Definitions
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Examples
“Newton Scherl of Englewood, New Jersey, writes, “I have tried without success to find zemblanity in any of my dictionaries.””
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“Ergo: zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design.”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“From agathism (the doctrine that all things tend towards ultimate good) to zemblanity (the opposite of serendipity), he offers definitions, etymology and quotes.”
“A Times Book Review note about the novel Armadillo, by William Boyd, reads, “The novel’s hero … is undone by an outbreak of zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, in the multicultural hubbub of Cool Britannia.””
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“Now this site of testing of non-nuclear explosives at a nuclear facility has given birth to zemblanity, the inexorable discovery of what we don’t want to know.”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘zemblanity’.
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Things that Can (and Should) be set On Fire and...
The words piano and sister may not appear on this list. It all started on flaming piano.
bottled water, dudley moore, wads of unpaid bills, casu marzu factories, pogroms, frozen pizzas, breakable glass f..., cacophonists, intransigents, belligerent smurfs, police academy re..., unidentified samp... and 103 more...
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Lachrymose Words
bubulcitate, dysphoric, dacryolin, anhedonia, algesia, scrofula, shtum, zemblanity, planxty, pleonexia, felo-de-se, brumal
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Words that should be heard in songs more often
Inspired by PossibleUnderscore's list of words overused in modern pop music.
giant squid, bamboo, colonic, herbivore, raptor, dodecahedron, largesse, sinuses, dim sum, carburetor, transubstantiation, wife and 54 more...
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cowsofoblivion's list
phantasmagoric, vicambulist, cunctator, octothorpe, quietus, zemblanity, glandular, portmanteau
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cdrea's list
random for fun
matthewsouther To name the world's precipitous
affliction of humanity,
I find it serendipitous
to chance upon "zemblanity". Jun 14, 2009
smeggo What doesn't kill me makes me increasingly disappointed. Oct 10, 2008
rolig The arctic island is actually called Novaya Zemlya, which in Russian simply means "New Land." "Nova Zembla" represents an older Dutch, and then English, mispronunciation. So "zemblanity" (a word I like, actually) was itself born of a mistake. How appropriate. May 5, 2008
orarian The opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and unexpected discoveries by design; the inexorable discovery of what we don't what to know. Word derived from Zembla, an barren, frigid Artic island -- Nova Zembla -- the site of a nuclear facility now used for testing non-nuclear explosives.
-Peter Bowler May 5, 2008