Letter #31: Spooky, Scary Words...

... and shivers down your spine!

Dear readers,

It’s spooky time! October is just around the corner and I am ready!

As it’s now October, I have been launching into my fall outfits. Autumnal colors, corduroys, baggy sweaters, knee-socks, the whole nine yards. Breaking out the apple cider and spiced cookie candles, making the pumpkin spice tea, watching some Scooby Doo, listening to my Halloween playlist.

It’s time.

And what better way than to celebrate with some spooky (dare I say scary) words?

Also, this is the song I’m referencing, in case you weren’t aware:

1. Coronach

(n) “a song or lamentation for the dead; dirge” (Dictionary.com)

Though I had never heard this word until it was the Word of the Day for February 25th of this year, it sounds like a good way to describe Orpheus’s music in Hades the video game. (This game’s soundtrack is also great for spooky season; it has the VIBES.)

2. Sanguivorous

(adj) “feeding on blood, as a bat or insect” (Dictionary.com)

What a charming word to use to describe a bat or vampire! This one comes from the Word of the Day for October 28th of last year.

3. Revenant

(n) “a person who returns as a spirit after death; ghost” (Dictionary.com)

This is not a word I had heard (or remembered, as I’m hazarding a guess it’s been in the classical literature I’ve read somewhere) until the 2015 film The Revenant came out. But the title certainly makes sense, given that the word describes someone returning from the dead… in this case, to seek vengeance after being left for dead.

Note: I haven’t seen this movie and don’t plan to, but I read the general plot synopsis and saw about three seconds of the trailer.

4. Stygian

(adj) “infernal, gloomy; pertaining to the river STYX” (Brewer p. 1045)

Oh, wow, how to pull me, a huge mythology and Percy Jackson fan, in at all times. Stygian iron happens to be the material that one fan-favorite character (and one of my favorites!) Nico DiAngelo’s sword is made of, his weapon being one of the things that sets the son of Hades/Pluto apart from many of the other demigods.

5. Neighborstained

(adj) “Stained with the blood of neighbors” (from Merriam-Webster’s Second New International Dictionary, 1934)

This just sounds like the Hello Neighbor game(s) I haven’t played (and probably won’t), which definitely look spooky.

6. Twitter-light

(n) “twilight” (funnily enough, my first source is The OED on Twitter)

My Internet-age brain reads this literally as a nightlight in the shape of the Twitter bird logo. The definition of “twilight” is way better.

My old soul brain then goes to fairies, like this may have been something Shakespeare coined for A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

Update: The Internet really only likes offering me pages about the Twitter site, so I am so far coming up near-empty on the history of twitter-light. However, I did find it it in my copy of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).

This is the most I’ve found on the subject online: here.

I’m very curious if anyone may know more about this word’s history!

Photo credit: Me, a photo of the entry in my edition of the OED.

7. Kenopsia

(n) “eerie, uneasy feeling of a place that is usually populated but is now abandoned and silent” (The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

Need a word for urban exploring or ghost hunting? Here, take this!

8. Tenebrific

(adj) “producing darkness” (Dictionary.com)

This word has similar roots to “tenebrescence,” which is where my mind went first.

For those curious, according to Mindat.org, tenebrescence or “reversible photochromism, is the ability of minerals to change colour when exposed to sunlight.”

Basically, some minerals will look different in daylight, artificial light, firelight, ultraviolet light, etc. You can read more about minerals that do this here.)

It’s also fitting that this is Letter #31 with October 31st fast approaching!

Anyone care to share more spooky words? These are fairly obscure, but maybe they can make their way into more mainstream use!

Hope you enjoyed and get some time to enjoy spooky season!

Best wishes,

Quote of the Week:

“Darkness falls across the land

The Midnight Hour is close at hand.”

-Rodney Lynn Temperton (lyrics appearing in “Thriller,” the song written by Tempterton and performed by Michael Jackson)

Works Cited

Bourque, Katie, and Cameron Jenkins. “60 Spooky Halloween Quotes Guaranteed to Give You Goosebumps.” Good Housekeeping, Hearst Digital Media, 25 May 2022, https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/halloween-ideas/g3673/halloween-quotes/.

Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. “Stygian.” The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Edited by Ivor H. Evans, Wordsworth Reference, 1994, pp. v-1175.

“Coronach.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 25 Feb. 2022, https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/coronach-2022-02-25/.

“Definition of Tenebrescence - Mindat.org.” Mindat.org, Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, https://www.mindat.org/glossary/tenebrescence.

Dictionaryofobscuresorrows. “Kenopsia.” The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Tumblr, 21 July 2012, https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/27720773573/kenopsia.

OED, The. “'Twitter-Light' Is a Rare Term for 'Twilight'.” Twitter, Twitter, 28 Nov. 2013,

The OED @OED

‘Twitter-light’ is a rare term for ‘twilight’

(I know, the formatting on the above entry will not cooperate with me.)

Press, Oxford University. “Twitter-Light.” The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, II: P-Z (Supplement and Bibliography), Oxford University Press, 1971.

“Revenant.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 26 Oct. 2021, https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/revenant-2021-10-26/.

“Sanguivorous.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 28 Oct. 2021, https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/sanguivorous-2021-10-28/.

“Tenebrific.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 19 May 2022, https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/tenebrific-2022-05-19/?param=wotd-email&click=ca77rh&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Live+WOTD+Recurring+2022-05-19&utm_term=WOTD.

"Thriller Lyrics." Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2022. Web. 11 Oct. 2022. <https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/16035848/Michael+Jackson/Thriller>.

“The Words in Your Neighborhood.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-words-in-your-neighborhood#:~:text=Neighborstained,Second%20New%20International%20Dictionary%2C%201934).