lithophilia means the love of stones. It carries an Arena rating of 1451, earned across 17 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, lithophilia ranks #1,734 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #1,894 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #5,400 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #5,824 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
Why “lithophilia” is a great word
Lithophilia is a fondness for or love of stones, springing from the Ancient Greek λίθος (líthos, "stone") and -φιλία (-philía, "love, fondness"). Unlike lithology, the dispassionate scientific classification of rocks, or petrophilia, a broader affection for cliffs and geological formations, lithophilia is an intimate, tactile devotion to the object itself. It is the pocket weighted by a river-smoothed pebble carried for decades, the quiet satisfaction in the cool, dimpled weight of granite, the inexplicable need to line a windowsill with unremarkable fragments—a testament to the human compulsion to find companionship in the most enduring and silent of things.
Etymology
From litho- + -philia.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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