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Tagalog Word Gigil Added to Oxford Dictionary
Gigil: The Perfect Word for When Cuteness Is Just Too Much to Handle
- Publish date: since 2 day
It’s not always easy to put into words that overwhelming feeling you get when you see an irresistibly cute kitten or a baby with chubby cheeks. But now, there’s an official English word for it: gigil.
Originally from Tagalog, one of the main languages of the Philippines, gigil is one of 42 new entries in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) this March—each of them words without a direct English equivalent.
Pronounced “ghee-gill,” gigil has been part of Philippine English since at least 1990. According to the OED, it describes an intense emotion that makes you want to clench your fists, grit your teeth, or even pinch or squeeze whatever (or whoever) you find unbearably cute.
You can use it as a noun to name the feeling or as an adjective to describe the person feeling it—like saying, “I’m so gigil!”
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