A SPINNER'S DICTIONARY

CAIRN

Human pyramid made of rocks. Rock pyramid?

CALLUS

A physical proof that what doesn’t hurt you makes you stronger.

CALUMNY

Something you should NEVER do even if they deserve it.

CANNINESS

The best quality for a financial advisor. Or best friend.

CANTANKEROUS

The worst character trait for a best friend. Or a financial advisor.

CARDIGAN

It’s a sweater. It’s a jacket. It’s a sweater-jacket.

CARRERIST

Someone who will write books about the art of ‘becoming successful’.

CASEIN

Milk protein. Therefore, a protein that I respect and cherish.

CASUISTRY

How most opinions are viewed from the other side of the argument.

CAUL

Your very first blanket.

CAVORT

How you should react anytime your significant other has great news about his/her life.

CENTREFOLD

The most prized page of a magazine, especially for teenage boys.

CERULEAN

Another beautiful colour.

CHARACTERFUL

Full of character.

CHARY

The emotion you should feel when you get a phone call rewarding you to a free cruise ship to the Bahamas.

CHERRY-PICK

How we should all pick our friends.

CHIMICHANGA

A tortilla filled with meat… Honestly, I order some just to be able to say the word out loud.

CHISELLED

How most guys’ faces are described in romance books.

CHOOSY

How people with enough food mostly are about food.

CHURL

How an unsatisfied person about life can be spotted.

CIRCUMLOCUTION

Like the word itself, the use of too many letters to describe something quite simple.

CLAPTRAP

A pretentious prick. Or a lovable robotic prick.

CLEMENTINE

The perfect fruit.

CLOCK-WATCHER

A person who watches the clock too much.

CLOYING

One of those few times ‘sweet’ can be considered pessimistic.

COAX

The proverb ‘you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ summarized in a word.

COGNIZANCE

A fancy word for ‘knowledge’.

COLD SHOULDER

Replace ‘shoulder’ by ‘attitude’ and there you go.

COLLOQUIAL

Boring and safe subjects of conversation.

COMMA

How to make a long sentence seem shorter.

COMMENDABLE

How every artist wants his/her art to be viewed.

COMMONPLACE

Anything colloquial.

COMPENDIUM

The internet is the largest compendium of the world.

COMPLACENT

Something you should all aim for by working hard but never NEVER EVER reach.

CONCERTMASTER

The most awesome job title.

CONDONE

The passive behaviour that explains why bullies are still a thing.

CONFLATE

What happens to chocolate and milk when you make chocolate milk.

CONGRUENT

How my taste buds feel when milk conflates with chocolate.

CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION

Spending a lot of money to show people that you have a lot of money.

CONTEMPORANEOUS

The only sure thing everyone who talks to each other has in common. 

CONTENTIOUS

The opposite of colloquial.

CONTRIVE

How a scheme comes into reality.

CONVOLUTED

Because ‘complicated’ is not complicated enough.

COPULATIVE

A connection between words. Or people. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

COROLLA

The petals of a flower. Or a car.

COSMOGONY

Extremely complicated, unless you don’t use science to explain it.

COUNTERFACTUAL

Against the facts. Not factual.

COURTYARD

A fancy word for garden surrounded by walls.

COY

I couldn’t describe it better than this. 

CRADLE-TO-GRAVE

Life.

CREDENCE

How scientists view science, priests view the Church and a dog views its master.

CRESTFALLEN

A mix between sad and disappointed, even though sadness means disappointment and disappointment means sadness.

CRONYISM

Political facebook comments.

CRUX

The purpose of a court trial.

CURFEW

When outside becomes illegal.

CURSORILY

How everyone ‘read’ the terms and conditions page before signing them.

CUTLERY

When a woman says that word, you better put the fork on the right side of the plate. Too bad I never remember which side is the right side. Right or left?

DABBLE

The level of interest expressed by a low ‘Hmmm’ and an absence of eye-contact.

DAMPNESS

Your bathing suit 2 hours after you came out of the water.

DANK

Your damp bathing suit that you have to put on again.

DATUM

The singular word for data. Really.

DAUNT

What bullies do.

DEAD MARCH

No, it’s not a zombie walk.

DEBILITATE

What will happen to anyone getting beaten with a baseball bat.

DEBUNK

The initial purpose of Agent Scully’s work with the X-Files.

DECIDUOUS

An organism that sheds. Whether we like it or not, we all do it. If not hair, it’s the teeth. If it’s not the teeth, then how can you eat steak with your baby teeth?

DECLUTTER

If you are a teenager, do that to your bedroom to bring joy to your mother.

DEFAME

Here, ‘de’ stands for ‘destroy’. The ‘fame’ stands for ‘fame’.

DEFERENCE

How to act around strangers because frankly it’s better than the opposite.

DEFLECT

If your goal is a line, deflecting from the line would be a curve that goes around the line.

DEIFICATION

How people with a LOT of money view themselves.

DELIQUESCE

What happens to the Wicked Witch when you splash water on her.

DEMARCATION

A line that is not always visible but that still separates.

DEMUR

The feeling you get when you frown and ask ‘‘Are you sure?’’

DENIZEN

The REAL word for citizen, no papers or government involved.

DEPORTMENT

The whole body language.

DEPRECATE

A fancy word for ‘disapprove’.

DERMIS

Our largest organ.

DESCRAMBLE

If a foreign language was a signal, translation would be the electronic device to descramble it to English.  

DESPOIL

Synonym of spoil. Don’t ask why the ‘de’ was necessary…

DESULTORY

What happens to people that cannot multitask but still try.

DETERRENT

Something that makes you believe that you ‘can’t do it’.

DEVIL-MAY-CARE

The feeling you get when you don’t really care if the devil (or anyone else) cares.

DEWY-EYED

How devil-may-care type of people view themselves.

DIAPHANOUS

A piece of clothing usually worn by woman in the sole purpose of hiding mostly nothing underneath.

DICTUM

A sentence that survived the text to time and surely because of that must be serious and important and true.

DIFFIDENT

The opposite of confident.

DILATORY

A fancy word for ‘stalling’.

DIMNESS

When you cannot see properly but your eyes sure try to absorb as much light as they can to make you believe that you can see.

DISARRAY

The state of your hair and mind after a first freefall jump out of an airplane.

DISCERNING

How every non-jealous people see other people interested in their better halves.

DISCOVER

Probably the best and my favourite word in the English language with a ‘’negative’’ meaning (as in uncovering).

DISENTANGLE

A figural way to literally untangle some things.

DISPERSAL

When chaos is usually not always randomly achieved.

DISSERTATION

A word that still gives me hyperventilation.

DISSIPATION

To dissipate your potential.

DITHER

How NOT to be a leader.

DIVIDEND

Something that must be split. By calculations. Or by accountants.

DODDER

What happens to muscles when you move them for more than seven or eight decades.

DOLDRUMS

How you feel after getting dumped.

DOLEFUL

The look on your face after getting dumped.

DONENESS

The level of blood allowed on your meat.

DOTTINESS

When you say your brother’s father’s brother’s sister’s instead of saying your aunt.

DOUBLENESS

Hands, feet, eyes, lungs, kidneys, ears all share this on most human bodies.

DOUR

Being a serious stuck-up.

DOWNFALL

Curious. This word contains the action and its result in reverse. It’s also a metaphor.

DRACONIAN

Don’t mess around at that word.

DRAWBACK

Something that draws you back.

DRIFTWOOD

Wood that drifts.

DRIVEL

When someone talks and all that’ll be remembered is ‘blablabla’.

DROLL

When it’s funny but weird.

DRUB

Hurting someone repetitively, either physically or psychologically.

DUALITY

Heads or Tails, day and night, yin vs yang, my interpretation of my capacity of explaining things against my actual capacity of explaining things.

DULLSVILLE

A place for the dull.

DUMBLY

When something is missing in a reaction. Either a response or a comprehension.

DUSKY

What happens to light at dusk.

DWINDLE

To make smaller.

EARMARK

Something that makes you stand out. Like a large mark on your ear.

EARTHINESS

Something that reminds you of the earth. Not the planet but the soil.

EBULLIENCE

How to feel after an A+.

ECLECTIC

Not following a trend, but rather a LOT of trends.

EDDY

How water moves when you flush a toilet.

EERIE

The atmosphere of a top-quality horror movie.

EFFLUVIUM

Disgusting water.

EKE

Simple living.

ELBOW GREASE

When you work so hard even your elbow sweats.

ELEGIAC

Charles Beaudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe’s bread-and-butter.

 ELISION

The removal of a letter without changing the meaning of the word or its understandability.

EMBARGO

A curfew for ships or commerce.

EMERITUS

When you don’t do the pain but still get the glory.

EMOTE

When you show more emotions than you feel.

ENAMOUR

French romantic sounding word that literally means In Love.

ENCROACH

Figuratively stepping on someone’s toes.

ENDOW

Giving dough. As in money.

ENFEEBLE

Making weak. As in feeble.

ENLIVEN

Make more fun. As in liven up.

ENSCONCE

How every kid should be brought into this world. And how every woman should give birth. Sadly it’s not the case (especially for the second sentence).

ENTHRALL

How you feel when you read a good book or watch a good movie.

ENTWINE

Twist something with something else.

EPIPHYTE

How a plant uses another plan without hurting it.

EPITHET

‘’Cold’’ for December to April in Canada. ‘’Hot’’ for December to April in Panama.

EQUANIMITY

Staying extremely cool when everything is nothing but cool.

ERGONOMIC

How to make something useful a little bit more agreeable.

ESCHEW

What most of us try to do with problems.

ETCH

A weird sounding word that describe in 4 words the process of engraving metal in whatever method.

ETIOLOGY

The science of WHY we are sick.

EULOGIZE

To highly praise something or someone… usually dead. ☹

EVANESCENT

Something that fades away… So, really, everything is evanescent. Wow, that got depressing real fast. My joy is evanescent right now.

EVERMORE

More than ever. Forever.

EXCERPT

A small part of something larger. Like a day in your life. Also evanescent. Wow, I’m poetic.

EXCULPATE

What a defense attorney lives to do.

EXERTION

Giving so much effort that your body remembers.

EXONERATE

To figuratively clean off all hypothetical dirt placed on someone.

EXPIATE

To literally accept and amend all figural real dirt placed on yourself.

EXPLETIVE

@$#%& is an example that can be used in many children’s books and comics without offending any parents.

EXPURGATE

Fancy word for cutting sentences of a text to polish it according to your standards.

EXTOL

Praise something so much it would be very bad to fake it.

EXTRANEOUS

Fancy word for irrelevant.

EXULT

The emotion felt when ‘hard work pays off’.