Hetairix
A Tasting Menu

The Dictionary.

Sample entries from the house's devil's dictionary. The full glossary travels with the Bouba & Kiki album.

Bouba Register

Words that sound dirty but aren't.

Bouba words have rounded sounds and innocent meanings. The blame rests with the listener.

Booby English · n.
A blue-footed seabird, family Sulidae. Also a word adolescents whisper at supper when fish is served.
Dikdik Swahili · n.
Smallest antelope; six pounds. Named for the alarm call it makes at the approach of those who would mock its name.
Firkin Dutch · n.
An old British cask of nine gallons — the smallest practical vessel for storing communion wine.
Pulchritude Latin · n.
From pulcher, beautiful. The English borrowed the Latin and lost the music. A word whose meaning has wandered farther from its sound than perhaps any other in the language.
Uvula Latin · n.
The pink fleshy pendulum at the back of the throat; the only body part a child can name in mixed company without consequence.
Cockchafer English · n.
A large flying beetle, Melolontha melolontha. The Latin is academic; the English is what one shouts at it.
Bivouac French · n.
A temporary camp without tents. The verb form is more cheerful; the noun cools down at altitude.
Untranslatable Words

Words English forgot to name.

From the Untranslatable Words product line. Each appears on a piece, each appears on a card.

Saudade Portuguese · n.
A bittersweet longing for someone or somewhere absent. The Portuguese keep it; the language depends on it. There is no English equivalent.
Komorebi Japanese · n.
The dappled light that falls through leaves. The Japanese named it because they needed to. The English haven't because they haven't.
Sisu Finnish · n.
Quiet stubborn grit against impossible odds. The Finns insist it is untranslatable. The dictionary attempts resilience; the Finns roll their eyes and move on.
Hakanai Japanese · adj.
Fleeting; ephemeral; ungraspable. The cherry blossom is hakanai. The good year was hakanai. The text message was hakanai. The word does all three jobs without straining.
Mamihlapinatapai Yaghan · n.
The look exchanged between two people who both want something to start but neither will start it. The Yaghan needed one word; the rest of us have needed paragraphs.
Yūgen Japanese · n.
The profound, mysterious beauty of the universe; the recognition that beauty exists beyond what the senses can directly perceive. The Japanese aesthetic principle the Japanese use for explaining what one cannot otherwise explain.
Kiki Register

Words that sound clean but aren't.

Kiki words have sharp sounds and uncomplicated meanings, until the etymology is consulted. The dictionary is the inner sanctum of any language.

Quim Middle English · n.
Chaucer's word for the vulva. Preserved in the Canterbury Tales because the Court of King James preferred not to update it. Three letters that took six centuries to become unsuitable.
Merkin English · n.
A pubic wig. Used in 1450 by sex workers as syphilis prevention; used now to puzzle medical historians at dinner.
Meretrix Latin · n.
Registered prostitute, in Roman law; literally, "one who earns." From merere, to earn. The empire taxed her. The dictionary still hasn't forgiven her.
Yoni Sanskrit · n.
Sanskrit for the female generative organ; sacred in Tantric traditions. Mrs. Patterson said it was lovely.
Phallus Greek · n.
The male generative organ, in Greek. In archaeology, also a votive statue. Greek treats it as ordinary; English treats it as Greek.

The full dictionary travels with the Bouba & Kiki album — 154 entries, gilt-edged, mock-Victorian, the brand voice in book form. Released alongside the first Cabinet of Funo.

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