STERNUTATION? Gesundheit!

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STERNUTATION [ster-nyuh-TAY-shun] (noun)

The act or sound of sneezing

"Tabby, the omnipresent housecat, seemed to delight in Natalie's constant sternutation." (TWITO, page 149)

Feeling OIKOFUGIC now that you're vaccinated?

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OIKOFUGIC [oy-ko-FU-jik] (adjective)

Marked by the urge to wander or travel away from home

"Genevieve's employment as an air hostess for Oceanic Airlines enabled her to indulge her most oikofugic fantasies, but an emergency landing in Uzbekistan was not one of them." (TWITO, page 101)

A ZEPHYR might be more effective than a mask

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ZEPHYR  (noun)

A gentle, refreshing wind; also the Greek god of the west wind.

"He saw attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic, cyclones in the summer zephyr, lost children in every top-spinning urchin, an uprising of the down-trodden masses in every hurling of a derelict potato at a passing automobile."
--O. Henry, "Whirligigs" (1923)

Do you find puns GELASTIC?

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GELASTIC  [jel-AS-tic] (adjective)

Provoking laughter

"Only Desmond's gelastic comments made the tedious seminar bearable." (TWITO, page 60)

Are you hungry or are you EDACIOUS?

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EDACIOUS [ih-DAY-shuss] (adjective)

Voracious; devouring

"Abigail flailed in despair as the edacious aphids consumed her garden." (TWITO, page 44)

My melted Easter bunny caused a DELIQUIUM

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DELIQUIUM [del-IK-wee-um] (noun)

Melting or dissolution; liquefying; a maudlin mood

"When at length overtaken and reconveyed to the house, deliquium followed deliquium, and when they ceased, frenzy succeeded; the dark night of insanity had utterly quenched the light of reason."
--Reuben Percy, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction (1834)

"The worship of Odin astonishes us, -- to fall prostrate before the Great Man, into deliquium of love and wonder over him, and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of the skies, a god!"
--Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1840)

Things melt. The salad left too long in the refrigerator turns to green slime. A vinyl phonograph disc left in the sun warps disastrously. A plastic carafe left too close to the stove burner assumes a comical shape. All these things have happened to me, sad to say. But the worst was during my childhood, when my parents gave me a chocolate bunny one hot Easter morning. While we attended some religious rite, we left the confection in the car. When we returned, all that was left of my sacchariferous hare was a pool of chocolate milk. And yes, that put me in a deliquium. (TWITO, page 40)

I know you're reading this because of your SACCADE

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SACCADE (noun) [sa-KAHD]

 

A small, rapid movement of the eye

"Watching Henry as he turned the pages of Gravity's Rainbow, I was fascinated by the saccades of his left eye, which seemed to oscillate faster than his right." (TWITO, page 129)

Nice day for some NEPHELOCOCCYGIA?

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NEPHELOCOCCYGIA (noun) [nef-el-o-kok-sij’-ia]

Cloud gazing; the act of looking for and finding shapes in clouds; also, when capitalized, the name of "Cloud-Cuckoo-Land" in Aristophanes’ The Birds

"Terrence spent Saturday prostrate in the yard and in nephelococcygia, finding inspiration in the thunderheads."

I remember seeing a lot of things in clouds as a kid: faces, cities, fabulous beasts. I can’t do that anymore, which is sad. Now I just see water vapor, though I still can’t quite believe, sometimes, that I couldn’t sit on one of those diaphanous thrones if I could just get up there. (TWITO, page 95)