You won’t find the title of last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother in the dictionary — but the doesn’t mean it’s not a specific word for a specific thing. The neologism, Platonish, perfectly sums up that not-quite-platonic relationship status…a status that, if you ask Barney, is true of every single male-female pair of friends who are both single (with one exception).
But platonish isn’t the sitcom’s first foray into the land of the lexicon. The show has a long history of coining words, phrases and concepts. Many of the larger, recurring concepts — the Slap Bet, the Vicky Mendoza Diagonal and the hot/crazy scale, the Bro Code… — have successfully infiltrated pop culture, but the writers also have a knack for turning a smaller phrase and coining new words. Like:
Episode: “The Possimpible,” probably the show’s best single-episode contribution of new words
Definition: That which is beyond the impossible, at the place where the possible and the impossible meet. The episode’s focus on business also produced jargon like connectitude, transformatation and linkativity—and…
Insanulous
Episode: “The Possimpible”
Definition: Insane + ridiculous. (Various spellings accepted.)
Revertigo
Episode: “Sandcastles In The Sand”
Definition: The change that happens to someone’s personality when he or she spends time with someone from his or her past.
Awsful
Episode: “Benefits”
Definition: Awesome + awful; a good way to disguise accidental jubilation.
Desperation Day
Episode: “Desperation Day”
Definition: Feb. 13, the last day to find someone with whom to spend Valentine’s Day
(MORE: Please Do Not Make a How I Met Your Mother Spinoff)
Woo Girls
Episode: “Woooo!”
Definition: Single women who go out in large groups and yell “wooo!” a lot—even when nothing is actually exciting them
Steak sauce
Episode: “Life Among the Gorillas”
Definition: A-1, the tops, the best, awesome.
Superdate
Episode: “Of Course”
Definition: One date that includes “17 dates-worth of romance”
DoWiSeTrePla
Episode: “Dowisetrepla”
Definition: A play on the naming of many New York City neighborhoods, this locale is Downwind of the Sewage Treatment Plant.
Episode: several
Definition: What a lawyer says upon winning an argument
(MORE: How I Met Your Mother Is Doing An All-Rhyming Episode)