- Today's Word
Flubberwisp
[FLUH-ber-wisp]
Definition
- (noun) A half-formed idea or thought that floats through your mind, feeling important or profound, but disappears before you can fully grasp or articulate it. It’s that elusive concept on the tip of your tongue that you can’t quite pin down or express clearly.
Example
Just as Sarah was falling asleep, she had a brilliant flubberwisp about solving her work problem, but by morning, she couldn’t remember what it was.
Fun Fact
The term “flubberwisp” combines “flubber,” suggesting something soft and elastic (like fleeting thoughts), with “wisp,” meaning a small, thin, or delicate piece. This type of word creation, blending two existing concepts to describe a new idea, is called a portmanteau. The phenomenon of elusive thoughts has been studied by psychologists and is related to the concept of “tip-of-the-tongue” states. These experiences are common and tend to increase with age, possibly due to changes in memory retrieval processes.
(noun) A person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure and sensory enjoyment is the highest good and chief aim of life
A self-proclaimed hedonist, she planned her entire sabbatical around exceptional food, warm weather, and long afternoons with nothing to do.
Hedonist derives from the Greek hedone, meaning “pleasure” or “delight,” from hedys (“sweet”). The philosophical school of Hedonism was formally developed in ancient Greece — most notably by Epicurus, who argued that pleasure, properly understood, was the foundation of a good life. The word entered English in the 19th century as both a philosophical term and a descriptor for those who live purely for sensory gratification.