Home › Untranslatable Words

Merak

Meaning: An intense, almost obsessive intellectual curiosity — not idle interest, but a passionate drive to investigate and understand everything around you.

Language: Turkish

Literally: curiosity / passion

Category: Everyday

Origin: Turkish; from Arabic; the disposition that turns a hobby into a vocation.

More untranslatable words — Everyday

  • Flemme — A total absence of motivation to do anything — a profound, almost existential reluctance…
  • Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
  • Chōu kōng — To steal a moment of escape from a hectic schedule — finding a sliver of free time and us…
  • Jugaad — A creative, frugal fix — a clever improvised solution that gets things done with whatever…
  • Shemomechama — Eating well past fullness simply because the food is too delicious to stop.
  • Prozvonit — To call someone's phone and hang up after one ring, so they call you back and you save th…

More Turkish untranslatable words

  • Hüzün — A collective, spiritual melancholy felt by a whole city — the sadness of Istanbul's faded…

← Back to Untranslatable Words

Loading the full interactive collection…