, paper towels or gift wrap (there are varying lengths of doot-doots).

In our house it's a Derter. Cause drrrrrrrt-drrrrr-drrrrrrrtt-drrrrrr-drrrrr. We're currently teaching this term to a third generation.

A friend of mine in college invented the word noneforthwith spontaneously in conversation one day. It can be swapped in for most uses of the word "anyway". She also once named the car's fuel gage the gasometer.
posted by MsMolly at 3:32 PM on May 18