Overcome when struck by cuteness? There's a word for that feeling

It can be hard to describe that feeling of being overcome by the unbearable cuteness of a fluffy little cat or a chubby-cheeked baby. But there’s now an official word for it in English: gigil.

Borrowed from Tagalog, one of the primary languages of the Philippines, gigil is among 42 words that are untranslatable or have no direct English equivalents that have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in March.

Gigil (pronounced “ghee-gill”), which the OED says dates to 1990 and is also used in Philippine English, refers to a feeling “so intense that it gives us the irresistible urge to tightly clench our hands, grit our teeth, and pinch or squeeze whomever or whatever it is we find so adorable,” according to the OED’s latest update.

It can be used both as a noun identifying the feeling itself as well as an adjective for a person experiencing that feeling, as in “I’m so gigil.”

The newest dictionary additions include loanwords from Southeast Asia, South Africa and Ireland.

The lexical gap, where untranslatable words are found in one language but not others, can be easily filled by simply borrowing these words, OED executive editor Danica Salazar wrote in the update.

For example, komorebi is a Japanese word to describe sunlight dappling through leaves, while the Norwegian term utepils means sitting outside enjoying a beer, both of which have no English equivalents but are gaining popularity.

Sometimes, people who speak English alongside other languages use loanwords with “enough frequency” that they eventually become part of the vocabulary of their variety of English, Salazar said.

Aside from gigil, the list includes 10 other loanwords from the Philippines, such as videoke, the Filipino version of karaoke, and terror, a strict, harsh or demanding teacher.

Twelve of the new words come from the Philippines’ Southeast Asian neighbors Malaysia and Singapore. Nearly half of them refer to food such as otak-otak, a dish consisting of seafood mixed with spices and coconut milk, and ketupat, a small rice cake boiled in a pouch of woven palm leaves. 

The region’s colloquial exclamation alamak, which is used to convey surprise and dismay, is also included in the list, though its exact origin is uncertain.

Of the 11 words borrowed from South Africa, two are expressions that relate to feelings of frustration and anger — gatvol, a slang term describing a person who feels extremely annoyed, and the hell-in, a colloquial phrase used predicatively to talk about a furious individual.

Irish contributes eight loanwords to the OED update. They include debs, a formal social event for students, and class, a general term of approval that appears in the popular Northern Ireland sitcom “Derry Girls.”

With around 500,000 words and 150 years of history, the OED is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language.

OED editors review thousands of word suggestions every year to determine which words to include in updates. The dictionary has a watch list database with contributions from various sources, such as its own reading programs, crowdsourcing appeals, and automated monitoring and analysis of language in use.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News.

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