Meanings
- neologismrareuncountableThe yearning for the clarity or reprioritisation afforded by surviving a disaster.
In that sense, we can probably say that the Covid-19 pandemic, which put the world on hold for over a year, satisfied our collective lachesism.
2021, "Sketching", The Designing Linguist, Issue #1 (2021), page 52 more examples
I'd always been fascinated by lightning and had always had an unexplainable lachesism. I'm not sure why I had this desire to be struck by disaster and survive, to be struck by lightning in fact, […]
2015, Johnny Close, Eco-Lonely, page 110"What if I become just another flower on the side of the road?" I looked to him, shaking uncontrollably yet strangely calmed by an underlying sense of lachesism.
2019, Jonna Wahl, Bloody Bloom, unnumbered page
Origin
From Lachesis + -ism; coined by American author and neologist John Koenig, creator of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, with reference to the Ancient Greek goddess Lachesis, the Fate responsible for allotting the span of each mortal's life.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
lachesism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lachesism
“lachesism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lachesism. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lachesism,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lachesism.
Source: lachesism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.