Pochemuchka
Meaning: A person — usually a child — who asks an endless stream of questions, one 'why?' after another, insatiably curious about everything.
Language: Russian
Literally: why-er
Category: Social
Origin: Russian почему ('why') + suffix -chka; an affectionate term for the relentlessly inquisitive.
More untranslatable words — Social
- Mamihlapinatapai — The look between two people who both want the same thing but neither is willing to initia…
- Ubuntu — The philosophy that a person is a person only through other people — humanity expressed t…
- Jayus — A joke so unfunny, so badly delivered, that it becomes funny in its own right — a joke th…
- Yuánfèn — The invisible thread of fate that brings people together — the destined connection betwee…
- Cafuné — The tender act of running your fingers through someone's hair — an intimate gesture of lo…
- Backpfeifengesicht — A face that is just begging to be slapped — someone so smug you can't help the urge.
More Russian untranslatable words
- Razliubit — To fall out of love — the process of ceasing to love someone you once loved, leaving behi…
- Avos' — A blind, hopeful trust that things will somehow work out on their own — leaving the outco…
- Poshlost' — Not merely the trashy, but the falsely important, falsely beautiful and falsely clever —…
- Nadryv — An uncontrolled outpouring of buried feeling, often strained past anything the person tru…
- Yurodivy — One who plays the fool deliberately as a religious act, and is therefore licensed to spea…
- Khalyava — Something good got for free and without effort — and, strictly, something you were never…
From our idioms
- пан или пропал (pan ili propal) — To risk everything on a single venture; all or nothing, sink or swim.
- до посинения (do posineniya) — To do something with extreme effort or persistence, usually futilely.
- горе луковое (gore lukovoye) — A person who is accident-prone, hapless, or bumbling; one who causes trouble by their own…