When There Is No Perfect Word

What to do when you need a word and find none that means exactly what you intend:

1. Use poetry to circumscribe your meaning.
2. Employ a simile to make a series of direct comparisons.
3. Blog a new word (that sounds good!) into existence, and use it anyway:
   

Homescent – completely reminiscent of home, domestic in aura only, something commonplace yet sacred that would be done on a family vacation, or on a Saturday when the to-do list is done, spreading an attitude of peace like the smell of bread baking spreads through a house, having the essence of simplicity and love

A rebellion against the word “homey” which is no more in the dictionary than my word, and which sounds nothing like the actual sentimental experience of homescence. If it were a dead scene, merely visual, one might say quaint. The sound alone might be “familiar.” Yet the word for which we wander encompasses the entire progressive experience, the interaction between all those senseable aspects and the soul, the will-ing, moving participant in life.

Title Page of Volume I of the English Dictionary by Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84), Pub. in 1755
Two more words:
Senseable – able to be sensed using: sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell

Will-ing – the act of choosing to do something; this action always produces effort. Not to be confused with willing, a state of agreement or potential choice (like the difference between kinetic – will-ing – energy and potential – willing – energy).

To God be all glory.