In the event you’ve ever skilled the indescribable feeling of being so overwhelmed by cuteness that it nearly appears insufferable, there’s now a phrase for that.
Gigil — pronounced “ghee-gill” — is without doubt one of the 42 phrases added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in March which are both untranslatable or don’t have any direct English equivalents.
Initially from Tagalog and in addition utilized in Philippine English, “gigil” refers to “a sense we get after we see somebody or one thing cute,” in accordance with the OED.
It’s “a sense so intense that it offers us the irresistible urge to tightly clench our fingers, grit our tooth, and pinch or squeeze whomever or no matter it’s we discover so lovely, whether or not or not it’s a chubby-cheeked child or a fluffy little kitten.”
The phrase — which dates again to 1990, in accordance with Oxford — can be utilized both as a noun to determine the “unusual, paradoxical emotion” itself or as an adjective for the individual experiencing the sensation.
For instance, to say you might be “so gigil” would imply that you’re coping with the “often constructive” overwhelming emotions.
OED Govt Editor Danica Salazar defined within the replace that when individuals discuss “untranslatable phrases,” what they imply is phrases which were lexicalized in a single language however not in others — since no phrase is actually solely untranslatable.
For individuals who converse a number of languages alongside English, they will simply fill that lexical hole by borrowing the phrase from a distinct language.
“Generally, they do that with sufficient frequency that the borrowed phrase ultimately turns into a part of the vocabulary of their number of English,” Salazar wrote.
