Urman Dictionary

gravity glitch

noun

When an apparently stable object suddenly falls.

Paulie carefully posed his Superman action figure on his bookshelf, giving it a couple of seconds to make sure it wouldn’t topple over. As soon as he turned his back, he heard Supes fall to the ground - there had apparently been a gravity glitch.

mondohuginous

adjective

Larger than something gibungous, but not as large as something enormomegaultralithic.

Mount Everest may be mondohuginous, but Olympus Mons on Mars is enormomegaultralithic.

nisord

noun

The cognitive overhead associated with managing one’s social interactions to appropriately deal with the expectations of others.

I don’t think I have the energy tonight to go to Jarod’s party and deal with the nisord of talking to a bunch of folks I barely know. I think I’ll just stay in and watch a movie.

tropophasic sleep

noun phrase

A sleep schedule that moves forward or backward incrementally from day to day.

When I was a student, I always had a tropophasic sleep pattern over the summers, staying up an hour later every night. Eventually it rolled around to getting up early, and kept going in that circle until school started up again.

autolog

noun

A conversation one has with oneself.

When I have to make a difficult decision, I sometimes talk it through in a full autolog, taking both sides of the argument and trying to persuade myself one way or the other.

auctorous

adjective

Significant, deliberate, authoritative, and irrefutable.

When I was a child, my parents' plans seemed so auctorous. When they said it was time to visit Grandpa and Grandma, it felt like a fundamental rule of the universe that we were following, not just something a couple of people had agreed to do. Now I know adulthood is all just ad-libbed.

focus shear

noun phrase

When one is prevented from focusing all of one’s limited attention on something that is important right now due to distractions that cannot responsibly be ignored.

It’s fine that the laundry and housework have been piling up while I’ve been on this big push at work, but now I have to do my taxes, plus my old college buddy chose this week to visit. This focus shear is so frustrating - I wish I could put off the government and my friendship just long enough to finish my project.

ergon

noun

A unit of work equal to the output of a single hour of moderately focused work, half an hour of highly-focused “in the zone” work, two hours of occasionally-distracted work, or a full day of unmotivated work.

Hey, don’t take it personally, but I’m going to go hide in my office with my headphones on for a while. I have a three ergon task and only two hours to do it.

productivity inflection point

noun phrase

The moment in which “What can I finish today?” gets replaced by “What can I put off until tomorrow?”

I can tell it’s been a rough week when my productivity inflection point goes from five PM to three.

belcolet

noun

The calmness of a winter’s night.

Rhodri exhaled, his breath steaming in front of him in the otherwise still air. Between the pristine snow and the twinkling stars, he felt a sense of belcolet overtake him.

movibrance

noun

Intensity of emotion due to youth or inexperience.

When I first started dating, I had the movibrance of a child. A kind word from my new love would make my heart soar, and a careless one sent me to despair.

whim money

noun phrase

An amount of money low enough in proportion to the purchaser’s income that it may be spent without concern.

When I was in college, I thought really hard before spending twenty bucks on anything - but these days, that’s whim money.

groaner freebie

noun phrase

A joke which everyone knows is unfunny but is satisfying to make, and therefore everyone is allowed to make it once and only once.

I’d like you to meet my cousin, Sal Ladd. Go ahead, get the groaner freebie out of your system - he’s heard them all.

unsensus

noun

A state of failed communication due to different assumptions, definitions, or a minor language barrier.

When I asked Enrique if he had made sure to put the newspapers in the papers bin and not the metals bin and he confidently responded that yes, he had recycled the newspapers, I felt a vague sense of unsensus.

gustodissonance

noun

An unpleasant mix of too many conflicting flavors.

The sandwich was off to a good start with bananas, nutella, and coconut - but the ham and olives turned it into gustodissonance that was less than the sum of its parts.

credon

noun

A unit of measurement equal to the plausibility of an apparently true but unproven statement that there is no reason to doubt.

Pelagia told me she’d already mailed the check like I asked, but the nervous way her eyes darted pegged her claim at only point three credons.

gurf

noun

An involuntary bodily noise that one hopes is not heard or acknowledged.

Vasilka had skipped lunch, and so her stomach was empty and growling. She hoped her classmates would ignore or simply not hear these gurfs, though to her they seemed deafening.

glaucusene

adjective

Overcast, cool, still, gray, and quiet.

Lucinda was never much for sun and summer. She preferred sitting by the window on glaucusene days, calmly sipping a cup of tea and contemplating her life.

stoloan

verb

To keep forever something that was intended to be a temporary loan.

I used to have a copy of Katamari Damacy, but Justin stoloaned it when he moved away.

ditty-dally

verb

To stall so that a song you like can finish playing.

I had already pulled into my driveway, but my favorite song was on the radio, so I ditty-dallied until it finished before turning off the engine and getting out of the car.