10 Uncommon Emotional Words

Definition: an ardent desire or longing; especially: a feeling of loss or grief for something lost

Most of us are familiar with the word desire, which, in addition to a number of other things, can mean “something desired.” And some of us are familiar with this word’s less-common cousin, desideratum, which means “something desired as essential” (the plural of this word is desiderata). Yet far too few of us are familiar with what is perhaps the least-known member of this particular family, the word desiderium. All of these words come from the Latin desiderare (meaning “to long for”), yet only desiderium carries the meaning of having feelings for something that we no longer have, and wish very much that we did.

I spent last week looking for Woody, and I wasn’t alone. In department stores, toy warehouses and catalogue shops throughout the land a desperate posse is on the trail of the lanky star of Toy Story. Frankly I didn't think it was going to be so hard to bring him in. I thought I could wander into Toys R Us, casually pick one from a mountain of draw-string Woodies, haggle briefly with my conscience over succumbing to the gorgon of international capitalism (the jury generally crumbles after it is shown pictures of a weeping child) and swap my plastic for theirs. But the cupboard was bare … no Woody, no Buzz Lightyear—just a few disconsolate Mr Potato Heads, a mere wallflower, it seems, in the childish desiderium.
—Thomas Sutcliffe, The Independent (London, England), 5 Dec. 1996

Definition: something that banishes or mitigates grief

Should you experience desiderium, you may find your spirits boosted by a dolorifuge. People find dolorifuges in all sorts of beliefs and activities, though they don’t often encounter the word dolorifuge outside of spelling bees these days. Coinage of dolorifuge is credited to English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, who used it in his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which is today widely viewed as his masterwork. As Tim Dolin, editor of the 1998 Penguin Classics edition of Tess noted, dolorifuge was “Hardy’s own invention, which infuriated the novel’s early reviewers…”

The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by their wealthy kinsfolk (as they imagined the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry at Tess’s reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.
— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891)

Definition: feeling remorse or regret

Every one of us has, on some occasion, felt like we should be saying “I’m sorry,” and wished to do so ... but without actually having to utter those dread words. If you would like to say that you are sorry, or have feelings of regret or remorse, but want to do so in a fashion that is sufficiently obscure that the person to whom you are apologizing doesn’t quite understand you, then compunctious is the word for you.

Mother and daughter adored each other and revered their son and brother; and Archer loved them with a tenderness made compunctious and uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration, and by his secret satisfaction in it.
— Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, (D. Appleton & Company, 1920)

Definition: a state of feeling that accompanies preoccupation with trivial and insipid diversions

Leucocholy appears to be the creation of one Thomas Gray, an 18th century poet and man of letters. The earliest record (and one of the few times it has been used at all) of this word occurs in a letter written by Gray in 1742: “Mine, you are to know, is a white Melancholy, or rather Leucocholy, for the most part; which though it seldom laughs or dances, nor ever amounts to what one calls Joy or Pleasure, yet is a good easy sort of state, and ça ne laisse que de s’amuser.”

To this they owe that leucocholy which lies deep down beneath the surface gaiety of their natures, and makes the dread of the unknown the dominant note of their lives.
— Percy Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, 1912

Definition: feeling trepidation

Trepidatious isn’t as obscure as most of the other words in this article, but nevertheless, many people come to our dictionary to look it up after having been informed by the cruel and unfeeling gods who run the spellcheck programs that it is not a word. We can inform you that yes, it is indeed a word, and you may continue to type it, no matter how many angry red squiggles your spellchecker throws at you. There is also a verb form, trepidate, meaning “to feel trepidation,” i.e. nervousness and uncertainty.

The beginning of the event was muted as families trickled in and Maddox and Chief Deputy Temetris Atkins gave speeches. … But excitement began to grow among the children after lunch, donated by local Chickfil-A and Honey Baked Ham franchises, as the kids took center stage one by one and began to open their presents. The first few kids seemed trepidatious as Atkins directed them to pick out a single gift from their own individually labeled, overwhelmingly large piles. They gingerly tore into the wrapping paper, revealing LEGO sets, Ugg boots and an Easy Bake Oven.
— Henri Hollis, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 22 Dec. 2023

Definition: coming from the breast or heart as the seat of emotion or spiritual inspiration

The sense of pectoral may be exceedingly rare, but that won’t stop us from saying it with our whole chest. Pectoral comes ultimately from the Latin word pectus, meaning “breast,” and accordingly it is usually used in reference to a muscle that connects the ventral walls of the chest with the bones of the upper arm and shoulder. But it has also been used over the centuries—usually in religious contexts—as an adjective meaning, in essence, “coming from the heart.”

At this time a good mans tongue is in his breast, not in his mouth, his words are then so pithy and so pectorall.
— Sir Henry Montagu, Earl of Manchester, Al Mondo: Contempliato Mortis, 1633

Definition: vaguely uneasy, slightly indisposed

Sometimes we have need of a word that can describe the middle ground between well and unwell, and for those occasions we have the word all-overish. Although this word may also be applied to feelings of apprehension, it is its role of serving to so specifically denote a non-specific feeling that makes it useful.

“Feeling slightly perturbed?” “Why, yes, Mrs. Harcourt; I can’t say but what I was a little bit all-overish, and I felt my nose growing very red, as it always does when I get excited….”
— Anonymous, All for the Best, A Story of Quiet Life, 1861

Definition: lack of feeling or capacity for emotion

No list of words concerning itself with feelings would be complete without a word for the state of not having them. Happily, the English language is rich in words for paucity of emotion. We have heartlessness, cold-blooded, apathetic, stolid, impassivity, and a number of others. To this list we may add callosity, which may be used in either a literal sense (“abnormal hardness and thickness (as of the skin)”), or in a figurative one. It is similar in this regard to the word pachydermatous, which may mean “thick, thickened” (as is the skin of a pachyderm) or “callous.”

Such were the discussions continually passing between Lady Beauchamp and Mr. Mortimer, discussion in which the pensive widow always suffered the most; for, being of a morbidly sensitive nature, she acutely felt the sarcasms of her brother, whilst he, shielded by his callosity, was proof against her weak reprisals.
— Marguerite Gardiner, The Lottery of Life, 1857

Definition: a fit or state of indignation

There are not one but two dudgeons in English, though they are not believed to be related. The older of the two appeared in the 1400s and referred to a wood used especially for dagger hilts (and later, a dagger with a handle of dudgeon). This dudgeon is now obsolete, but the second dudgeon arose in the 1500s and is still used today, often in the phrase “in high dudgeon” to refer to a state of indignation, a huff, a pique, if you will, and you’d better!

“Humph!” he grunted. “Oysters and salads, potted meat and pastry; strong coffee and lemon syllabub with brandy. Good Lord, I don’t know what should have kept the contents of an entire cemetery from sweeping down upon your slumbers, you female gourmand. Ghosts indeed!” And he stamped out of the room in high dudgeon. His tirade was wholly lost upon his sister, however, for that lady was whimpering comfortably and putting all her feeble energy into the effort.
— Lawrence L. Lynch (Emily “Emma” Medora Murdock Lynch Van Deventer), Madeline Payne, the Detective’s Daughter (1884)