The other day I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and I came upon a post from 450 North Brewing: “Don’t let cenosillicaphobia, or ‘fear of an empty beer glass’ get you down! No beer shortage in our tasting room!” This tweet caught my attention because I had never heard of cenosillicaphobia and I wondered if it was even real.
Turns out it’s not a legitimate medical condition, at least according to Google, but the word has apparently been around for quite some time. I was able to find a forum post from 2008 discussing the origin of the word and someone even broke down the etymology of the word.
“The -sillica- is probably intended to be -silica- (quartz, but with the intended meaning ‘glass’), and ceno- would be from Greek kenos, empty (as in cenotaph, literally an empty tomb),” wrote Dr. Techie.
Ok, so the word is completely made up. But that doesn’t mean whoever invented the word isn’t a genius, at least to us beer geeks. After my five minute deep dive into researching cenosillicaphobia, I decided to try and find other unconventional beer terms, which I was able to do successfully.
I should point out that the following words and their definitions come from Urban Dictionary, so they are completely made up by people like you and I.
This one is completely true, but I would argue it extends to more than just bar sports. After a few drinks I become better at beer pong, Madden, and even writing. So far I’m one beer into writing this article, how am I doing?
Beercrastinate - “To avoid what you are supposed to be doing (studying, homework, work, cleaning) by drinking beer.”
You can’t let the beer get warm, so you must finish it before starting another task.
Beer Digger - “An underage female who uses a male of legal drinking age to get free booze. Can be applied to any form of alcohol.”
While this doesn’t really apply to most once they get out of college, or at least past the age of 25, there are people who do this. Maybe it’s a precursor to being a Gold Digger – not someone who physically digs for gold.
Beerducated - “One who has opened their eyes to the wonderful world of beer. A world that goes beyond yellow, fizzy, flavourless, mass-produced garbage masquerading as beer.”
If you are reading this post then you are Beerducated and you are awesome.
So there you have it, five beer terms to add to your vocabulary. What other unconventional beer terms are stored away in your jargon? Share them with us in the comment section below.
