This Word Does Not Exist | Hacker News Reader

This Word Does Not Exist

thisworddoesnotexist.com

204 pointsKomoD112 comments

I couldn't help not putting a request into GPT4. I got some pretty good ones, and I assume with some tweaking and/or multiple cycles, you could get a big list.

>Flambition (noun): The intense desire to achieve success or recognition through flamboyant or showy behavior. Example: His flambition led him to wear outrageous outfits and perform daring stunts in front of the crowd.

Cellivacious (adjective): Displaying a lively and energetic nature when engaging with mobile devices, especially in social situations. Example: She became cellivacious whenever her phone buzzed, eager to respond to messages and check her social media feeds.

Grumplestiltskin (noun): A person who frequently grumbles or complains about seemingly minor inconveniences, often to the annoyance of others. Example: Don't be a Grumplestiltskin – it's only a small delay in our plans.

Confluderation (noun): The act of creating a temporary or makeshift solution to a problem by combining unrelated elements in a haphazard manner. Example: The broken chair was held together by a confluderation of duct tape, string, and clothespins.

Inspiriscope (noun): A mental or emotional state in which one is highly receptive to new ideas, leading to increased creativity and productivity. Example: After a walk in nature, she felt an inspiriscope envelop her, and she effortlessly penned her best poem yet.

> Confluderation (noun): The act of creating a temporary or makeshift solution to a problem by combining unrelated elements in a haphazard manner. Example: The broken chair was held together by a confluderation of duct tape, string, and clothespins.

The example basically describes all fixes make in the army. Black tape[0] and green string[1].

[0] https://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Harry_Black

[1] https://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Green_String

The entire IT field also, only occasionally ameliorated with actual repairs just before the company is sold to make it seem like the backbone of the company is as strong as it actually should be instead of the Papier-mâché simulacra homunculus system that relies on a sysadmin who hasn't been seen in the sunlight in 30 years but if Van Helsing ever locates and stakes him the whole company collapses and crumbles to dust just like he does.

Hindi has a word for it "jugaad". It means exactly this.

Add the constraint that the word shouldn't be a portmanteau.

I added that constraint with GPT-4. The results:

Gormen (noun): The subtle satisfaction derived from completing a mundane or routine task perfectly.

Example: She felt a strange gormen after reorganizing her bookshelf by color, size, and genre.

Frip (verb): To make a decision after careful consideration and deliberation.

Example: After hours of research and comparison, he fripped to invest in the new startup.

Druzeel (adjective): Descriptive of an object or concept that is confusing or difficult to understand at first, but becomes clear and simple with time and exposure.

Example: Quantum mechanics seemed druzeel at the beginning, but with diligent study, she began to understand.

Tormix (noun): A sudden, unexpected event or circumstance that interrupts one's plans or goals.

Example: The sudden downpour was a tormix, but they quickly adjusted their picnic to an indoor gathering.

Villicate (verb): To inspire someone to dream bigger or think more creatively.

Example: The inspiring speech by the renowned scientist villicated her to pursue a career in astrophysics.

Then it just switches to Latin roots:

> Mortifraction: Morti- is derived from the Latin "mors" meaning "death", and "fraction" from the Latin "fractus" meaning "broken". This word could be used to describe a process involving the fragmentation or division of something with lethal or deadly consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification

That doesn't jive. Mortifraction should be somewhat related to le petit mort and coitus interruptus,

Something like being close to having an orgasm while using pornography but being stopped because your parents/wife/girlfriend/someone else who would disapprove of such actions and have no reasonable expectation of privacy from suddenly arriving at your location.

This word DOES exist!

> Grumplestiltskin (noun): Don't be a Grumplestiltskin

In fact, I use this literal phrase frequently with my kids.

(Also, but less frequently, with my partner)

All those words now exist!

Interestingly, a couple do show up in Urbandictionary [0][1], but the rest only show up in my post. Shockingly, Google has already indexed it.

[0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flambitious

[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grumplestilt...

I laughed a bit at "doughball - ball of dough".

Hmm. I got a word that already exists, and worse the definition is horrific.

    flunkie

    a woman whose weight is too low for her skin to cover
    "a skinny flunkie from around the world"

https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/w/flunkie/eyJ3IjogImZsd...

Same, I had neovim. Which maybe isn't a Webster dictionary word, but is funny nontheless

Never heard it in that context (which is awful for sure), but "flunkie" is commonly used to mean a lackey or other low-level obsequious worker. Almost like a henchman: the regional sales manager and his army of door-to-door flunkies.

That is written as flunkey. Different spelling.

Merriam-Webster has it as a less common spelling.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flunkie

I've seen it as "flunkie" (singular) as well, though it may not be standard.

I've never seen it as that either. (So neither "flunkey" nor "flunkie".)

AFAIK it's "flunky". (Plural "flunkies")

Agreed, this is familiar to me.

I got a word, where as far as I know it doesn't exist, but it I'm a bit disappointed in the definition.

It seems like the unique value here would be using the roots/spelling of the word to be plausibly influence the definition. Its hard for me to think that a word with a root as straightforward as klepto would have the definition below.

So still an interesting app in it's on way, but disappointing it didn't seem to take advantage of the important relationship of the roots of words.

‐-------------- kleptoporosis

klep·to·poro·sis

suffering constipation when sleep is disturbed

"more young women suffer from metabolic syndrome due to severe conditions such as kleptoporosis"

Yeah, this is terrible.

klept - having to do with theft

porosis - excessive numbers or volumes of voids in a nominally solid object: osteopororis, having sponge-like bones.

Kleptoporosis would be "the emptiness of your bank accounts after you've been scammed", or "the condition of a company's retirement fund after it was taken over by an asset stripper".

Sounds like a case of malamanteau

https://xkcd.com/739/

I feel like this could be a fun tool if you are writing some sort of speculative fiction and want to come up with reasonable sounding words with a plausible explanation and basis in Latin or Greek roots.

Reminds me a bit of Anathem by Neal Stephenson. A lot of made up words based on smashing a combination of two other words/word roots (sometimes from different languages) together.

That smashing is called portmanteau in french

...and a guy who invents those is called a portmanbreau.

HAHAHA that made me laugh you're a portmanbreau now

I don't really understand this myself. Language is either comprised of loan-words, which are words which follow another language's rules, or it has its own rules for composing words. I tried a bunch of reloads and got plausible words, mostly following latin and greek word roots with some extra decorators. Lots of un- and -ers. Simply because the word isn't popular enough to be in a dictionary doesn't mean the word doesn't exist - if the word follows generally accepted rules of composition then the word surely does exist and it's easily grasped by someone who understands that language. This is why, for instance, John Dee, Shakespeare, etc "made up" words which were well understood.

I had fun, but I doubt the claim that "this word does not exist". :)

A word only exists when other people start using the word. Language is social.

And since we are now discussing it... okay? Sounds like a self-fulfilling condition to me, so how useful, or effectful, is it to make that kind of statement?

I'm with the OP, "the word does not exist" is rather meaningless. The dictionary follows the people, not the other way around, and as soon as we are discussing some word... yeah. This comes down to discussing definitions, and I have a good summary for that: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7X2j8HAkWdmMoS8PE/disputing-... -- like "When can it be said that a certain word exists?" One person says as soon as they speak or write or read it, another one insist at least x% of the speakers of the language need to be aware of it and its meaning, etc. etc.

The problem is our arbitrary concepts, not rooted in physics for example, are especially useless near their edges, where they are not commonly used. That's where you end up with discussions about definitions, and you find out people actually only agree on some core of some concepts, the one actually in use, and when they reach new less visited meanings it becomes a free-for-all. That's also why religion is better off vague, as soon as they want to be as specific as possible the (unsolvable) arguments start flying and the unity provided earlier by what was a common idea is now gone.

On the other hand, such kinds of diffuse questions are sure to attract discussions. You don't need to know anything, everybody with an opinion can participate, and nobody can be proven wrong.

fr fr no cap bro

The title itself is merely a nod to the other AI generated sites like “thispersondoesnotexist” and so on. Don’t think too much was meant by it.

Endospasm exists: https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/w/endospasm/eyJ3IjogImV...

Hmm...it's not in the OED, but Google search does find a patent using the term, and maybe a paper or two.

It's surely not "en·dospasm", though. Weird that thisworddoesnotexist splits it up that way.

I got "microdosing" which I'm pretty sure is a word.

The definition was new though: "the injection of small amounts of a drug to a microdialysis unit"

This is a known issue called unhallucination.

I got "professor", so it seems like it can emit words that do exist.

I got "hobogeography"... that is not a word, but it should be, haha

I got "harmonize"!

I got “microprinter” which has a Wikipedia page.

i got "warsh" which is the spelling of how some old west virginia says "wash"

I'm wrong enough as it is. I really don't need to train my brain on erroneous training data. ;)

This word will soon be an OSS project/new startup/etc.

Maldemoor. Brainslow. Chirminous. Hempress (if this isn't a smoke shop already...)

All not bad.

Brainslow: A modern Anki-compatible spaced repetition learning app with customizable timescales.

I got "non-jewish"... What hahaha https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/sL7u

maybe it just meant "non-jew-ish"? /s

and you actually got a basically correct definition, as well.

I got "traceroute".

https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/RhLG

It seems like it should be easy to check the word against a dictionary. We all seem to be getting existing words with novel definitions.

megg - a chicken in which the flesh is pressed into fine slices

chowpaw - a small black-and-tan domestic cat with a small head and black back, found in the dark

chachunga - a drink like kool-aid or candy, consisting of hot sauce, milk, and a small amount of liquor

bunnet - a chain of rods having bunks for each arm

dynamocomp - a container with two handles containing a continuous rotating system of fluid which keeps a load in. One of these is heated by the power of the other and can be carried on a strap suspended above an aircraft's nose for assistance, usually during takeoff or landing

This site is cromulent.

I feel embiggened after only a short time using it.

After a few reloads it produced "clampless". Seemed to have a pretty well defined meaning and googling it suggests many people use it in the obvious way.

The generated definition was a bit odd though:

> without a hard surface or padded pad of material "a clampless mattress"

EDIT: just noticed you can add a link, so here it is: https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/29Fj

> loofuck [loo·fuck]: any of various sheep of commercially weak soils. "the loofuck of some large farms"

Wow, that is NOT what I would have thought the word meant.

This word does not exist - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29002776 - Oct 2021 (413 comments)

Show HN: This Word Does Not Exist - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23169962 - May 2020 (342 comments)

Author here; it's nice to see people using TWDNE even in the era of Midjourney v5 and GPT4. Always happy to answer questions if people have any!

I got two words related to Biology/Ecology, which is odd as I'm a biologist.

The first is also a last name: https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/w/brinke/eyJ3IjogImJyaW...

The second is new: https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/w/monoprocent/eyJ3IjogI...

I tried asking for the definition of various words that I'd made up for Transcendence (my video game). The results were not that great (IMO). I bet a human would do better:

archcannon: TWDNE says "a cannon of a type used to fire artillery". My definition: a powerful weapon, usually the top-of-the-line for a design series."

hexarcology: TWDNE says "the formation of an octave by the intersection of two lines on a line of symmetry". My definition: a digital arcology.

hierosteel: TWDNE says "a hinged piece of glass attached to a wall or ceiling". My definition: "holy steel"; at type of alien metal that is particularly strong.

wartech: TWDNE says "a tubular device for keeping a tube in place for washing a bath, toilet, etc." My definition: a programmer/engineer on a front-line military squad.

What I really want is the opposite: I want to type in a definition and get back an appropriate made-up word.

For the casually curious, the reason it frequently pops up real words with fake definitions is (roughly speaking) one of the steps in the ML code is a dictionary check which tries to stop the model from generating existing words, since there’s a lot of combinations of word like phonemes that are actually already words, so the training data is going to naturally generate a lot of existing words without a rejection stage, and the rejection stage is based on a dictionary.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time working with this code (I’m not the original author) as I sort of decided it was a small enough ML project it would be a good way to learn how to work with some real world practical ML code, and it’s been quite educational, mostly in the realm of Torch and other ML dependencies and how important it can be to keep on top of them. My own fork runs well in a current python environment on my M1 MacBook Pro but due to architectural limitations I haven’t yet been able to get the code in a format where I can benefit from the M1s ML acceleration hardware, mostly due to the Transformer library using torchscript and preventing a lot of Tracing/Scripting that Apple’s libraries need to use in order to generate the accelerated model code.

It’s been pretty fun and I’ve actually got a prototype product that uses my code, still noodling at the best business model since charging for “here’s this list of <data>, I’ve done the hard work for you” is a little awkward when you’re preprocessing all the data so that you can serve potential customers in a timely way. There’s a lot of background processing, Trademark Databases, social media scanning, fast DNS based and slower Whois based domain name lookups for the dozens of TLDs gTLDs, and ccTLDs… far too much to do real time after generating a fresh result from the ml model itself.

If anyone is curious feel free to contact me, (info in profile) it’s not yet in a position to link to a website since the UI will naturally depend a fair bit on the eventual business model may or may not come up with.

Neat to see it on the front page again.

I am glad to see a continuation in the literature of this fascinating and important domain: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/papers/sigbovik2011tom7whatword...

I am going to use this as a domain name generator. This is better than all the other generators I have seen.

Would you pay for it in bulk, pre-checked so you only got valid and free domains? … asking cause I’ve already done the hard work

I got "dullmindedness", which maybe isn't a dictionary word stricly speaking, but makes sense gramatically.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dull-minded

Would love to see this used in a spelling bee. From watching the last few years of the televised Scripps Spelling Bee it seems like most high level contestants can spell the words, not from memory so much as from constructing them from their root languages.

It generates existing words:

trinitarium: https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/KNY9

proglyococcus: https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/dquv

nonrecursive: https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/uALs

I am somewhat amused by this one, which is the opposite of what I would have chosen:

> adverb.

> thriftyly

> in an unusually generous or generous way

> "they paid thriftyly to church"

https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/PgbQ

This is a really fun use of language models. I wonder if more capable models would be better or worse in this kind of application? To some extent the charm comes from the whimsical aspect of it.

For more of these types of projects check this:

https://thisxdoesnotexist.com/

They're all perfectly cromulent words.

Now... let's ask Chat GPT to make a pop song that would make Adriano Celentano blush. https://www.npr.org/2012/11/04/164206468/its-gibberish-but-i...

I got:

traglot tra·glot

    a small country with strong military assets
    "a treaty of multilateral traglot cooperation was signed"

> polymorphology

Hey, I got one that does exist! Here's the meaning it gave - not so sure about the "in particular" part.

> the study of a series of inherited characteristics, in particular the characteristics of members of a family or political group who are related or live in two different countries or communities

> "polymorphology of the French nation"

I got dickish, which is definitely a word: https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/xX5U

Google finds it in many dictionary sites: https://www.google.com/search?q=dickish

I thought this was cute, but so far none of the definitions I've seen make sense. And it's not that the definitions are just weird, they're simply nonsensical:

squosh charm

a short white and yellow telephone charm with light red or yellow spandex

"in a little light they could wear a bright squosh charm"

I mean, I guess those words parse syntactically but they don't make any sense.

I got "recoveryism", which doesn't "exist", but is supposed to refer to the use of psychotherapy in, well, recovery.

it just gave me clippy... OED will surely change its mind if it hasn't already given the pivotal role this term played during the early computer era.

> a person who talks quickly and impishly; an effeminate jerk "his talk really makes you look clippy"

also your sexist slur against the legendary microsoft word assistant is not welcome here!!!

j/k

fun webpage.

got 'superthinness'. uhhhh ok https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superthin

and just a bunch of words, that are kinda existing (handgunner? honeycake? etc), but it's just 'making up a new definition for them'. if i were to guess, given that gpt is built, trained around existing concepts, it's having a hard time coming up with something outside of that, and just ends up making something that's close to existing things. could be neat - 'it's almost like the real thing', but it also fails to be "truly novel". it's kinda not being given freedom to be truly random either (like coming up with 'smash on a keyboard' words that are actual nonsense).

vomstruse

1. a kind of sexual intercourse at which semen has been ejaculated, typically by an ovum, while semen remains unharmed

"I heard one woman say she had gone through the vomstruse after one night of sex"

https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/4fFH

Those who like this may also enjoy "Shelfbrain: Holy Trinity of Human Spelling", which is a physical dictionary of LLM-hallucinated words: https://shelfbrain.com/

heh.

https://shelfbrain.com/?q=emacs

> an abbreviation of "electronic calculator"

gignons

https://shelfbrain.com/?q=gignons

Oh dear:

sickhies

drunk, noisy, or sexually active adults "some older kids got sickhies' and had to be nursed"

disappointed by "glossoceratology". I got the definition "the study of particular groups of animals which are individually unique and have exceptional diversity" but clearly it should be the study of tongue horns.

It must be one of those not quite academic -ologies that was probably named by a non scientist author. Maybe they started out researching animals that had tongue horns, but when they didn't find any they branched out and never changed the name of the institute?

Either that, or it's a translation of some kind of German idiom that means "It doesn't belong there, something totally natural that is nonetheless out of place" or "It is so disturbing it makes it uncomfortable to talk about as if there was a horn on your tongue".

Those 15th century English writers just making up Latinate neologisms woulda loved this

vitanda

  a colorless liquid made by evaporation and, especially, by distillation or burning

  "the vitanda was red"

kashmirang

  the basic monetary unit of Pakistan, equal to 100 grammes

  "the country is one of the few Southeast Asian countries remaining without an official kashmirang"

terpent

  a metal object or container with a groove or recess, used in treating large quantities of liquids, especially by dissolving them in water

  "a plastic terpent disc"

The usage example doesn't seem to follow the definition.

I got "resculpture" which is a real word by Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/resculpture

I would have thought the verb would be "resculpt"

Is it so hard to have the models return "I don't know"?

Previously discussed 2 years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29002776 (417 comments)

Can we write a novel made up of >50% these words, print a million copies in acid-free paper and bury them in various places around the world and laugh at future historians?

I think it invented two words...

https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/A3pj

niveescent (of a lens) producing a nive

self-driving vehicle

self·-·driv·ing ve·hi·cle

a small self-driving vehicle released from a gas station, used primarily to transport vehicles or cargo

"they want to build the first self-driving vehicle in the US"

Now this is where startups should be getting their names!

Sealware.

1. A kind of electronic apparatus for sealing seals between seals, such as a sealant or a small metal plate, such as a door or hinge.

Come on, this is brilliant.

I've had several like "According to facts and standards" or "standards and standards" or "facts and facts".

Set this as your homepage. Endlessly amused.

When you create a word using an existing word, e.g. house, it will define the word using the word itself.

If it has been spoken, it is a word.

I think it maybe needs to have been spoken with the intent to communicate or express a somewhat specific thing.

Like, a couple seconds ago I vocalized the sounds “xzoubadoo”, but I didn’t attach any particular meaning to it, it was just an arbitrary collection of syllables, “spoken” to demonstrate a point, but without the intent that the sounds stand for anything.

I don’t think “xzoubadoo” is really a word. At least, not yet. I suppose one might (likely temporarily/in an ad-hoc way) assign it a meaning as a response to this comment, but I have not done so.

Well, yes, to put a finer point on it. I meant, if it has been spoken [in the context of a conversation and understood by more than a single person in said conversation], it is a word. I don't think it needs to be defined in a dictionary or agreed upon by a committee in order for it to become an official word. Even if you don't agree with it.

A dictionary is a good place for someone to confirm the meaning of a word, and in the context of a professional written piece- it's probably wise to stick to words that can be looked up in this manner. But, on the other hand, YOLO.

So the definition is a meaningless sound.

When one plays EAs The Sims games it's tempting to try to hear meaning in the sounds constantly emitted by the virtual folks but it's just xzoubadoo.

to become a word, it has to be overheard and learned from context by third parties

sternet (noun.)

- the small intestine of certain birds (such as African ground squirrels) "sternets of milk and breastmilk"

It looks wrong on so many levels...

https://l.thisworddoesnotexist.com/w8e8

bodonic (adjective) (of a horse) able to glide on the ground "a bodonic dancer"

The write your own feature is case sensitive! so same words can have different meanings

Many of these words ought to exist, ha. (As in, this is fun and clever.)

Claims "mycobiology" is not a word.

slaps own face in disgust

Something conspiracy theorists will thrive off of.

I just got "Rattata". Like the Pokemon.

This would be perfect for the game Balderdash

James Joyce would have loved this.

(2020)

the ultimate balderdash cheat sheet

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