Overwhelmed by Cuteness? There’s a Word for That.

Need a word to emphasize that intense feeling that comes from bearing witness to a beautiful, doll-like baby? Or a term to refer to the overwhelming urge to pinch or squeeze a golden retriever puppy?

Try gigil (pronounced ghee-gill), a Tagalog word that was among the 42 so-called untranslatable terms from various countries and regions — including Southeast Asia, South Africa and Ireland — that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary on Thursday, according to a post on the dictionary’s website.

These words, according to Oxford, were determined to have been “lexicalized” in one language but do not have a direct English equivalent. They will join more than 600,000 words in the robust dictionary.

“For people who speak English alongside other languages, there is an easy way to fill such a lexical gap — simply borrowing the untranslatable word from another language,” Danica Salazar, the executive editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, said in the post about the new words. “Sometimes, they do this with enough frequency that the borrowed word eventually becomes part of the vocabulary of their variety of English.”

A representative from Oxford did not respond to a request for additional comment.

Updates to the dictionary are made on a quarterly basis. The newest batch includes the interjection “yoh,” which is a cry or exclamation used in South African English to express various emotions or reactions, such as surprise, shock or wonder. If you want another word to convey feelings of surprise, shock or outrage, the Malay word “alamak,” another addition, is a good choice. The Irish phrase “to act the maggot” was added for those looking to describe someone who’s behaving foolishly and is at risk of feeling embarrassed.