Verboticisms

Created by: artr

Pronunciation: santəwāk

Sentence: Twas the night before Christmas and Julie is completely Santawake. Every sound she hears, from squeaks of an old house to her cat knocking ornaments off the tree, make her think that Santa has arrived. What’s worse is that she jumps every time she hears something waking her husband.

Etymology: Santa (an imaginary figure said to bring presents for children on Christmas) + awake (sleeping)

| Comments and Points

Created by: jrogan

Pronunciation: night-howl

Sentence: Jennifer couldn't sleep because of the nighthowls coming from her neighbour's bedroom window

Etymology: night+ howl

| Comments and Points

Created by: TJayzz

Pronunciation: Sownd-a-wayk

Sentence: No wonder Mary was soundawake, it as all her own fault for hearing spooky noises in the middle of the night. She vowed never to watch horror films when she was alone ever again.

Etymology: Sound (Virbrations sensed by the ear) Awake (Not asleep, past-awoken) Opposite of sound asleep

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

I liked this one. The only problem - if you don't immdiately catch the underlying connection to 'sound-asleep' it seems like an overly-simple response to the definition, (i.e. it may seem, at first, like you picked 2 words from the definition and stuck them together). Gets my vote though, for the clever double-meaning wordplay. - Tigger, 2008-05-13: 01:21:00

How true! Reminds me of a fairly recent film, "Eyes Wide Shut". Excellent word! - OZZIEBOB, 2008-05-13: 07:19:00

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

| Comments and Points

Created by: arrrteest

Pronunciation: creek - eez

Sentence: The house was speaking its creepy creakease with all its settling and contracting in the night. Wide-eyed and drowsily alert maggie lie in bed imagining ghosts and gobblins milling about.

Etymology: creak, sound of a rusty gate or noisy floorboards + ese, of a language

| Comments and Points

Created by: petaj

Pronunciation: diss-som-nance

Sentence: Valda thought her inability to sleep was just a temporary case of dissomnance during the windy weather, but in fact she had been turned into a vampire. She would never sleep at night ever again.

Etymology: dis- (against/opposite) + somn- (sleep) + sonance (sound) + dissonance (unpleasant sound)

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

perfect for the cartoon - Jabberwocky, 2008-05-12: 13:54:00

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

| Comments and Points

Created by: Moonstar

Pronunciation: Image-ounds

Sentence: Vicky lie awake, staring up[ at the ceiling, eyes wide. Her breathing quickend as even more imagounds entered the room. There was a small thump, a squeak, a creak, a skitter. What was that!? Could it be....Yes, yes it was! The sound of a heartbeat, a HUMAN heartbeat! She sat up straight in bed, her hand on the knife she had kept stored beneath her pillow, ready to strike-but there was no one there.

Etymology: Imagined, as in the act of imagining, + Sounds, as in noises.

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

Poe-etic tense to it! - Nosila, 2010-07-13: 23:59:00

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

| Comments and Points

Created by: galwaywegian

Pronunciation: kak off inn eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Sentence: That creaking cacoffiny coming from the attic, allied to the movement of the curtains on the hermetically sealed window led the countess to feel the need to account for the death of her husband. Unaccountably her countenance grew troubled.

Etymology: cacophony, coffin.

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

Eerily good! - Tigger, 2008-05-13: 01:24:00

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

| Comments and Points

Created by: youmustvotenato

Pronunciation: heff-a-bump

Sentence: I could hear the heffabumps made by the heffalumps, shuffling in my closet.

Etymology: heffalump, a mystical creature. Bump, a sound usually made in the night.

| Comments and Points

Created by: bookowl

Pronunciation: settle/mental/brake/down

Sentence: The persistent creaking as the house settled farther into the ground resulted in Mac suffering a settlementalbreakdown.

Etymology: settle + mental breakdown

| Comments and Points

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: nok turn als

Sentence: When Velma went to bed that night, she awoke later to strange noises. At about three a.m. she could hear the knockturnals very clearly. Although scared, she finally got up and crept towards the sound. That's when she discovered that her cat, Tomahawk, had learned how to rap on the back door to get back in, rather than trying to squeeze his massive body through the cat flap. Oh well, she thought it was better than him learning how to use the doorbell...

Etymology: Knock (make light, repeated taps on a surface) & Nocturnal (at night)

| Comments and Points