The imaginary line, roughly longitudinal, where magnetic and true north lie in exactly the same direction. It wanders unpredictably, typically about 10 miles per year.
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05/24/2026:
Penniform
(adjective) Feather-shaped
05/17/2026:
Nixie
(noun) A letter or package that’s undeliverable due to a faulty address. Or, a female water spirit. Or, one of those old-fashioned numeric displays consisting of a neon-filled glass tube and multiple cathodes.
05/10/2026:
Grimthorpe
(verb) To alter or remodel a building without taking its history and character into account. Named for Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, QC (1816–1905).
05/03/2026:
Ulotrichous
(adjective) Having tightly curled or “peppercorn” hair
04/26/2026:
Distichiasis
(noun) The condition, caused by a genetic mutation, of having double rows of eyelashes. One of its better known sufferers was actress Elizabeth Taylor.
04/19/2026:
Absquatulate
(verb) To slip out without being seen
04/12/2026:
Semiotician
(noun) An expert at reading signs, symbols, gestures, and other visual cues
04/05/2026:
Jyngine
(adjective) Wryneck-like. A wryneck is either of two species of European woodpeckers that can whip their heads around almost 180 degrees, which, combined with hissing, serves as a threat display.
03/29/2026:
Idiolect
(noun) The individualistic traits of a person’s speech. A further subdivision of dialect.
03/22/2026:
Hapax legomenon
(noun) The bane of dictionary authors, a word within a particular language that occurrs only once in the written record
03/15/2026:
Mesonoxian
(adjective) Pertaining to midnight
03/08/2026:
Morepork
(noun) An owl, Ninox novaeseelandiae, found in Australia and New Zealand
03/01/2026:
Retromingent
(adjective) Cowardly (literally, “urinating backward”)
02/22/2026:
Chrysopoeia
(verb) The act of transmuting base substances into gold
02/15/2026:
Zero Stroke
(noun) A mental disorder occurring during times of economic hyperinflation in which the sufferer obsessively writes row upon row of zeros. The term was coined by German physicians observing this phenomenon during the Weimar Republic period.
02/08/2026:
Naufragous
(adjective) Shipwreck-causing
02/01/2026:
Deasil
(adverb or adjective) Clockwise. As a verb, it means to move clockwise.
01/25/2026:
Widdershins
(adverb or adjective) Counterclockwise
01/18/2026:
Snup
(verb) To underpay for something extremely valuable, taking advantage of a seller’s ignorance
01/11/2026:
Cerberus
(noun) A hypervigilant custodian, such as an office receptionist who makes people wait interminably and hardly lets anybody in, regardles of their import
