#41 Fact checkmate

A de facto defeat of a political opponent before an election via a winning fact-checking move.

“Fact checkmate,” said the gubernatorial candidate as he presented the local news anchor with irrefutable proof that the incumbent governor, contrary to public statements, was in fact using taxpayer money to build a private theme park modeled on Dollywood in his backyard.

#40 Bibliate

To read a book.

As doth the preacher pontificate the scholar bibliate.

#39 Snark floss

Waxed thread for removing particulate matter from one's fangs after issuing a snide remark.

Upon reading a terse email message from her boss requesting that she accelerate a four-week project into three days, Cora flipped her dark silken hair over her shoulder with a nonchalance that only the most confident of editors might possess. She gracefully slipped her right hand into the second drawer of her filing cabinet and withdrew a small plastic box. With purpose and determination, she strode into her boss' office, lay the box on the smooth mahogany surface of his credenza, and quietly stated "I may be quick, Sir, but in three days I will still have respect and your client will be dissatisfied." Without pausing at his blank stare, she removed a strand of snark floss from the box, deftly flicked several bits of utility reports and white board shards from her fangs, and promptly returned to her workstation.

Root = snark (snide remark) + floss

#38 Elevent

Unstable synthetic element that exists so briefly it is more event than element.

Hypotheses were hypothesized. Accelerators were activated. Isotopes were isolated. An elevent—ununtrium—was born and quickly dissolved into nothingness after the ephemeral union of zinc and bismuth ions. 

Root = element + event

#37 Jazzerseismic event

A seismic event induced by a Jazzercise session large enough to generate measurable seismic activity.

Milton Teagle Simmons appeared to Aldo in a dream and said: "The end is nigh. I shall sweat my final sweat to the most golden of golden oldies in the mall of malls, where Jazzercisers from all corners of the Earth shall converge." Immediately upon waking Aldo contacted his friend Rudolph, an aspiring Jazzerseismologist who claimed to have recorded the first Jazzerseismic event while observing the world's largest outdoor Jazzercise class in Tiananmen Square, and said, "Get ready!"

#36 Austyranny

Oppression of a populace via governmental austerity measures. 

Madrid and Athens erupted in violence as Spaniards and Greeks took to the streets in protest against austyranny.

Root = austerity + tyranny

#35 Telekinetiprompter

A telekinetically-controlled teleprompter.

Professor Charles Francis Xavier read from the telekinetiprompter, a device developed by Henry Philip "Hank" McCoy at the Xavier Institute, as he delivered the opening address to the U.N. General Assembly on the plight of mutants in the developing world.

Root = telekinetic + teleprompter

#34 Prepository

A syntactical suppository in the form of a preposition.

The editor spent 30 percent of her work day inserting prepositories into sentences to make them more regular.

Root = suppository + preposition

#33 Jobbesian

Of or relating to a job seeker's "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" attempt to find gainful employment in a depressed economy.

The real world, as Taylor observed, was nothing like college. First of all, there were not nearly as many Bob Marley posters around. Sure, the real world had libraries, food courts, and fitness centers. But, the libraries were filled with the homeless and unemployed. The food courts usually weren't in walking distance from where you lived and they didn't accept your student ID as a legitimate form of payment. And, fitness centers in the real world had way too many people over the age of 19. Again, your student ID got you nowhere. It was as worthless as the plastic it was fabricated from in Guangzhou. Worst of all, food and shelter aren't just there when you show up. You have to actually participate in what Taylor recalls his economics professor calling the "labor market." And this wasn't your typical labor market. It was positively jobbesian. Prospects for college grads were less than favorable, especially if you had a degree in American Auteur Theory Studies, as Taylor did. And on your resume, which disappointingly was not multiple choice, you couldn't even list your best accomplishments, like earning a Brigadier General III badge by getting to level 57 on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for Xbox.

Root = job + Hobbesian

#32 Totaliterry cloth robe

Ostentatious terry cloth robe worn by totalitarian dictators.

Geopolitics was of little interest to Milton until the toppling of the Qaddafi regime flooded the market with some of the finest terry cloth robes in the world. As a connoisseur of all things terry cloth and all things camel hair, Milton knew the opportunity of a lifetime was at hand—a chance to acquire one of Qaddafi's prized totaliterry cloth robes from an auction at Christie's. The proceeds would benefit the fledgling post-Qaddafi transitional government but that was of little concern to Milton. Acquiring a one-of-a-kind totaliterry cloth robe was paramount, and Milton had his eye on one of Qaddafi's favorites. It was made from the finest Egyptian cotton (a Father's Day gift from Mubarek) and the most luxurious camel hair in the world. Each strand of camel hair was harvested from a rare free-range two-humped Bactrian camel inhabiting the remote steppes of the Taklamakan Desert, and then meticulously hand-dyed by an artisan camel-hair dyer, using only precious natural pigments produced by indigenous Oaxacan peasants who harvest clusters of female cochineal insects from prickly pear cacti and then pulverize their oval-shaped bodies into a natural dye. As a finishing touch, master embroiderers had stitched a monogram of the infamous fist sculpture (a Herculean fist rising from the earth and crushing a U.S. fighter jet) into the left lapel of the robe. Who in their right mind would not want this robe?

As Milton signed the papers to secure a home equity line of credit on his four-bedroom Cape Cod to raise funds for the totaliterry cloth robe, he closed his eyes and imagined what the otherworldly combination of terry cloth and camel hair would feel liked on his freshly powdered skin.

Root = totalitarian + terry cloth robe

#31 Theopanspermia

Hypothesis that religious belief was introduced to humanity via extraplanetary viral transmission.  
Man at bus stop: "Do you have the time?"

Me: "It's, uh, 4:37."

Man at bus stop: "Good. Now listen. Do you believe in God?"

Me: "Not really."

Man at bus stop: "The belief in God, in a God, whether it's polytheism or monotheism, it doesn't matter. The source is the same. It's a sickness."

Me: "Yeah..."

Man at bus stop: "No, I mean that literally. It's literally a sickness; it's an infection, a viral infection. From outer space."

Me: "Hmm..." 

Man at bus stop: "Religion was created by a highly advanced alien civilization. Very smart, a very smart race. Smarter than us. Way, way smarter. They were advanced enough to know that other advanced, sentient civilizations could pose a threat, eventually. So, they did what any rational civilization would do. They invented a virus that would infect the forebrain of intelligent life forms. You got a smoke?"

Me: "Sorry, no."

Man at bus stop: "Why you ask, did they do this? They did it to slow us down. What impedes progress more than religion? Few things. It's a hindrance to scientific progress, social progress, sexual progress, even moral progress. Think about it. All these people around the world killing each other in the name of religion. Been like that for a long time. Foolish, isn't it?"

Me: "Yeah, it is."

Man at bus stop: "The next obvious question is, how did they get the virus here? The universe is a big place. You can't just zip around in flying saucers like on TV. No, that's nuts. It's a waste of gas. You wouldn't have the resources to pull that off. Most civilizations don't. No sir. They did it the only way any rational civilization would do it. They built an army of solar-powered self-replicating robots to spread the virus. The robot lands on a comet, an asteroid, a meteorite. You know, they just settle in on that thing for little while, dig a hole, plant the virus. Their work is done and they move on to the next space rock. And the virus just lies there dormant. Just sits around biding its time. Playing virus solitaire. Doing push ups, you know. That's how it's devised. It just sits there waiting and waiting. It's hearty too. They build 'em hearty. Got to build 'em hearty because you got to be tough enough to tolerate the extreme temperatures of space, solar winds, radiation. All that hostile space stuff."

Me: "Wow."

Man at bus stop: "One of those little meteors eventually makes it's way to the Milky Way, sails right through the Kuiper belt, penetrates the Earth's atmosphere. Boom. Bang. Boom. You've got yourself the Chickxulub crater right off the Yucatan Peninsula. You know the rest of the story. The dinosaurs die off. Some little marmot-type critter survives, one thing leads to another, and you end up with monkeys who think they're too good to be monkeys. And, of course, you've got alien viruses lying dormant, just waiting to infect some poor mammal's brain. This is what theopanspermia is all about. It's in all mammals probably but only manifests itself in species with more advanced cognition. I'm thinking the virus uses some form of bacteria as a delivery mechanism. That would make the most sense. Oxygen, I gather, is the catalyst that brings the bacteria to life, which spreads all over the place willy-nilly. You know, that stuff's everywhere. Spores. In the gut. In the water, on land, in the sky. It's everywhere. Stuff's everywhere. It's a Trojan horse for the virus. If we ever find a cure for religion and get rid of it, like Lenon said, we'll probably start programming the viruses ourselves. You got the time?"

Root: theism + panspermia

#30 Amomiorate

To make better by invoking the assistance of one's mommy.

Looking at the big red "C" on the top of her trigonometry mid-term exam sent a tremor of terror down Elizabeth's spine. Her heart began to race. Her eyes began to tear up. Her anguish, however, quickly metamorphosed into moral outrage. It was besides the point that she had not studied for several weeks. She would not stand for this indignity, for this affront on her GPA, this existential threat to her college admission plans. She knew she had to act quickly to amomiorate the situation.  

Root = ameliorate + mommy

#29 Sleight of wad

A technique used to make a tip appear greater than it actually is.

The tightwad didn’t want the waitress, or other customers, to think he was a tightwad, at least not while he hung around to get his bottomless cup’s worth of coffee. So, he did what any tightwad would do. Through sleight of wad he folded three singles so artfully they appeared to be nine.

#28 Cogitator tots

Little nuggets of crispy deep-fried thought.

After stumbling upon nearly a decade's worth of semi-mildewy issues of Reader's Digest in his Aunt Tilly's basement, Milton read through all of the "Quotable Quotes" in every edition from 1983 to 1989. It was a veritable feast of empty intellectual calories. And, Milton knew that Gorging himself on so many cogitator tots would inevitably lead to a severe case of cognitive indigestion.

#27 Metaphysical malpractice insurance

Liability insurance that helps protect metaphysicians and other metaphysical practitioners against litigation related to the practice of metaphysics.

Sophie the Seer was a tough sell, but Hudson wasn't giving up. No, that's not how you become "Regional Metaphysical Malpractice Insurance Salesman of the Year" three years in a row. Hudson extended his rate sheet across the crystal ball so the seer could take a closer look. “Our premiums really can’t be beat. And, we offer the most extensive coverage in the region—we cover mystics, fortune tellers, paranormal investigators, mind readers, astrologers, clairvoyants, palmists, numerologists.” Without saying a word, the seer inhaled deeply on her Marlboro Light and cast a skeptical look on Hudson. "Listen Sophie, the last thing you need is some spurned lover filing a malpractice suit against you. You'll lose everything. Buy our coverage, for a modest premium, and you'll be protected.”

#26 Malthusiate

To pontificate on matters apocalyptic or cataclysmic; to make dire predictions or issue ominous warnings. 

Cassandra refused to accompany George to dinner parties because she knew, if given the opportunity, he would Malthusiate at great length, especially if anyone broached the topic of greenhouse gas emissions or peak oil.

#25 Godless send

The non-religious equivalent of a godsend. 

Just as the flood waters reached the gutters of the duplex, a rescue boat appeared out of nowhere. The resident of 48A, a devout religious man, believed it to be a godsend. The resident of 48B, a closet atheist, believed the arrival of the rescue boat had nothing to do with divine intervention. It was, simply, a godless send.

#24 Trimjectory

The path a trimjectile follows through space as a function of time.

After tossing her Chicken Fresca with Chardonnay Café Steamer into the trash bin, Natalie was ready to focus on the task at hand—harnessing the computational power of Microsoft Excel to calculate the trimjectory needed to arc her trimjectile over the cube wall and into Nevin's cup of probiotic yogurt.

Root = trim + trajectory

#23 Trimjectile

A fingernail or toenail projected through space via a propulsive force such as nail clipper.

It was a typical Monday. The lunch hour had come to a close and Natalie had slipped her left foot out of her shoe and placed it on the edge of her desk. Her weekly office grooming ceremony would soon commence, and Nevin knew it was only a matter of time until a stray trimjectile would arc over his cube wall and either make direct contact with his face or land in his cup of probiotic yogurt. 

Root = trim + projectile

#22 Right of tray

Legal or accepted right of way of a tray carrier, whether pedestrian or vehicular, to proceed ahead of another.

My heart began to beat rapidly as I took the witness stand. As the prosecutor approached me, my mind went blank and I was transported back to the night of the accident—to the ghastly site of two tray buggies colliding into each other, to the horrendous aftermath of Swedish meatballs and lingonberries strewn about cashiers and innocent bystanders. The fate of two men, one with a sprained ankle and one with a stubbed toe, was now in my hands. 

The lawyer's thundering voice brought me back to the courtroom. "Did my client, Bernardo M. Myslinski, as he pushed his double-decker tray buggy to the cash register, wanting nothing more than to rest his feet and enjoy a peaceful meal of baked salmon with vegetable medallions after navigating the seemingly endless corridors of the showroom floor...Did my client, a hard-working father of two, have right of tray as he departed the food counter and headed toward the cash register station when the defendant—who, if I may remind the ladies and gentleman of the jury, was pushing an uninsured tray buggy and texting while driving, as some witnesses have attested—came careening out of the ordering line from in front of the dessert display to sideswipe my client?"

#21 Confectionery User Interface (CUI)

The user interface on the inside of a chocolate box that helps users navigate confections in a sampler.

Gordon was not partial to the pixel and he found no joy in electronic candygrams. He looked back fondly on the golden age of CUI design when he would spend hours at his easel hand drawing navigation menus with graphite pencils for big brands like Whitman's and boutique chocolatiers that have long since vanished. 

Not only were Gordon's CUIs aesthetically pleasing but they also took the user's needs into account—if you loved cherry cordials, Gordon’s well-organized menus would lead you directly to them; if you had dentures, Gordon’s readable typography would steer you clear of caramel and toffee confections; and, if you had nut allergies, almond- and cashew-filled nougats would not send you running for your EpiPen because Gordon's CUIs met universally-recognized accessibility standards.

#20 Wonkabe

A "wannabe" policy wonk.

It was the consensus among critics that the Congressman was a wonkabe, not a wonk.

#19 Samplotage

To sabotage a sampler by nibbling on some or all of the samples on selection.

Detective Vivian slipped into her latex gloves and ducked under the yellow crime tape to examine the scene of the crime. It was clear to her as she opened the lid of the defiled Whitman's Sampler box that the crime was premeditated, as the perpetrator had nibbled his or her way through every single confection, row by row, with one mysterious exception—the Messenger Boy had been left intact. As she placed the Whitman's Sampler into the evidence bag a tingling sensation went up her spine. This was not an ordinary act of samplotage. No, this was the work of a psychopath. 

Root = Sampler + sabotage

#18 Utopioca pudding

A Platonic form of tapioca pudding irresistible to mortals.

Milton conceded to his interlocutor that, yes, one who did not find gustatory pleasure in the consumption of tapioca pudding in the world as we know it could conceivably, in Utopia, find it impossible to resist the gustatory pleasures of an idealized form of tapioca pudding known as "utopioca pudding."

#17 Accoladle

To excessively ladle on accolades.

“Under your roof you can accoladle this young women all you want—when she ties her shoes, combs her hair, folds her clothes—but, in my classroom, she’s a dimbo socket until she correctly demonstrates 10 proofs of the Pythagorean theorem,” said Sister Josephine to the flabbergasted mother.

Root = Accolade + ladle

#16 Fridgementation

The process whereby leftovers that have been in the refrigerator for too long begin to ferment.

Ronald was not certain what he had ordered from P.F. Chang’s several weeks ago during his lunch trip to the mall, but he was certain after peeking under the Styrofoam lid that it was undergoing fridgementation. 

#15 Frosting the batter

The attempt to save time by completing steps in a linear process out of order.

The kindergartner scooped up a hunk of chocolate butter cream frosting with her hand and began layering it onto the cake batter. Just as she was about to pop it in the Easy Bake Oven, the teacher intercepted the prematurely frosted cake and said, "Honey, you can't save time by frosting the batter."

#14 Paleogastroentomologist

One who studies the gastrointestinal tracts of extinct insects.

The invisible hand of the market had swooped Kevin up from the halls of academia, where he completed his doctoral work on the digestive tract of an extinct walking stick species that emerged from the Phasmatodea order at the end of the Permian–Triassic extinction event over 252 million years ago, hung an apron around his neck, and placed him behind the counter of a popular fast-food chain’s storefront in a suburban strip mall in Bethesda, Maryland where he served as a sandwich artist who once dreamed of becoming a paleogastroentomologist. 

Root = paleontology + gastroenterology + entomology

#13 Outsorcerying

Outsourcing of wizardry, witchcraft, and sorcery labor.

The sorcery business was not what it used to be, admitted Gandalf the White in an off-the-record interview with Greta Van Susteren. High sorcery gains tax rates, over regulation of the spell-casting sector, and the unsustainable pension plans of the warlock unions were making America bad for sorcery, he said. "I left the old world, Middle-earth, because America was a land of opportunity that rewarded wizardry instead of punishing it. But now America is stifling innovation in the magic arts." Gandalf drew heavily from his pipe and puffed out a smoke ring that morphed into a pie chart showing a large percentage of the annual earnings of a top crystal ball firm going toward labor costs. The great wizard arched his left brow and leaned in toward Greta. In a hushed voice, he said, "I won't name names, but a very reputable enchantress has already begun outsorcerying magic wand production to an operation in Guangzhou that offers the right mix of labor costs and tax incentives that her firm needs to stay competitive."

#12 Cyclochauvinism

Attitude of moral, political, and spiritual superiority among cyclists toward non-cyclists, especially automobile drivers.

The caravan of automobiles trailed behind the spandex-clad cyclist occupying the middle of the single-lane urban artery. No driver dared to honk at or bypass the cyclochauvinist in fear of the moral outrage or physical retribution it would provoke.  

#11 Mimetic fence

A barrier resulting from two people mimicking each other's movements.

We were both walking at a fast clip as we approached each other from opposite sides of the long corridor. I stepped to the right; he stepped to the left. Our bodies nearly collided. We instinctively leaned back, and then attempted to step directly forward from our centerline. Again, we blocked each other. I said, "Go ahead." He said, "No, you go ahead." We laughed nervously, paused, and then mimicked each other’s movement in perfect synchrony. With each attempt to move forward we built a mimetic fence that prevented us from reaching our destinations.