Reverse Dictionary

About a year ago I learned -- or, at least, I thought I’d learned -- this word the definition for which was “smeared with porridge.” It was such a great word. I forget the context in which I came across it, but I remember being so happy, thinking about what might qualify as porridge (oatmeal, grits, cream of wheat) and planning to use the word as often as I could. Anyway, now I can’t remember the word (which is absolutely maddening!), and so I guess I never truly learned the word at all (or, at least, to the extent that one thinks of knowledge as a lasting thing, I guess I never really learned the word at all).

Damn! Seriously...it’s totally driving me crazy; it was such a wonderful word! It didn’t have the word “porridge” built into it (nor “gruel” nor “soup” nor anything like that), and so you’d have never guessed what it meant to have simply heard it out of context (although, once you had learned it, it really did sound like a big, sloppy mess all over you; I suppose this would make it onamanopaeic, I guess…but I could be imagining this part (and, besides, maybe onamanopaeic words have to sound like what they mean before one knows what they mean)).

At any rate, it really is making me nuts, honestly. I swear, just hearing this word was funny. I don’t think that I read it in the context of orphans, but I remember that after I'd looked it up it made me think of orphans – grimy, little alley urchins, all covered in muck...raggedy, Oliver Twisty little bastards moving back and forth from the filthy streets to the bleak, cruel institutions (for the free porridge dinners, I suppose). Nasty, grubby little fuckers (and malicious, too…vicious little bastards, every last one) but with smiles on their greasy faces and joy in their rascally hearts ‘cause they knew how to turn dire circumstances into good times. It was a very picaresque word.

I had a whole bit that I was planning on doing with this word. Really, it was that funny, laugh-out-loud funny. But I guess time and unfaithful brain cells have robbed me of my fun (and you, dear TWM reader, of yours). It would’ve been truly delightful, I’m totally sure of it. There was absolutely no way that one could use this word without being entertaining. It was just the greatest fucking word.