white elephant:

a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of.

(this beautiful list of words are selected from the collection of Dr. Tim Lomax, whose page I discovered thanks to this isn’t happiness)

WORDS RELATING TO FEELINGS:

• Gula: Spanish for the desire to eat simply for the taste
• Sobremesa: Spanish for when the food has finished but the conversation is still flowing
• Mbukimvuki: Bantu for “to shuck of one’s clothes in order to dance”
• Schnapsidee: German for coming up with an ingenious plan when drunk
• Volta: Greek for leisurely strolling the streets

WORDS RELATING TO RELATIONSHIPS:

• Nakama: Japanese for friends who one considers like family
• Kanyininpa: Aboriginal Pintupi for a relationship between holder and held, akin to the deep nurturing feelings experienced by a parent for their child
• Gigil: Philippine Tagalog for the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze someone because you love them so much
• Kilig: Tagalog for the butterflies in the stomach you get when interacting with someone you find attractive
• Sarang: Korean for when you wish to be with someone until death

WORDS RELATING TO CHARACTER:

• Sitzfleisch: German for the ability to persevere through hard or boring tasks (literally “sit meat”)
• Baraka: Arabic for a gift of spiritual energy that can be passed from one person to another
• Jugaad: Hindi for the ability to get by or make do
• Desenrascanco: Portuguese for the ability to artfully disentangle oneself from a troublesome situation
• Sprezzatura: Italian for when all art and effort are concealed beneath a “studied carelessness”