The March 2025 update of the Oxford English Dictionary has a handful of interesting words like 'spice bag,' 'alamak, ' and 'gigil.'
Of them all, 'gigil' (pronounced ghee-gill) seems to have captured the attention of social media the best. The new word, which originates from the Filipino language Tagalog, has an interesting meaning that helps describe an overwhelming feeling - the urge to squeeze, hug or pinch something extremely cute, chubby or adorable. Psychologists generally call it 'cute aggression,' which is our brain's method to regulate extremely overpowering, positive feelings and caretaking instincts. 'I felt an intense gigil upon seeing my cute puppy - I just wanted to squeeze him,' is a way to use it in a sentence. 

Gigil, a dimorphous expression
Psychologists say dimorphous expressions are actions that do not match your mind's feelings but are normal reactions. A few examples are happy tears, screaming due to excitement, nervous laughter, shaking with thrill, joking when stressed, playful aggression in romance, angry smiles or punching in the air due to excitement. A 2018 study on this explained the reaction as the brain's response from its emotion centre and reward centre to process complex human emotions. Apparently, the brain is trying to balance out intense positive or negative emotions you feel through dimorphous expressions, so that it doesn't overload you! 
'Gigil' has more than 1K searches on Google Trends in the past 12 hours.

Google Trends article size - 1

TAGS

The comments posted here/below/in the given space are not on behalf of Onmanorama. The person posting the comment will be in sole ownership of its responsibility. According to the central government's IT rules, obscene or offensive statement made against a person, religion, community or nation is a punishable offense, and legal action would be taken against people who indulge in such activities.