Swifties have been pulling out their dictionaries at least since Taylor Swift's 2020 surprise albums, which came with some equally surprising word choices.These complex words didn't stop with folklore and evermore. Her use of elevated language in her lyrics continued in the releases that have followed, 2021's Red (Taylor's Version), 2022's Midnights, 2024's double album, The Tortured Poets Department and now 2025's The Life of a Showgirl.After all, Taylor wants auroras and sad prose...and complicated nomenclature.We, along with some help from good old Merriam-Webster, break down the words in some of the lyrics found on her last six albums that have fans scratching their heads and asking, "Huh?"Related: Prove You're a Mastermind By Answering These 50 'Tricksy' Taylor Swift Trivia Questions
Taylor Swift Dictionary for folklore
Word: MatinéeLyric: "I hit the Sunday matinée"Meaning: "a musical or dramatic performance or social or public event held in the daytime and especially the afternoon"
"the last great american dynasty"
Word: DynastyLyric: "There goes the last great American dynasty"Meaning: "a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a considerable time"
Word: GaucheLyric: "The wedding was charming, if a little gauche"Meaning: "lacking social experience or grace"
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Word: RicochetLyric: "Look at how my tears ricochet"Meaning: "a glancing rebound (as of a projectile off a flat surface)"
"mirrorball"
Word: RevelersLyric: "You are not like the regulars, the masquerade revelers"Meaning: "one who engages in revelry," which is "noisy partying or merrymaking"
Word: IllicitLyric: "And that's the thing about illicit affairs..."Meaning: "not permitted"
Word: ClandestineLyric: "...and clandestine meetings and longing stares"Meaning: "marked by, held in, or conducted with secrecy"
Word: MercurialLyric: "Take the words for what they are, a dwindling mercurial high"Meaning: "characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood"
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"the lakes"
Word: ElegiesLyric: "Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?"Meaning: "a pensive or reflective poem that is usually nostalgic or melancholy"
Word: EulogizeLyric: "It it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?"Meaning: "to speak or write in high praise of"
Word: AurorasLyric: "I want auroras and sad prose"Meaning: "dawn"
Word: WisteriaLyric: "I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet"Meaning: "any of a genus (Wisteria) of mostly woody leguminous vines of China, Japan, and the southeastern U.S. that have pinnately compound leaves and long racemes of showy blue, white, purple, or rose papilionaceous flowers and that include several (such as W. sinensis and W. floribunda) grown as ornamentals"
Word: CalamitousLyric: "While I bathe in cliffside pools with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief"Meaning: "being, causing, or accompanied by calamity"
?| Taylor Swift holding her new evermore dictionary to help swifties understand the lyrics! pic.twitter.com/SO5DILktaZ
— JESSICA ୨୧₊∘ (@jessdipaola13) December 16, 2020Word: MidasLyric: "Your Midas touch on the Chevy door"Meaning: "a legendary Phrygian king who is given the power of turning everything he touches to gold"
"gold rush"
Word: ContrarianLyric: "At dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian s--t"Meaning: "a person who takes a contrary position or attitude"
Word: LarkLyric: "Down in the park, honey, making a lark of the misery"Meaning: "a source of or quest for amusement or adventure"
"ivy"
Word: Incandescent Lyric: "Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow"Meaning: "white, glowing, or luminous with intense heat"
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Word: PrecipiceLyric: "Pushed from the precipice, clung to the nearest lips"Meaning: "a very steep or overhanging place"
"evermore"
Word: UnmooredLyric: "Hey December, guess I'm feeling unmoored"Meaning: "to loosen from or as if from moorings," which are "[devices] (such as a line or chain) by which an object is secured in place"
Taylor Swift Dictionary for Red (Taylor's Version)
Word: MosaicLyric: "We learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts"Meaning: "a surface decoration made by inlaying small pieces of variously colored material to form pictures or patterns"
"The Lucky One (Taylor's Version)"
Word: RivieraLyric: "And now it's big black cards and Riviera views"Meaning: "a coastal region frequented as a resort area and usually marked by a mild climate"
Word: NonchalantLyric: "If I had known what I know now, I never would've played so nonchalant"Meaning: "having an air of easy unconcern or indifference"
"Nothing New (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]"
Word: NoveltyLyric: "Lord, what will become of me, once I've lost my novelty?"Meaning: "something new or unusual"
Word: IngénueLyric: "And someone else lights up the room, people love an ingénue"Meaning: "a naive girl or young woman"
Word: PedigreeLyric: "And the girl in your bed has a fine pedigree"Meaning: "a distinguished ancestry"
"All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) [From the Vault]"
Word: DispositionLyric: "Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze"Meaning: "the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances"
Word: PatriarchyLyric: "And you were tossing me the car keys, 'F--k the patriarchy' keychain on the ground"Meaning: "control by men of a disproportionately large share of power"
Word: Self-effacingLyric: "You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes"Meaning: "having or showing a tendency to make oneself modestly or shyly inconspicuous"
Word: MaimLyric: "Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?"Meaning: "to mutilate, disfigure, or wound seriously"
currently thinking about all the words taylor swift used in midnights lyrics that I’ll have to look up in a dictionary
— Sel ❤️? (@butwhatcanitay) September 6, 2022Word: MelancholiaLyric: "And you don't really read into my melancholia"Meaning: "severe depression characterized especially by profound sadness and despair"
"Anti-Hero"
Word: CovertLyric: "Did you hear my covert narcissism..."Meaning: "not openly shown, engaged in, or avowed: veiled"
Word: AltruismLyric: "...I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman?"Meaning: "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others"
Word: Aurora borealisLyric: "This scene feels like what I once saw on a screen, I searched 'aurora borealis green'"Meaning: "an aurora that occurs in earth's northern hemisphere [also called northern lights]"
Word: PeripheryLyric: "I've never seen someone lit from within, blurring out my periphery"Meaning: "an area lying beyond the strict limits of a thing"
"Labyrinth"
Word: LabyrinthLyric: "It only feels this raw right now, lost in the labyrinth of my mind"Meaning: "a place constructed of or full of intricate passageways and blind alleys"
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Word: OpacityLyric: "Spiderboy, king of thieves, weave your little webs of opacity"Meaning: "obscurity of sense: unintelligibility," meaning "unable to be understood or comprehended"
"Sweet Nothing"
Word: HuckstersLyric: "Industry disruptors and soul deconstructors and smooth-talking hucksters out glad-handing each other"Meaning: "one who sells or advertises something in an aggressive, dishonest, or annoying way"
Word: MachiavellianLyric: "And I swear I'm only cryptic and machiavellian 'cause I care"Meaning: "marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith"
"The Great War"
Word: Crimson cloverLyric: "Flashes of the battle come back to me in a blur, all that bloodshed, crimson clover"Meaning: "an annual European clover (Trifolium incarnatum) that has cylindrical heads of crimson flowers and is cultivated in the U.S. especially as a cover crop"
Word: CryptLyric: "And maybe it's the past that's talkin', screamin' from the crypt"Meaning: "a chamber (such as a vault) wholly or partly underground"
Word: HappenstanceLyric: "I was supposed to sweat you out in search of glorious happenings of happenstance on someone else's playground"Meaning: "a circumstance especially that is due to chance"
"Hits Different"
Word: AntitheticalLyric: "Bet I could still melt your world, argumentative, antithetical dream girl"Meaning: "being in direct and unequivocal opposition: directly opposite or opposed"
Taylor Swift Dictionary for The Tortured Poets Department
Word: FortnightLyric: "For a fortnight, there we were ..."Meaning: "a period of 14 days"
Word: TreasonLyric: "And no one here's to blame. But what about your quiet treason?"Meaning: "the betrayal of a trust"
"My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys"
Word: RivuletsLyric: "The sickest army doll purchased at the mall, rivulets descend my plastic smile."Meaning: "a small stream"
Word: LitanyLyric: "There was a litany of reasons why we could've played for keeps this time."Meaning: "a sizable series or set"
Word: PetulanceLyric: "Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym (Cryin' at the gym). Everything comes out of teenage petulance."Meaning: "The quality or state of being petulant ... insolent or rude in speech or behavior"
"But Daddy I Love Him"
Word: PrecociousLyric: "Growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all."Meaning: "exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early age"
Word: SanctimoniouslyLyric: "God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what's best for me sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see."Meaning: "hypocritically pious or devout"
Word: SoliloquiesLyric: "God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what's best for me sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see."Meaning: "the act of talking to oneself; a poem, discourse, or utterance of a character in a drama that has the form of a monologue or gives the illusion of being a series of unspoken reflections"
Word: EsotericLyric: "Six weeks of breathing clean air. I still miss the smoke. Were you making fun of me with some esoteric joke?"Meaning: "designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone; difficult to understand"
"The Albatross"
Word: Persona non grataLyric: "And when that sky rains fire on you and you're persona non grata I'll tell you how I've been there too and that none of it matters."Meaning: "a person who is unacceptable or unwelcome"
Word: PostmortemLyric: "We hereby conduct this postmortem. He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsman."Meaning: "an analysis or discussion of an event after it is over"
"Peter"
Word: BeguilingLyric: "The goddess of timing once found us beguiling. She said she was trying. Peter, was she lying?"Meaning: "agreeably or charmingly attractive or pleasing"
Word: SynchronicityLyric: "And the tears fell in synchronicity with the score. And at last she knew what the agony had been for."Meaning: "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality"
Taylor Swift Dictionary for The Life of a Showgirl
"The Fate of Ophelia"
Word: PurgatoryLyric: "And if you'd never come for me (come for me), I might've lingered in purgatory."Meaning: "an intermediate state after death for expiatory purification" or "a place or state of temporary suffering or misery"
Word: PortofinoLyric: "That view of Portofino was on my mind."Meaning: a coastal village in Italy
Word: Plaza AthénéeLyric: "That view of Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athénée."Meaning: a five-star hotel in Paris
"Opalite"
Word: OnyxLyric: "You were dancing through the lightning strikes, sleepless in the onyx night."Meaning: "a translucent chalcedony in parallel layers of different colors"Word: OpaliteLyric: "But now the sky is opalite."Meaning: a man-made version of an opal stone
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Word: ChateauLyric: "The winding road leads to the chateau."Meaning: "a large country house"Word: MahoganyLyric: "I pay the check before it kisses the mahogany grain."Meaning: "the wood of any of various chiefly tropical trees"Word: ProtégéLyric: "All I asked for is your loyalty, my dear protégé."Meaning: "one who is protected or trained or whose career is furthered by a person of experience, prominence, or influence"
"Wi$h Li$t"
Word: Palme d'OrLyric: "They want that critical smash Palme d'Or and an Oscar on their bathroom floor."Meaning: "a timeless symbol of the Festival de Cannes, has been awarded to the best film in the Official Competition for over 60 years"
Word: HearseLyric: "The situation could be saved, of course, but they'd already picked out your grave and hearse."Meaning: "an elaborate framework erected over a coffin or tomb to which memorial verses or epitaphs are attached" or "a vehicle for conveying the dead to the grave"Word: InfamyLyric: "Can't you see my infamy loves company?"Meaning: "evil reputation brought about by something grossly criminal, shocking, or brutal"
"The Life of a Showgirl"
Word: KismetLyric: "Looking back, I guess it was kismet."Meaning: "a hypothetical force or personified power that determines the course of the future events"
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