Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word kenopsia.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.

    - Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

    February 21, 2013

  • It's raining tonight and the sidewalks are empty,

    The umbrellas are gone

    And the streets are so lonely --

    I lie here awake and the silence is thunder,

    Even though you are gone

    Your sadness remains.

    A piece of a song I've been working on for some time.

    February 21, 2013

  • oh hernesheir & bilby, I didn't know how much I needed this word. Thank you!

    February 22, 2013

  • Thanks to bilby for first listing and commenting upon the word that described a feeling I had not previously had a name for.

    February 22, 2013

  • My first thought was of beach resorts in winter. Like Split. I spent 3 days there around Xmas 2003 and had a 50 room hotel to myself. Not to mention the promenade, the piazzas of the old town and the windy echoes of Diocletian.

    February 22, 2013

  • Kenopsia means: the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet

    March 8, 2023