The Cambridge Dictionary

Imagine if you’d invented a word. Like, a real word.

Seriously. Imagine you’d invented the word ‘mop’. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Every time you saw a mop, a small, knowing smile would creep its way onto your face; a warm, fuzzy sense of joy would bubble its way through your torso. You’d die happy, probably.

As it happens, one of my aims in life is to die happy, so I thought I’d have a go at inventing some words myself, as well as providing them with a series of debatably humorous definitions. Admittedly author and Cambridge alumnus Douglas Adams beat me to this idea by roughly twenty-nine years with his book ‘The Meaning of Liff’ but that’s not the point, and anyway, Adams’ words didn’t have a location-based twist.

Mine do, though, as I’ve cleverly applied the concept to Cambridge, only with a lesser degree of wit, skill and originality than Adams. So, here it is: The Cambridge Dictionary.

Alloke (vb.) – to stare either into space, or at the ground, in order to avoid eye-contact with one’s supervisor outside of supervisions.

Boffler (n.) – a plump and jolly male porter who tries to learn everyone’s name.

Just your bog standard Boffler

Climp (n.) – someone who finds Girton’s location hilarious.

Doffilate (vb.) – to invent the page number of a quote or paraphrase, of which one cannot be bothered to research, based on how far into a book it seems most likely to be.

Extroph (vb.) – to move or attempt to move the topic of conversation away from the fact that someone is spending ‘half their time at the ADC’.

Flushume (vb.) – to walk into someone else’s college and instantly realise you picked the wrong one.

Responsible for flushume since ’54

Geraint (n.) – someone called ‘Geraint’.

Hytard (n.) – someone who takes the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry a bit too seriously.

Immarsipate (vb.) – to tell someone you’ve done no work in the hope that they’ll say the same thing back.

Jumily (n.) – the brief look of hope on a big issue seller’s face when eye-contact is accidentally made.

Koodle (n.) – a highly elusive group of exclusively Asian students.

Lumb (adj.) – to describe a female student whose popularity is inexplicable considering her personality.

Measance (n.) – the sense that you and your bedder have become slightly too close.

Muntosaur (n.) – a prick who, for no known purpose, cycles too fast, with no hands, and quite often whilst staring at his or her phone.

A backwards Muntosaur

Neventer (n.) – a student with whom one shares their number in freshers’ week, only for them to cease to exist.

Orted (adj.) – to describe someone who is so drunk from pre-drinks that it is both unsafe and unnecessary for them to actually go out.

Piroove (vb.) – to ponder upon the personality of a person in your lectures who, despite interesting in appearance, you are yet to speak to.

Quindant (adj.) – to describe the feeling when one’s essay (or Tab article) receives a lukewarm reaction.

Redross (vb.) – to regret liking a Tab comment after someone highlights how it is, in fact, sexist.

Do 49 people redross?

Splife (adj.) – to describe the sense of delight felt when a muntosaur almost crashes.

Terishian (n.) – a student who, while unassuming and quiet during the day, is outgoing and sexually prosperous at night.

Umniprent (vb.) – to see and hear the word ‘meta’ on a regular basis, without knowing what it means or bothering to ask.

Vaggess (vb.) – of conventionally attractive female students, to tilt one’s head, lean back, and smile in exactly the same way in every photo.

Wuckshite (n.) – an overly laddish second-year intent on rapidly befriending the more promiscuous female freshers.

Wuzzer (n.) – a person, usually encountered when one is late for lectures, who refuses to walk either at a sensible pace or in a straight line.

Xylofone (n.) – a student who owns and uses an eight year old Nokia, and is oddly proud of this fact.

Yarnitter (n.) – a student who feels the need to delay the end of every lecture by asking an unnecessarily complex question.

Zubbidybubbidy (n.) – the realisation that you’re lonely, stressed, incapable of maintaining long term and/or meaningful relationships, not as intelligent as you thought you were,  and that really you just want it all to end.