Word.ws English Dictionary

zenosyne

UK/zɛˈnɒs.ən.i/US/zɛˈnɑs.ən.i/

zenosyne noun: the sense that time keeps going faster.

Noun

zenosyne (uncountable)

  1. (neologism) The sense that time keeps going faster.
    • This is the obscurest of the sorrows, / Though some say it’s entirely an illusion, / That time must be a constant (our tomorrows / Arriving by the clock, and in profusion), / That time is bound to pay back what it borrows, / Adjusting fast with slow, and in conclusion / We should take heart, adjust...2016, John Fuller, poem 4, in The Bone Flowers: or, Blueprints for a Disappearance, London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, stanza 7
    • These little hands / On my clock tile, stagnant, / Stare back at me / Aimlessly. / You come around / All in a frenzy then. / They rush into a zenosyne / Tirelessly.2017, Simonee Modi, “Time”, in Infrequent Musings, Chennai, Tamil Nadu: Notion Press, →ISBN

Examples of zenosyne in a sentence

  • The phenomenon of zenosyne has caused me to make some unconventional yes decisions.2017, Misty Lown, “The Unconventional Yes”, in One Small Yes: Small Decisions that Lead to Big Results, New York, N.Y.: Morgan James...
  • As we get older, we experience zenosyne, the feeling that time keeps getting faster and faster.2019, Raquel Ríos, “Authentic Presence: Personal Awareness and Self-Mastery”, in Mindful Practice for Social Justice: A Guide for Educators...
  • She must have experienced Zenosyne as I saw lot^([sic – meaning a lot]) of emotions came over her face.2020, Priyanka Pareek, “Zenosyne, the sense that time keeps going faster: We are finally all in”, in Amaira, [New Delhi, N.C.T.]: BlueRose...
  • Zenosyne […] You may have experienced those.2021, Sonal Maharana, Gossiping with My Emotions, Chandahandi, Odisha: Inkdew Private Limited, →ISBN, pages VI and 1 (Contents) and 62...

Origin of zenosyne

Coined by American author and neologist John Koenig, creator of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows; a blend of Zeno (“the name of ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea, in reference to Zeno’s dichotomy paradox, which ‘asks how a person can walk from one point to another if they must first cross a seeming infinity of halfway points, which makes their journey look like a series of ever-shrinking steps’”) + Mnemosyne (“the personification of memory in ancient Greek mythology”).

Questions about zenosyne

What does zenosyne mean?
Zenosyne means the sense that time keeps going faster.
How do you use zenosyne in a sentence?
The phenomenon of zenosyne has caused me to make some unconventional yes decisions.
What part of speech is zenosyne?
Zenosyne is a noun.
How do you pronounce zenosyne?
Zenosyne is pronounced /zɛˈnɒs.ən.i/ (UK).

Words near zenosyne in the dictionary

  1. Zenonists
  2. Zenons
  3. zenophobia
  4. Zenor
  5. Zenors
  6. zenosyne
  7. zenotropism
  8. zenpai
  9. Zens
  10. Zenses
  11. zensho yusho

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zenosyne (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “zenosyne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zenosyne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.