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What is kenopsia?

Kenopsia is a made-up word for the eerie, forlorn feel of a place that is normally busy and has gone quiet.

By Aaron Wells, November 3, 2026

A reading hall in daylight with rows of wooden desks and dark red chairs, round skylights set into a dark ceiling, wooden shelving at the back with many shelves bare, plants along a counter at the right, and nobody at the desks — A reading hall set for many readers, with nobody at the desks: the forlorn quiet of a place that is usually full. Photo: Grisha Grishkoff, Pexels

Kenopsia is the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually full of people and is now quiet. The word was invented by John Koenig for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, his project of made-up words for feelings that lacked names. His examples are a school hallway in the evening and an unlit office on a weekend.

Where did the word come from?

Kenopsia is a coinage, not an old word, and it is not a term from psychology. Koenig made it for a feeling most people have had and few could name.

It names the feeling, not the place. A hallway at 6 p.m. is just a hallway until you remember it on an ordinary afternoon with a hundred people in it.

What sets it off?

Places that are set up for activity that is not happening. Seats face a screen, tables wait for diners, a line is marked on the floor for people who are not there. A mall that is actually dying has the same quiet and an explanation for it.

The psychologist Roger Barker called a store at business hours or a church during a service a "behavior setting," and his point was that the pattern belongs to people "en masse," not to any one person. When the crowd leaves, the building is still there and the setting is not. Many people are not bothered by these rooms, and some find them calm.

Is kenopsia the same as a liminal space?

No, though the two overlap. Kenopsia is a feeling. Liminal space, in the way most people now use it, is a type of place. Dictionary.com added the phrase in 2023 with an informal sense, "any location that is unsettling, uncanny, or dreamlike," and gave an example sentence: "The classroom when school is out for the summer is a liminal space." That sentence describes kenopsia almost exactly.

The older idea, liminality, is narrower. "Liminal" comes from the Latin limen, a threshold. In 1909 the French folklorist Arnold van Gennep used it for the middle stage of a rite of passage, when a person belongs to neither their old position nor the new one. Online, the word moved from describing a person to describing a place. The full chain is in what a liminal space is.

Questions

What does kenopsia mean?

Kenopsia is a coined word for the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually full of people and is now quiet or empty, such as a school hallway in the evening or an unlit office on a weekend. John Koenig invented it for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Is kenopsia a real word?

It is real in the sense that people use it, but it was invented by John Koenig for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a project of made-up words for feelings that lacked names. It is not an old or technical term from psychology or linguistics.

What is the difference between kenopsia and a liminal space?

Kenopsia names a feeling. A liminal space, in its internet sense, is a place that produces it. Dictionary.com added liminal space in 2023 with the informal meaning of any location that is unsettling, uncanny or dreamlike. For more, see what a liminal space is.

Where does the word liminal come from?

It comes from the Latin limen, a threshold. Arnold van Gennep used it in 1909 for the middle stage of rites of passage, and Victor Turner built on it in the 1960s. Online, the word moved from describing a person in transition to describing a place.