kissle

Why this word is great

KISSLE — [Verb] To smother with kisses; to kiss repeatedly or affectionately. From kiss ("to touch with the lips as a sign of love or greeting") + -le (a frequentative suffix indicating repeated action). Unlike "peck" (a quick, glancing touch of lips, barely a whisper) or "embrace" (which may hold warmth but not necessarily lips), to kissle is to drown someone in affection, to leave no inch of skin unclaimed. It is the grandmother pressing her lips to a child’s cheeks until they squirm, the lover trailing kisses along a wrist like counting beads on a rosary, or the dog’s relentless, slobbering assault on a returning owner’s face—proof that love, in its purest form, is often an act of gentle, overwhelming excess. To kissle is to surrender to the tactile poetry of connection, a reminder that love, at its core, is a physical language.