55 English Words That Don't Translate - Does Not Translate

German Swedish English Chinese Spanish Japanese French Hebrew Russian Finnish Dutch Arabic Polish Norwegian Italian Hindi Korean Turkish Cebuano Hungarian Malagasy Tagalog Icelandic Portuguese Indonesian Bulgarian Mandarin Danish Afrikaans Filipino Greek Cantonese Croatian Esperanto Swiss German Serbo-Croatian Czech Irish

As seen on:

ProductHunt

b3ta

Clusterfuck·A disastrously mishandled situation or undertaking.

Overdressed/Underdressed·Being too formally/informally dressed for an activity or event.

Shotgun·An exclamation made upon sight of a vehicle in which a passenger will travel, designating the seat as proprietary of the exclaimer for the duration of an upcoming trip.

Y’all’d’ve·Triple contraction of You all would have.

Catch-22·A paradoxical situation with contradictory requirements.

Busk·To play music in the street for money.

Antidisestablishmentarianism·The movement to prevent revoking the Church of England's status as the official church.

Rickrolling·Tricking people into listening to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up instead of the content that they expected to see.

Widow-maker·A dead branch caught precariously high in a tree which may fall on a person below.

Gun-Shy·Being afraid of doing something after a previous bad experience.

Kitty-corner·Diaganolly adjacent.

Cheesy·Something insincere or cliché, but in a vaguely inoffensive or pleasant way.

Affluenza·A feeling of dissatisfaction, anxiety, etc, caused by the dogged and ongoing pursuit of more.

Y’all’d’ve·You all would have (reverse DNT).

Sillage·The degree to which a perfume’s fragrance lingers in the air when worn.

pearl-clutching·To act overly shocked as to publicly display your strong aversion to something.

-eth·Eth - humorous suffix to imitate old words.

Just·I was just asked to define it by a non-native English speaker. I can think of no other English word that can take on so many different meanings.

Autoinfanticide·The act of going back in time and killing yourself as an infant and associated with the grandfather paradox of time travel.

Backwash·The saliva and/or drink that gets into the drink when you finish taking a sip.

Queer·Something that doesn't follow a society's expectations of sex and gender.

To clothesline somebody·To hit someone in the neck area with your inner arm, usually when they are moving at a high rate of speed, causing them to fall down (video of clotheslining in description).

Normie·An average, mainstream person.

Busman’s holiday·A vacation where you do an activity similar to your job.

Ship·To enjoy imagining that two people (especially celebrities) are in a relationship.

to fail upwards·To get promoted into a higher career position despite failing at the current job.

Cafeteria Christian·A person who professes Christian adherence, but who selectively chooses which doctrines to follow.

Congenial·Pleasing or liked on account of having qualities or interests that are similar to one's own.

Streaker·A specific type of exhibitionist that interrupts public events, especially sports matches, by invading them while nude.

paper street, paper town·A street or town that exists on a map but not in reality.