cloudspotting

Etymology

From cloud + spotting.

cloudspotting means The observation of clouds as a recreational activity. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

CLOUDSPOTTING — [Noun] The recreational, often meditative activity of observing, identifying, and contemplating the forms of clouds. From cloud (mass of condensed water vapor in the sky) + spotting (the act of observing or identifying). Unlike meteorology, which rigorously quantifies atmospheric processes, or stargazing, which seeks to fix the eternal points beyond our atmosphere, cloudspotting is a transient communion with the impermanent. It is the patient discrimination between a cumulus's cauliflower towers and a cirrus's mare's-tail brushstrokes, the quiet triumph of naming the anvil head of a distant cumulonimbus, and the shared recognition of a whale in a stratocumulus roll—all before the composition is revised by the unseen wind. A gentle practice in the art of losing, it finds perfect, fleeting meaning in what is designed only to evaporate.

noun

The observation of clouds as a recreational activity.