Vote for the best verboticism.

'What are you doing to the lawnmower?'

DEFINITION: n. The strong feelings of devotion and affection which a person feels towards their favorite mechanical device or appliance, such as a car, boat, power tool, or toilet. v. To lavish a machine with affection, attention and an imagined personality.

Create | Read

Verboticisms

Click on each verboticism to read the sentences created by the Verbotomy writers, and to see your voting options...

You have two votes. Click on the words to read the details, then vote your favorite.

Contrapture

Created by: purpleartichokes

Pronunciation: kun-trap-chur

Sentence: I'd called him twice to dinner. There was a steaming plate of his favorite dish sitting before his empty seat at the table. Outside, the icy rain started coming down harder, yet Mark still hadn't come in. I looked out the window to find him tenderly tugging on the ropes attached to the tarp covering his old rust-bucket tractor, Bessie... and wiping off her wet spots. The evidence was clearly mounting that Mark had fallen victim to contrapture.

Etymology: contraption, rapture

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

Great word. Even greater sentence - "wiping off her wet spots." You're a poet, Purple A. - doseydotes, 2008-03-27: 09:09:00

excellent purple - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-27: 11:27:00

Thanks Jabber and dosey. I always struggle with sentences. This one came easy, as it actually happened. - purpleartichokes, 2008-03-27: 12:11:00

wonderful word...easy to pronounce and remember! - spotthecat1, 2008-03-27: 13:40:00

Excellent. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-28: 17:30:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Personiffair

Aardvark

Created by: Aardvark

Pronunciation: per SONE i fair

Sentence: Bob spent so much time in the garage his family started to wonder what he was up to. One night, when he missed his favourite dinner, Sally went out to see what he was doing. She found Bob gently polishing his boat motor, whispering to it in a way that he used do only with her. Yes, her worst fears were confirmed. Bob was definitely having a personiffair.

Etymology: Personi (from Personify - to give human qualities to objects) ffair (from affair - a secret, romantic encounter)

| Comments and Points

Gizmoffection

Created by: spotthecat1

Pronunciation: giz-moh-FEK-shuhn

Sentence: His wife, for the sake of the children and their marriage, tried to be understanding but at times there were arguments. Every Sunday morning he'd rush out of the house to lavish attention on her. When the water was just the right temperature he washed her gently. The special soap he bought for her foamed luxuriously and he rubbed her everywhere. He paid special attention to those hard to reach places. After the wash came the massage therapy. Hours and hours of rubbing and sweating paid off when the glow of satisfaction shined all over her. He laid back admiring her and happy over a job well done. With the sun heading towards the horizon, he cleaned up, put away the toys he had used on his lovely and closed the garage door. He headed back into the house as his wife shook her head praying that doctors would come up with a cure for his gizmoffection.

Etymology: WWII U.S. Navy/Marine slang: gizmo + (a)ffection [Middle English affeccioun, from Old French affection, from Latin affectiō]

| Comments and Points

Munitionwoo

Created by: doseydotes

Pronunciation: myu-ˈni-shən-ˈwü

Sentence: Just before she went to sleep, Josephine reached under her pillow one more time and pulled out the Sig Sauer P228 9mm she had bought at H&H Gun Range three days ago. She turned it back and forth in the lamplight, admiring the black powdery smoothness of its surface, the crispness of the grooves on its grip, the sporty ridges on its slide. She lifted it, sideways, to her nose, to catch the sweet fragrance of the gun oil she had applied earlier today while cleaning from it the traces of metal and burnt gunpowder that had collected on it from the range. “Good LORD, woman! Are you sniffing that thing again? You’ve got the worst case of munitionwoo I’ve ever seen. It’s a TOOL! GET OVER IT!” Leon flopped on the bed and turned over with a snort. “It’s okay,” Josephine whispered to the Sig. “He doesn’t understand us, that’s all.”

Etymology: From the Greek, mu, meaning "the cry of frightened and cold feline companions locked out of the bedroom at night"; from the La Petite, nit, meaning "tiny irritating creature of great power, the mere mention of which can influence one's head into itchiness"; and from the Chinese, shun woo, meaning "great creator of melodic cacophony sent directly into one's ears without damaging one's wallet as badly as, for instance, Bose would do."

| Comments and Points

Transamorous

Created by: galwaywegian

Pronunciation: tran zam oh russ

Sentence: He was very transamorous. whch was probably just as well, as he resembled the back end of one of their 70's creations

Etymology: transam amorous

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

nice combo - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-19: 15:47:00

Well-crafted! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-19: 18:57:00

Nice word - OZZIEBOB, 2009-01-20: 04:21:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Contraptionation

Created by: Mustang

Pronunciation: con-trap-shun-AY-shun

Sentence: Edwin had a serious case of contraptionation for his cars and garden machines that could well be described as a superstitious infatuation.

Etymology: Blend of contraption and fascination

| Comments and Points

Pedalphilia

GlobalGallery

Created by: GlobalGallery

Pronunciation: Ped-al-filli-ya

Sentence: Although he lives in the inner city Martin's pedalphilia drove him to spend eight thousand dollars on a state-of-the-art carbon fibre mountain bike with dual racing suspension and titanium components. It remains indoors in 'as new' condition, having being ridden once in five months.

Etymology: 1.pedal - a foot operated lever on a bicycle. 2.philia - a fondness, craving or affinity for something.

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

Great use of irony in your sentence. Your word too, in more ways than one. - silveryaspen, 2009-01-19: 18:54:00

Love it! - Nosila, 2009-01-20: 22:03:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Mechanimism

Created by: Tigger

Pronunciation: /muh-KAN-uh-miz-um/

Sentence: 'Janice seems to really love her new food processor,' mused Charles as he left her apartment. She'd invited him over for dinner, but then she'd spent most of the evening in the kitchen with it. He was sure he'd heard Janice humming and cooing to it everytime she switched it on, and she would meticulously clean it between and after each use, admiring the sharp, shiny, new blades. As he got into his car, Charles told himself that he wasn't jealous, but this was surely a case of mechanimism, and he began to wonder about Janice's sanity. "Oh well," he thought, patting the dashboard of his Porche, "that just means more quality time for us, right Katrina?" (the car was named for her stormy personality).

Etymology: Mechanical - having to do with machinery (from Greek, mekhanikos "an engineer") + Animism - the belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects (from Latin, anima "life, breath, soul")

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

I was going to use 'Mechanthropomorphism' but that seemed a bit too long... - Tigger, 2008-03-27: 07:29:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Gizmopomorphism

metrohumanx

Created by: metrohumanx

Pronunciation: GIZmo-po-MORE-fizzem

Sentence: Maria loved Rotwang and the little fixer-upper they shared on the prairie. In an effort to better herself, Maria took an online course in Animal Husbandry and obtained a government grant to develop a slow chipmunk through selective breeding. Rotwang's contribution to domestic bliss was the maniacal disassembly, upgrading and fine-tuning of every mechanical device they owned. Mysterious packages arrived every day, and Rotwang would spirit them into the basement where, to a chorus of clangs, whirrrs and curses, he would assemble the parts into idolatrous animated devices. Rotwang had converted every appliance in the house into a sort of lamp, and when he started locking himself in for days at a time, Maria knew that he had fallen victim to the curse of GIZMOPOMORPHISM...When Maria tried to show Rotwang the fruits of her labor, a really slow stud rodent named Jacques, he callously smacked it from her hands and sent it flying into the anteroom like a little furry meteorite. Weeping profusely, Maria made Rotwang build a quonset hut in the backyard where he lived alone with all his infernal contraptions. When Rotwang finally emerged for a pastrami on rye with mustard, he found that Maria had packed up her beloved chipmunks and moved to L.A. where she joined the Church of Appliantology, met a surfer dude and opened a new-age pet shop out near Hubcap Heaven on the Antelope Freeway. Rotwang was last seen talking incoherently to a mutant shop vac as they dragged him off to Chunga's Home for the Mechanically Insane. The End :)

Etymology: GIZMO+anthroPOMORPHISM=GIZMOPOMORPHISM.....GIZMO: an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty;origin occluded...ANTHROPOMORPHISM: ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things,a core dogma of appliantology; Late Latin anthropomorphus of human form, from Greek anthrōpomorphos, from anthrōp- + -morphos -morphous.

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

metrohumanx See Maria and Rotwang here: http://www.kino.com/metropolis/ - metrohumanx, 2009-01-19: 01:47:00

metrohumanx Maria can be seen here: http://www.robotisland.com/product_info.php/products_id/453 - metrohumanx, 2009-01-19: 01:59:00

metrohumanx My ranking is plunging faster than an old soviet submarine. - metrohumanx, 2009-01-21: 14:46:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Infatoolation

CrayonWarrior

Created by: CrayonWarrior

Pronunciation: Inf{tu:leIshVn in-fat-yule-ey-shun

Sentence: the infatoolation Gary had for his car was so extreme, that when it had to be sold for scrap he mourned for twelve days

Etymology: infatuation tool

| Comments and Points

Show All or More...

 

Comments:

Verbotomy Verbotomy - 2008-03-27: 00:01:00
Today's definition was suggested by silveryaspen. Thank you silveryaspen. ~ James

stache - 2008-03-27: 01:25:00
Have these always been called "verboticisms?"

Verbotomy Verbotomy - 2008-03-28: 06:00:00
Yes that's the word we use to describe our invented words. Of course you can also use "neologism". And I think we should create a subcategory for invented words with sexual undertones like your winning word today. It would be "verberoticisms". ~ James

metrohumanx metrohumanx - 2009-01-19: 01:52:00
Domenic- go frisk 'em.

galwaywegian - 2009-01-19: 10:08:00
very high standard today :D

Verbotomy Verbotomy - 2010-06-03: 00:09:00
Today's definition was suggested by silveryaspen. Thank you silveryaspen. ~ James

gendiamJent - 2018-06-03: 14:27:00
Алмазное бурение за разумные деньги.

LamontFeext - 2018-06-03: 20:14:00
Опираясь на 10-и летний опыт в сео сфере предлагаю пару способов продвижения сайтов, самое в