- Ever wanted to point something out, but didn’t know what it was called? Here’s some vocabulary that will help you out
- What do you call the little dip above your top lip, or the paper sleeve on your Starbucks coffee cup?
That thing is called ... errrrr ... I totally know this.Do you ever find yourself talking about something very common, but not knowing what it’s called in English? Don’t worry - that happens even to people who only speak that one language!
There are some words that even native speakers never remember - or don’t even know. But if you can remember them, you’ll be pretty impressive.
Here are the official words for some things you might want to talk about - and now you know how.
- The bony bit on your ear in front of the ear hole: tragus [TRAY-gus]
- A drop of mucus hanging from someone’s nose: meldrop
- The little pocket on jeans: watch pocket or coin pocket
Use these old school English insults to subtly throw shade
- The little flat meta disc on jeans: rivet
- The small, round bit of paper that you remove with a hole punch: chad
- The paper sleeve that goes around a hot cup of takeaway coffee or tea: zarf
- The dip above your top lip: philtrum [FIL-trum]
- The area between your eyebrows: glabella [gluh-BEL-ah]
- The skin between your nostrils: septum [SEP-tum]
Doomscrolling, maskne, and other words that defined 2020
- The corners of your eyes where the upper and lower eyelids meet: canthus
- The gunk that gathers in your canthus when you wake up: rheum [room]
- The # symbol/hashtag : octothorpe
- The punctuation mark “?!”: interrobang
- The & symbol: ampersand
- The ÷ symbol : obelus [OB-uh-lus]
Take a look at our big list of idioms
- The * symbol: asterisk
- A period of two weeks: fortnight
- The item before the last one in a list: penultimate
- The strange feeling that you’ve already experienced what is happening now: déjà vu [day-ja voo]