Riggwelter – a sheep that has fallen onto its back and is unable to get up (usually because of the weight of its fleece)In a similar vein:
Cast – unable to regain footing, possibly due to lying in a hollow with legs facing uphill and/or having a heavy fleece.- thanks to Susan T for the word
"(Exulansis is) the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land."
Single words that have two contradictory meanings are known as contronyms. Terms like these are also sometimes called antagonyms, auto-antonyms, and words having self-contradictions, or Janus words, named after an ancient Italian deity, regarded as the doorkeeper of heaven and represented as having two faces, one on the back and one on the front of his head.
1. a throwing of a person or thing out of a window
2. a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)
"Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618, which became the spark that started the Thirty Years' War. This was done in 'good Bohemian style' and referred to the defenestration which had occurred in Prague's City Hall almost 200 years earlier (July 1419), which also at that occasion led to war, the Hussite war.
"While the act of defenestration connotes the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary, and the term is sometimes used in just that sense, it also suggests breaking the windows in the process (de- also means removal).
"The term originates from two incidents in history, both occurring in Prague. In 1419, seven town officials were thrown from the Town Hall, precipitating the Hussite War. In 1618, two Imperial governors and their secretary were tossed from Prague Castle, sparking the Thirty Years War. These incidents, particularly in 1618, were referred to as the Defenestrations of Prague and gave rise to the term and the concept.
"Historically, the word defenestration referred to an act of political dissent. Notably, the Defenestrations of Prague in 1419 and 1618 helped to trigger prolonged conflict within Bohemia and beyond. Some Catholics ascribed the survival of those defenestrated at Prague Castle in 1618 to divine intervention.
"The Hebrew Bible records that Queen Jezebel was defenestrated at Jezreel by her own servants at the urging of Jehu. (2 Kings 9: 33)
"There is a range of hacker witticisms referring to "defenestration". For example, the term is sometimes used humorously among GNU/Linux users to describe the act of removing Microsoft Windows from a computer."
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| The Defenestration 1618 - Václav Brožík |
"Dybbuk, also spelled dibbuk, plural dybbukim, in Jewish folklore, a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person. Belief in such spirits was especially prevalent in 16th–17th-century eastern Europe. Often individuals suffering from nervous or mental disorders were taken to a miracle-working rabbi (baʿal shem), who alone, it was believed, could expel the harmful dybbuk through a religious rite of exorcism.
"Isaac Luria (1534–72), a mystic, laid the grounds for Jewish belief in a dybbuk with his doctrine of transmigration of souls (gilgul*), which he saw as a means whereby souls could continue their task of self-perfection. His disciples went one step further with the notion of possession by a dybbuk."
*gilgul (Hebrew: גלגול הנשמות, literally 'rolling') puts forth the idea that a soul must live through many lives before it gains the wisdom to rejoin with God. - Wikipedia
"A dybbuk is actually a ghost that sticks around after death to possess the body of the living for malevolent purposes. The stories state that it is either a malevolent spirit out to harm an innocent person, or a more neutral spirit out to punish a wicked person for their transgressions. Either way, the defining factor that represent a dybbuk is that they are out to cause harm to their host."
"In Jewish folklore and popular belief an evil spirit which enters into a living person, cleaves to his soul, causes mental illness, talks through his mouth, and represents a separate and alien personality is called a dibbuk. The term appears neither in talmudic literature nor in the Kabbalah, where this phenomenon is always called 'evil spirit.' (In the New Testament it is sometimes called 'unclean spirit.') The term was introduced into literature only in the 17th century from the spoken language of German and Polish Jews.
"At first, the dibbuk was considered to be a devil or a demon which entered the body of a sick person. Later, an explanation common among other peoples was added, namely that some of the dibbukim are the spirits of dead persons who were not laid to rest and thus became demons. This idea (also common in medieval Christianity) combined with the doctrine of gilgul ('transmigration of the soul') in the 16th century and became widespread and accepted by large segments of the Jewish population, together with the belief in dibbukim. They were generally considered to be souls which, on account of the enormity of their sins, were not even allowed to transmigrate and as 'denuded spirits' they sought refuge in the bodies of living persons. The entry of a dibbuk into a person was a sign of his having committed a secret sin which opened a door for the dibbuk. The power to exorcise dibbukim was given to ba'alei shem or accomplished Ḥasidim. They exorcised the dibbuk from the body which was bound by it and simultaneously redeemed the soul by providing a tikkun ('restoration') for him, either by transmigration or by causing the dibbuk to enter hell. Moses Cordovero defined the dibbuk as an 'evil pregnancy.'"
"The term first appears in a number of 16th century writings, though it was ignored by mainstream scholarship until S. Ansky's play The Dybbuk popularised the concept in literary circles. In the play, a young bride is possessed by the ghost of the man she was meant to marry had her father not broken a marriage agreement. Earlier accounts of possession (such as that given by Josephus) were of demonic possession rather than that by ghosts. These accounts advocated orthodoxy among the populace as a preventative measure. For example, it was suggested that a sloppily made mezuzah or entertaining doubt about Moses' crossing of the Red Sea opened one's household to dybbuk possession."
