Why this word is great
ORENDA — [Noun] A mystical power believed by the Iroquois to pervade all animate and inanimate things. Coined in 1902 by ethnologist J.N.B. Hewitt from a Wyandot (Iroquoian) cognate of Mohawk orę́·naʔ ("inherent power"). Unlike "mana" (which suggests a transferable, almost transactional force) or "chi" (which flows through living bodies like a river), "orenda" is the quiet hum of potential in all things—the strength in a stone’s silence, the resolve in a tree’s roots, the unseen pull between predator and prey. It is not wielded but recognized: the world is not full of objects but of wills, and every rustling leaf or shifting shadow speaks the same elemental language. To name it is to remember that power was never ours alone.