This might say more about my crappy English than anything else but since when has “angsty” not been an actual word? 
As far as I know ‘angsty’ has never been an actual word
‘Angst-ridden’ should serve much the same purpose.
Don’t listen to the naysayers. It may be newish, but “angsty” is still a perfectly cromulent word.
It doesn’t look newish…
It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary. It was added in January 2005, but the first citation is from 1956.
Now that that’s solved, can we get a word for the *aunt *equivalent of “avuncular”? Somehow “auntuncular” doesn’t sound quite right…TRM
Wordsmith.org says materteral means aunt-like. (It was word of the day on 5/20/04, about halfway down the page.)
I don’t care for it. It sounds vaguely ick, like it has to do with breastfeeding, or sleep cycles, or maybe reptiles.
Thanks! It is kind of awkward sounding, but fits the bill. I’ll pass it along to my niece, who wanted to know in the first place…TRM
Back to “angsty”. Whether it’s in a particular dictionary or not, it’s a word because I know what it means and so do you.
Cecil used the word “Chernobylesque” in a recent column. Without looking, I’ll guess that no such word appears in OED. I plan on using it anyway.
While there are words not in the OED, I think we can agree that 99.99% of the time, if it is in the OED, then it is a word. Certainly that’s not why it’s a word, but is does imply as much.
That aside, you do make an important point.
[I accidentally posted as my wife above.]
Yeah but if it isn’t in a dictionary can I use it while doing a paper? Is the professor going to grade me down for it? I ended up using it anyway but I shouldn’t have to worry about using a word that most people know the meaning of, even if it isn’t in the dictionary.
“-esque” is a recognised suffix that means “in the manner of, or reminiscent of”. I’d say you could add it to just about any proper noun, under the right circumstances.
There’s a similar thing going on with “-y”, albeit perhaps with a less formal tone.
Your professor’s response is highly dependent upon your professor, I’m afraid. (To be graded down for a single idiosyncratically vexing word choice is ridiculous, but, I know, it happens… But if your professor’s the sort who would do that, then there’s really no telling what would provoke them, and not much you can do to guard against it)
So words in the manner of “Chernobylesque” are Chernobylesquesque? 
Concur. A professor in college gave me grief once over the word vocalise because it did not appear in the then-current M-W Ninth New Collegiate. As a matter of fact, M-W still does not seem to recognize that word.
Just to clarify for everyone, this is in reference to a particular noun “vocalise”, and not the verb whose British-style spelling happens to match it.
Sorry, I thought the Wikipedia link would have made that instantly clear. Thanks for helping!
It did make it instantly clear once I bothered to follow it, but at first I was all “What, like I need a Wikipedia link to tell me what ‘vocalize’ means? Pshaw…”.