stimied (stahy-meed), v., past part. prevented from achieving one’s goal or or purpose due to constraints in the time available for the necessary tasks. Ex.: The end of every semester.

cornycopia (kawr-nee-koh-pee-uh), n. an inexhaustible, if exhausting, supply of old-fashioned, worn-out, and groan-inducing puns, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, bad jokes, etc., most often perpetrated by fathers at Thanksgiving dinners across America.

decemble (dih-sem-buhl), v. to disguise or conceal commercial motives behind a false or misleading appearance of Christmas cheer. Ex: Stores that erect Christmas displays the day after Halloween.

witch fulfillment (wich foo l-fil-muh nt), n. the symbolic gratification of the desire to believe in magic, experienced through an exercise of the imagination (as in books, cosplay, neurotic symptoms, religion, etc.). Ex.: The “Harry Potter effect.”

sufferage (suhf-er-ij), n. the condition of one whose right to vote has sustained a setback, decline in effectiveness, or even loss, due to suppression, intimidation, or imposed disadvantage.  Ex.: Dodge City, Kansas:  “For this November’s election, local officials have moved [the only polling site for 27,000 residents] outside the city limits to a facility more than a mile from the nearest bus stop, citing road construction that blocked the previous site.” —The Wichita Eagle

karma splice (kahr-muh splahys), n. Education, informal. 1. a teacher’s suspicion that she must have done something very bad in a previous life to deserve the grammatically incoherent essays turned in by her students. 2. a student’s suspicion that a teacher’s obsession with grammar indicates that the teacher must have been an authoritarian despot in a previous life.