Sabsung

Hello and welcome to Word of the Week! I’m your host, Liz. This podcast is dedicated to words and phrases that are untranslatable into English. Let’s discover the nuance of the world’s languages, shall we?

This week’s word is sabsung. A Thai word meaning ‘to slake an emotional or spiritual thirst, to be revitalized’. This might sound lofty, but have you ever returned home exhausted from a trip and put on your favorite artist’s album? And at some point while listening, you felt a sense of renewal on a deep level, as if the music had poured some extra life into your soul? 

Or maybe things seem very hard and untenable, and someone says exactly the thing you needed to hear, even if you didn’t realize it? And in that moment, you feel very present and refreshed, as if the rains had come after a long drought? This is sabsung. 

Recognizing that we might have needs of a psychological or spiritual nature is a big step for some of us. But these needs, when met, show us that life has a richness to it, a fullness to it, that we often overlook or ignore. Sabsung is both the act of quenching metaphysical thirsts and the feeling that comes with the fulfillment of these hard-to-define needs. 

The word literally means the act of immersing something dry into liquid. With sabsung, a beautiful work of art or a kind gesture becomes the cool, long drink of water on a hot day. You could use this word in the context of seeing your family after a long separation. Or you could seek it out when the stresses and complications of life threaten to overwhelm you: “I badly need to sabsung. I’m headed to the soaking tub with a bottle of wine and the new Beyonce album.” Relatable. 

Here’s to this week… May you all endeavor to adopt this Word of the Week and see the world a little bit differently. I’ll be back next week with a new word. Thank you for listening!