Duende
Meaning: A mysterious quality in art or performance that moves you to your core — a dark, soulful, transcendent power that can't be taught, only felt.
Language: Spanish
Literally: goblin / spirit
Category: Emotion
Origin: Spanish; theorised by poet Federico García Lorca in 1933 as the spirit behind flamenco.
More untranslatable words — Emotion
- Querencia — A place where you feel safe, grounded, and most fully yourself — a sanctuary from which y…
- Hüzün — A collective, spiritual melancholy felt by a whole city — the sadness of Istanbul's faded…
- Spleen — A deep, existential ennui — a heavy, formless sadness and disgust with the world and ones…
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Razliubit — To fall out of love — the process of ceasing to love someone you once loved, leaving behi…
- Kilig — The butterflies-and-shivers feeling of romantic excitement — the giddiness triggered by a…
More Spanish untranslatable words
- Estrenar — The specific pleasure of wearing, using, or showing off something brand new for the very…
- Friolero — A person who feels the cold far more than everyone else — always the first to reach for a…
- Empalagar — To be overwhelmed by something so sweet it turns sickly — used of food, and of people who…
- Tutear — To switch to the informal tú with someone — a small, deliberate act of closing social dis…
- Puente — The day taken off to 'bridge' a midweek public holiday to the weekend, turning it into a…
- Vergüenza ajena — The squirming embarrassment felt on behalf of another person, who may be entirely untroub…