Millennial Dictionary

You may have noticed – assuming you’re an actual reader of this space and not a figment of my imagination – words play a large part in the posts on this blog. I’m captivated by them, and by language in general. Okay, maybe a few dozen other things, but mostly words. This preamble is by way of asking your forbearance as yet another submission on the subject is likely to occur at any time. Oh, look, here's one now.

Abhorrent (a.bor.rent) - sky-high rental rate

AI (eh.eye) - what most of us have

Alimony - (all.e.money) what the ex- gets

Altercation (al.ter.kay.shun) - saying, “I don’t”

Amazonian (a.ma.zo.nee.in) - Amazon employee

Analogy (ah.nah.la.gee) - study of assholes

Anchorage (an.k(ə)r-aydg) - fixed in one's ways. "He'll never change; he's at that anchorage now."

Anticlimax (an.tee.kli.maks) - your partner stops what they're doing just as you reach your peak

Antiviral - a Youtube flop

Apartment - where one person ends up after a separation

Aphrodisiac - afro lover

Apology - study of the Apollo space missions

Arboreal - an unidentifiable tree

Attention (archaic) - focus

Auto-erotica - car sex

Balderdash - losing one's hair in record time

Barometer - barfly's rating

Becoming - en route. "Hold yer horses; I becoming."

Below - unhappy

Beret (brr-ay) - Canuck-speak for freezing. "That wind chill really makes it beret?"

Binge-watch - seeing someone pig out

Bipartisan - LGBTQ2+ guerrilla. "Tariq was one of the best fighters in the Kabul garrison. No one had any idea he was actually bipartisan."

Bisect - LGBTQ2+ cult

Book - near-extinct analog reading medium

Brothel - men-only hotel

Capitalize - amazing peepers. "Rachel was a natural in front of a camera, especially with her capitalize."

Capsize - hat measurement

Caribou - ghost car

Castrate - actors' union pay

Celebrate - measure of celebrities' popularity. "Will Smith's celebrate is at an all-time low."

Cellist: prisoner roster

Cinnamon – Rasta bad boy

Circumstance - one’s position on whether to ‘cut’ or not

Clockwise - able to read an analog time piece

Cloudburst - when all your personal files suddenly show up online, everywhere, all at once

Coffee - person getting coughed on

Combatant - army ant

Complaint - the blue screen of death

Comradeship - Communist naval vessel

Configure - what a police psychologist does

Constable (kon-stah-bull) - persistent use of hyperbole

Consternation - troublemaking country

Contract - land purchased with ill-gotten gains

deadline - obituary. "I wouldn't have known anything was even wrong with him if I hadn't come across his deadline."

Decant – leave a hypocritical conversation 

Deduct - de ting de air comes outta

Deflate - text shorthand. "Def late, sorry!!"

Deliver - New York food order. "Yeah, de liver, well-done; and I want fries wid dat."

Destabilize - get the animals out of the barn

Destitute - down-on-her-luck call girl

Dictionary - unable to make sense speaking or writing

Digitize - poking someone in the eye

Disembark - remove a dog’s vocal chords

Disengage - dump the fiancé

Disincline - go down the up escalator

Displace - gangster’s hideout

Domicide - house-wrecking party

Download - use the toilet

Dressage - age-appropriate clothing

Dysfunctional - unable to enjoy one’s self

Effluent - stinking rich

Embossed - manager for life

Enclose - not nude

Equaintance - someone you only ever meet online

Excommunicate - talking with the ex-

Experimental - mad scientist’s work

Explain - a former undercover cop

Explanatory - Conservative politician's press conference

Exposé - French Canadian flasher

Extension - ongoing conflict with one’s ex-

Extoll - alimony

Feminine - all-women baseball team

Fenestrate - thrown in through a window. "The rock with note attached fenestrated the abortion clinic's front window."

Fisherman - a guy with a visible butt-crack

Flash drive – Barry Allen’s ride.

Foolproof - guaranteed you won't be able to figure it out

Forthright - comes after 'third time's the charm'. "Don't worry; forthright. Right?"

Garbage - what used clothing stores sell. "Verve has great garbage, though they only have two fitting rooms."

Generationale - excusing behaviour based on one’s birth year

Governmental - out to lunch leadership

Handroid - painful swelling from overuse of one’s mobile

Harmonious - barber shop quartet

Heroine - female addict

Householder - the bank

Hung jury - so hungry it hurts

Hypno-sis - your sister’s a psychic (cf. psy-chic)

Identification - taking a break from yourself.

Ignorant - speech by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about

Image - David Copperfield's business sign

Impassable - frigid to the max

Important - a non-native ant

Importune - an essential music number

Improper - Cockney for ‘gentleman’

Incredible - amazing food

Incumbent - wage reduction

Indelible – lousy deli food

Indispensable - won't come out of the vending machine

Insect - the 'it' cult

Intelligent - Einstein, Hawking, Galileo, etc

Interminable - the seeming length of some university semesters

Intimidate - when the woman might say, “I see you have small feet,” or the man might say, “I bet you could have lots of kids.”

Inundate - overeat

Ironclad - full of loopholes

Isolatté - pandemic home brew

Justice - the way things are. "You'll have to accept it justice."

Kingdom - chair of the local bdsm club

Laptop - toy dog

Likewise - fan of smart people

Malicious - tastes awful

Manicure - Rasta doctor

Maritimer - wedding planner

Marrow - argument between housewives

Matrimony - marry rich

Matron - robot Mom

Maximum - everything a mom can be

Meander - Cockney couple

Medieval - only half bad

Melodrama - a show that puts one to sleep

Meme (pronounced me-me) - retro 80’s saying

Miasma - referring to one’s lung condition

Millennial - a thousand guys named Nial

Missive - a woman who always plays Devil's advocate. "Sheila? Don't get into it with her; she's missive all the way."

Mistake: 1) film set error   2) kill the wrong vampire

Monetary - late payment

Neighbourhood - the gangster on your block

Network - online job duties

Obsess - stressed about the 'ob'

Officiate - had supper in your home office

Opportune - when your song gets used in a tv commercial

Optician - professional decision-maker. "When you can't make up your mind, call an optician."

Pandemonium - result of a pandemic

Parable - two steers

Parkade - automobile distance sensors. "New car models all come with parkade these days."

Paymaster - where about 25% of your salary goes

Pharmacology - study of how drug companies operate

Pick-a-ninny - what you do at election time

Pixel - a squashed fairy

Plaintiff – an argument over nothing in particular

Polaroid - what one gets from sitting on a cold surface too long

Polygon - the bird got out the window

Pollytician - candidate who positively spins his lousy public record at election time

Predicament - having done nothing to avoid a messy situation you knew was going to happen

prestidigitation - fingers crushed in a door. "Mom, Mom, Bobby just prestidigitation in the car door!"

Prevail - single girl

Profile - lady of the night doing her nails

Psy-chic - female with psychic powers (cf. 'hypnosis')

Pyramid - standing in the middle of a fire

Recant - say 'no' again

Redact - Communist play

Redundant - an ant with no apparent function

Rehearse - put the coffin back in the car

Reprobate - start a family with a minor

Robotics - android insect infestation

Silicon - clown convention

Slacks - pants done up thigh-high. "Yo, Jonnie, be cool. Wear dem pants slacks, and ditch that Yankees cap, homie."

Squadron - what mostly happens in basic training

Romantic - Italian insect. "The southern Romantic, unlike its North American cousins, is not a carrier of Lyme disease."

Season - born on the ocean. "Aye, Captain Carver be a right season." 

Shaman - taking a guy to task. "Shelly never hesitated when it came to shaman Mark in front of dinner guests for leaving the seat up."

Snow plow - razor blade

Submariner - lousy swimmer

Subtraction - winter driving on summer tires

Supernatural - so down to earth you're frequently mistaken for a patch of grass

Synergy - measurement of the energy required to commit a sin

Tableau - dine and dash. "Call mall security; some punks just pulled a tableau at Montana's."

Telepath (20th century; archaic) - carpet wear between the couch and tv

Territory - a slow-acting Conservative. "Harry Poll is a decent enough politician, but he's your typical territory when it comes to actually getting things done."

Transmits - LGBTQ2+ gloves

Transgression - change of heart after the 'operation’

Triangle - the third way of looking at things. "Sure, there're two ways to look at everything, but there's also the triangle."

Trickster - prostitute

Ultimate - the perfect romantic partner

Unbelievable - legislation that shouldn’t be passed

Unnerve - take painkillers. "Bill's back was killing him, so he decided to unnerve."

Untenable - indivisible by ten

Upload - eat

Upside-down - an apparent advantage that goes south

Virtue - sound a nun makes when she sneezes

Watertight – yeah, it’ll leak

Wearisome - when the numbers don't add up

Window - why one gambles. "People think casinos are places to window, but the only ones who window are casinos."

Wisdom - dominatrix with brains

Universe - song everyone knows

Zoology - study of zoos