glossary / reference / uranopaedia

abitger - compressed-air cannon for use against predatory clouds.

agrash - a word translatable only by loose analogy with the Terran idea of a "holy fool", a kind of sacred simpleton.  (The analogy has to be loose because although the Uranian religious impulse exists, it is held in a kind of suspension: on Ooranye an "intermediate" numen, the World Spirit, currently takes the place of a completely transcendent God during this phase of deep time.)

alapatea - a term untranslatable into neat English: "anecdotalist-cum-socialite-poet-cum-reporter" gives some idea.

anyne - the first five hours of the 15-hour Uranian night.

apparng - context-awareness.  The frame of mind in which Uranians are aware of how special something is even though they are accustomed to it.  The ability not to take things for granted.  See the episode, The Nebulee.

arelk - the sclerotic political condition of a state in which the lremd rule of a Noad has hardened into an authoritarian despotism.

ayash - the ayashou are invisible elevators, in the form of airstreams which bear skimmers up from the plain and onto the raised rims of the disc-on-stem cities of Syoom, and back down again. 

ayshine - the brightest five hours of day, when the throom emit the most radiance.  Ayshine occurs after pallyne and before evenshine.

backgrounder - a "member of the general public" - someone whose existence provides background for the more storied life of a foregrounder. 

bafract - a kind of translucent tarpaulin used as a boundary-skin for the poorer dwellings in a Uranian city.

bardrembar - the double-metabolism of a Nenn.  Digestion One is bardrem; Digestion Two (operating upon the previous meal), triggered by bardrem, is drembar. 

bejeh - "cheer" - emotive term for the ambience created by a meal shared in convivial fellowship; the glow of solidarity this gives the participants; the sense of clustering around a hearth-glow, beyond which stretches the infinite mystery of an untameable giant planet.

bejeh-kveff - "partakers of cheer"

blaping - a Uranian swear-word.  Its literal meaning has not yet been vouchsafed to Terrans.

the Bostanga Fom - the "Spontaneous Guard": a voluntary association to protect the Sunnoad.

bozmur - the neurotransmitter of the Mad City's brain. 

bukarna - the giant grass of which an oyor is composed.  A bukarna stem is typically three or four yards high, flexible as a reed but strong as bamboo, its stem vertically striped russet and green.  Nine times out of ten its summit bears a rudimentary tuft of thin up-pointed leaves, but the other ten per cent of stems spread into a wide, horizontal summit of broader leaf-blades of light green.

"by Ouran" - this ejaculation is breathed inaudibly more often than spoken.  To utter aloud the putative name of the World Spirit would show a degree of disrespect that no Uranian is likely to stomach.  To say "by Thremdu" is preferable.

celeriton-speak - a hybrid Uranian-Terran lingo.

Chelth - the continuum looted of much of its energy by the Uranians during the 130 days of the short Sodium Era (see chapters 4 and 5 of the History in Uranian Gleams).  The plunder of Chelth has caused deep (though manageable) guilt among Uranians ever since.  It is the one major negative undercurrent in the otherwise self-confident Uranian mind-set.

chirr - a city-employee who remains conscious at work, instead of getting through the day's tasks in the usual work-trance.  For a fuller description see under vigilee.

chremn - an endearment; "my love" as a form of address.

cmem - the extension of Demelath's brain, in the form of a red mist of convincells.

convincells - the components of the cmem.

Corrector - someone who has managed to get away with justifiably coercing a Sunnoad.  The penalty for unsuccessful Correctors being death, few have aspired to the honour.

the Corruption Ray [igmor gwastoom] - a weapon used in eras 7 [see The First Sunnoad] and 84-5 [see Impostor].  It set up a mental field which attacked the sense of value.  Its effect was to undermine moral fibre by weakening attachments to cultural roots, causing civilizations to rot from within.

cvoc - an impressionistic term for the jungly clutter of machine evolution which can fill some sections of cities or their sub-floor vaults.

Daon - the recognized heir to a Noad; the person who is due to succeed to the noadex.

dathraa - see under Wayfarer.

dayonnad - the office of Daon.

the Dex Galooga - the "Succession Conspiracy" - a movement to raise Oreneg Vadon to the sunnoadex.

the Dfangexcarj - the Simulator Project.  See The 'Dassan Call.

Dmara - The first Nenn city; and, previous to this, the prebiotic lake or sivvan from which the Liquid Men and then the fully human Nenns themselves emerged, in the Hydrogen Era at the start of the current Great Cycle.

Drall - a word that can loosely and figuratively be translated as "crusade": an expedition to right a wrong, in Syoomean terms.  Overlaps in meaning with the more exclusively military term zemmg.

drennd - plural, drenndv, the artificial mountains of Quonia, actually cities.

drink - see frimzaf and myix.

dwallidee - an expensive gift in the form of a beautiful blue bowl with nacreous highlights, and a communicator which summons help from the Noad only if the bowl is smashed.  The idea is that the beauty of the object ensures it will never be used as a summoner except on the rarest occasions. 

eomasp - an irregularity in the day/night cycle of Ooranye, brought about by a disturbance in the rhythm of aerial bioluminescence which is sensitive to surges in humanity's emotional waves, which in turn are brought about by large-scale emotive events.  Thus, eomasps mark the transitions between historical eras.

evenshine - the last five hours of "daytime" on Ooranye.

evidencer-cloud - sigaklya - an animate cloud species which can collect and preserve visual recordings of events.

eyabon - restaurateur / master-of-ceremonies

faotch! - an exclamation at a (literal or metaphorical) bad smell.

flaon-scrorr - the belt of cultivated land around Olhoav.  The flaon is the continuously cultivated, inner part; outside it is the more vaguely defined, part-settled scrorr, which fades out into the wilderness.

flunnd - literally, a backgrounder who adopts the airs of a foregrounder; a destiny-snob.  As a mere ejaculation, flunnd! is one of the commonest swear-words on Ooranye.

flurg - in appearance a stone, conveniently shaped to sit on; in reality a fungoid creature with the capacity to deliver a sharp and sometimes lethal sting.

fobbrakna - "platterflies" - the insectoids which guard the Crystal Groves.  Each fobbrak has triangular or oval wings the size of large platters, and three eyes, the third of which is a laser-emitter, evolved to kill in defence of the Grove.

foregrounder - someone whose life-story is sufficiently distinctive and memorable, that it makes him/her into material for one of the main protagonists in a tale.

forg - translation of the abbreviation of the longer Uranian word for foregrounder.

the Forgetters - a society (the Vemorth Stazel) who use artificial amnesia to get a fresh slant on a problem.

frimzaf - a frothy, creamy, bubbly drink.

frush - literally, a late, deflated stage in the life of a certain large balloon-like fruit (the fradosh) when it has lost its freshness; figuratively, someone who has lost his or her former importance.

Fyaym - the antithesis of Syoom.  Fyaym is loosely "the wilderness", but more accurately comprises those areas (covering four-fifths of the giant planet) where a lone Wayfarer has a less-than-even chance of surviving a thousand-mile journey.

Ghepion - the Ghepions or "Old Machines" are the fruits of independent mechanical evolution: machines who in a purposive drive towards the biological have developed into sentient living things.  This category of being makes its first appearance on Ooranye during era 47, the Siver Era.  The semi-organic computer Dynoom, city-brain of Olhoav, is a Ghepion. 

Glomb - the native Uranian word for "Weigher"; the title chosen by Dempelath.

gneh-ou - predatory clouds.  One of the many varieties of gaseous life-form in the skies of Ooranye.

Gohik Ugraon - Reconstruction Corps: the organization created by Dempelath for establishing his power on a new basis after the big quake of 10,538,688 Ac.

googozdamun - reckless tampering with the forces of Fyaym.

gorup - supposedly, a stretch of life with no fate-wave.  Gorups are not proven to exist.

gralm - the granular substance forming the Uranian plains; has a consistency rather like cork, and varies in colour, from mostly dark blue, brown and black, to occasional bright blues and reds.

Great Cycle - the current Great Cycle, which when it ends will have been 100,000 Uranian years or 8.4 million Terran years long, comprises all 92 eras of Nenn history and is due to finish about 7.2 million Terran years hence, when (according to Thremdu) the kalyars will take over from the Nenns.  Previous Great Cycles stretch back into the mists of time, and include what glimpses we have of the histories of pre-Nenn inhabitants of Ooranye.

grutt - a miscreant; worthless person; the meaning has something in common with the Terran Viking term "nithing"

gvo - is semi-kolv; a compound of particulate and non-particulate matter, the latter left over from the previous universe, and a source of enormous power.  The Sun-Egg was composed of glowing orange gvo.

hlann (plural 'hlannad') - a "bivalve-boulder" creature.

the Husnuth - the research complex in Olhoav; a pyramidal building described in The Heartland Beckons.

igrul chozzuk - "the matter having been weighed" - catch-phrase of the supporters of Dempelath - evoking the leader's propensity for unquestionable decision.  The words are, presumably, the origin of the title of Weigher (Glomb, in Uranian).

the Kalishan Voice - telepathic broadcast accidentally triggered by an archeologist investigating ruins in Oirr.  The 57-minute broadcast - a warning against the Quonians - blanketed Syoom; it comprised the Nickel Era.

kalyar - "evolved man" - a general term for a Uranian human being or near-human being who belongs to one of the strains that, from the Tungsten Era onwards, have evolved away from the norm (by the "norm" is usually meant that of the Nenns prior to that time).

kommassandassan - Say this word and you'll get a hearing, but you had better be right.  See The 'Dassan Call.

keestaggulb - "ultimate nightmare": something which no man can face.

klast - a crunchy, dried-meat roll; one of the commonest foods of Ooranye.

kolv - the continuous, i.e. non-particulate, non-atomic substance, left over from the previous universe.  Pure Kolv, when split or divided ad infinitum, remains kolv; it can never be reduced to other components.  It can however form what are loosely called compounds (actually, mixtures) with atomic stuff; its part-atomic compound, semi-kolv or gvo, was the substance of the Sun-Egg. 

krematar - authorization; "immediatization" of a previously vague ambition; a commission or an aim bestowed. 

kzel - a loosely-organized group of strollers.

lixxou - ornamental comets which merry-making Uranians like to hurl.  (Singular: lixx.)

lonk-plaen - contemptuous term for an over-contented or over-respectful backgrounder.

lremd - (adjective) - those who possess renl are lremd.

Lrisj or Lrissuj - the second most common of the three principal Uranian languages, and the one native to Olhoav.  It is more distantly related to the other two (Nouuan and Jommdan) than they are to each other.

manangaloom - a flying city.  Yr is one.  In the current Great Cycle there are no others.

Medebberan - a person between 4000 and 5000 Uranian days of age; in terms of Terran  years it extends from between roughly thirteen and a half to just over seventeen; so, partly equivalent to "teenager".

Meegn - thin metal arches soaring above Olhoav, suggestive of force-field structures.

mossongunain - a word which provided a way of getting round the prohibition on discussing forbidden or taboo subjects (rurrups) on Ooranye; if you really have to discuss a rurrup, you can say "mossongunain" and you are allowed five minutes to say what needs to be said; all participants in the conversation then forget about it afterwards, a fact which mostly limits the usefulness of mossongunain to its function as a safety-valve.

myyix - the Uranian liqueur-drink: a thick, glowing cordial, comparable to a luminous viscous mead.

narp - a large, dangerous wild plant with laser-tipped stems.

nebulation - the mind-blown condition to which people can fall prey when alone in the Uranian wilderness, if they allow a sense of its vastness to overcome them.

nebulee - a victim of nebulation. (Wroproav in Uranian.)

nen - the unisex pronoun meaning "he or she", or used as a more personal substitute for "it" when denoting an intelligent being of neither gender.

Nenn - the Nenns are the humans of Ooranye.  They and Terran humans are telemorphs (sharers of species identity without a common ancestor).  Nenns differ physically from Terran humans in that Nenns are grey-skinned and have more efficient metabolisms (they don't need to eat so much, and so meals tend on average to be more special occasions on Ooranye than they are on Earth - see bejeh).  Mentally and morally, Nenns differ from Terrans as follows: (1) Nenns, whether good or evil, are free from all vulgarity; (2) their brains are "hard-wired" with awareness of the periodic table of the elements; (3) they have apparng or context-awareness; (4) there is a sharper or more conscious division than on Earth between foregrounders and backgrounders - although the categories are not openly admitted.

Noad - the ruler or "focus" of a city-state.

noadex - the office of Noad.  The institution of the noadex first evolved in the city of Contahl, in the Lithium Era.

noostagats - means "twaddle" or "poppycock"

noppt-oartuc - the Sixty-Day Disease.  Diseases are extremely rare on Ooranye, and when they strike they are usually not contagious.  This general rule applies to the noppt-oartuc.  All that is known of it, is that when you get it your skin acquires a sheen of blue, and you die when the sixty days are up.   

the nuznong - the thought-suppressant which the Mad City used at the outset of its bid for world domination in Era 50.  The nuznong blanked out certain ideas which, had they occurred to the authorities in time, might have enabled them to prevent the catastrophe.

nyr - a unit of 12 men: 11 plus the zamur commanding.

nyzynzyr - a unit of 1464 men: eleven nyzyrs plus the zynzyr commanding.

nyzyr - a military unit composed of 133 men: eleven nyrs plus their zamurs, plus the overall commander the zyr.

oalm - the open parking space around the rim of any of the disc-on-stem cities of Syoom.

omzyr - "general" - a military leader with 16,104 men in his command.

Ooranye (occasional variant spelling "Ouranye") - the seventh planet of the Solar System.   The name stems from a native phrase meaning first world.
     The planet used to be called by Terrans "Uranus", and even its own inhabitants, coincidentally, echo the old "U" by a vowel-change from noun to adjective so that on both worlds the adjective of Ooranye is "Uranian", not "Ooranian".
     For details about this up-and-coming orb, to which the future belongs, see the Survey of Ooranye.

orax - a white grey-bordered heptagon, insigne of the Glomb, worn on the armbands of his henchmen.

osror - plural osrorv: the giant luminous trees along the Quonian frontier.

oyor - plural, oyorou - grass forest.  Such forests are thinly scattered over the plains of Ooranye.  The average stems in the oyorou are three or four yards high, though some rear much higher.  The boundaries of the oyorou tend to be sharply delineated, as though cut by the action of an intelligence.

pallyne - the first five hours of "daytime" on Ooranye.

par yentar - "poor losers" - those who are driven insane by being unable to accept that they have lost a thuzolyr-bout.  That is, they cannot bear the idea that their capacity for renl is inferior to another's.

pliif - generic term for the class of creatures who live in Ooranye's icy crust.  See stryegns.

plok - "Garbage", in both the literal and the metaphorical sense.  The rhyme with Terran "shlock" either comes from pure coincidence or evinces a cosmic resonance of some kind.

plorl-orm - a music-box, part mechanical and part electronic in operation, which sits in a Uranian inn and now and then beats out a tune accompanied by a voice-recording.

pmetn and refelc - the pair of three-minute periods during which the stars can be seen from the surface of Ooranye.  Pmetn is the first three minutes of night, and refelc the last three, or the first three minutes of morning.  What causes the atmosphere to become transparent at those brief intervals is that the microscopic throom have all rotated edge-on to the planet, so that they cease to obstruct the rays of starlight.

Some of the published sources are, at first sight, contradictory on the question of the visibility of the firmament from the surface of Ooranye.  See, on the one hand, pages 33 and 54 of Vintage Worlds 1 and, on the other, page 207 of Uranian Gleams.  The contradiction may be resolved by the argument used on the Survey page - see The Uranian Firmament - A Clash of Sources.

pnal - distance-indicator    

Pnurrm - the building that houses Olhoav's centre of ooranographic information.  The basement hall-floor (Wayfarers' Hall) is a huge walk-on map used to display Wayfaring routes and swaffr, marshalling data for the sfy.

polikanomv - the gradually shifting boundary of Quonia.

porrang - a gleaming metal, of whitish silver hue.  It is best known for its use in the hulls of skimmers.

precyclic - referring to history before the beginning of the Hydrogen Era.  It is widely believed that another form of humanity once existed before the Nenns.

Quonians - a race of humans, physically not much different from the Nenns of Syoom, but considerably different culturally.  They have discovered the secret of sending objects backward in time, in certain limited "pocket" cases where no paradoxes are thereby created.   The Quonians arrived openly in Syoom during the Copper Era, though already in the last part of the Cobalt Era they had been surreptitiously planting "false pasts" in Syoomean archeological sites.  Their cultural infiltration - amounting to an invasion - failed when their methods were exposed, partly due to the warning given by the Kalishan Voice.  Discredited, they left Syoom at the end of the Copper Era.  They were involved in another invasion which also failed, this time militarily, during eras 38-39 (see The Open Secret).  Much later, during the Osmium Era, they fought a celebrated "Cold War" with Syoom, their most renowned opponent being Taldis Norkoten (see The Forgetters).

ranna - a five-legged pet the size of an average Terran dog.  The central "belly-leg" is used as a pivot around which the beast can execute a swift and sudden turn.

refelc - see pmetn and refelc.

religion - see the entries on Thremdu and Xolchunnur.

renl - the ability to be in the right place at the right time; to prioritize instinctively and rightly; to achieve leadership without bureaucracy or hierarchic structures.  The quality a Noad has to have, if nen's rule is not to degenerate into arelk.

reporzunt - the martial art which depends upon slowness.  It is most effective in a tense social conflict where a gradually incremental threat presents the enemy with a hard choice as to when best to respond.

the Rhenium Moment - those five hours which constituted Era 75, the Rhenium Era.  During this time the World Spirit, Ouran, communicated with the people of Syoom.  The message was aimed most strongly at the delegates to an international conference held in Zdinth Hall, Skyyon.  Only gradually during the next era was the message of the Moment understood.  It prevented an inter-species war between Nenns and kalyars.

rhoufah - "unwelcomeness" - a typically vague Uranian term for an episode of bad stuff that happens, for example as a consequence of imports from the wilderness which turn out to be dangerous.

the Rin-Stazel - the scientific institution which grew out of the standing committee established by the Congress of Contahl at the end of the Lithium Era.  During the Beryllium and Boron Eras the Rin-Stazel led research into ways of solving the looming energy crisis caused by the imminent depletion of the Sun-Egg.  Under its last powerful director, Pyoan Tatham, the fateful decision was made, that steps must be taken to plunder the dimension of Chelth.  The Rin-Stazel was disbanded during the troubles of the Nitrogen Era, but its aims were later carried out by the first Sunnoad, Hyala Movoun 1.  See the historical chapters 3 - 5 in Uranian Gleams.

rurrup - any taboo subject on Ooranye.  One example (most of the time) is any discussion of the backgrounder-foregrounder distinction; another example is, the measures which may have to be taken to get rid of a Noad or even a Sunnoad if nen turns out to be unfit for office (such measures cannot be constitutionally set out, as laws and constitutions are non-existent on Ooranye). 

sanungi-stillig-ost - "meld-cheer marriage meal": a banquet at which a marriage is announced and takes place.

seyyo - a "customary-car" - a float expressive of rejoicing at the appointment of a high official such as a Noad, Daon or omzyr.

sfy - the safety-contours on Uranian maps.  They constantly change, like the isobars of the weather-maps of Earth. 

sfy-50 - on Uranian maps, the line joining all places in which a lone Wayfarer has a 50 per cent chance of surviving a thousand-mile voyage.  Sfy-50 is the boundary between Syoom and Fyaym.

sigaklya - see evidencer-cloud.

sivvan - the pre-biotic lake at Dmara, from which Uranian humanity first emerged; an event which marked the start of the Hydrogen Era at the beginning of the current Great Cycle.

skimmer - the principal mode of transport on Ooranye: a one-man vehicle which flies close to the ground.  Roughly shaped like an upturned canoe, most skimmers are about five yards long and at their centre one yard wide.  For long voyages, sections of the vehicle's centre can be folded into a couch or chair.  A skimmer's "ceiling" is six yards, except on exceptional occasions when a skilled pilot can go higher by exploiting boundaries between air-currents during a storm ("storm-riding").  Fuelled by means of "ell-light phials" of vheic crystals, its top speed is 200 mph.  Skimmers were first developed in the Neon Era, and the Phosphorus Era saw the mass-production of billions of the buoyancy-shards around which every skimmer has been subsequently built.

Skimmjard! - the word of greeting used by Uranians in all three of their main languages.  Also, the word denotes a skimmer-pilot.

smollk - the "foamed ore" of Ammye - the material from which the Zairm, the palace at Skyyon, is constructed.

Snaddy-Galomm - the "spinning top" - a vision of the destiny-network.  It's not a spatial dimension, it's a meaning-dimension, but to the eyes of the beholder it necessarily has a shape.  It appears as a rotating oblate spheroid composed of twisting tornado-like tubes which represent the currents of fate, and, riding those currents, tiny figures wearing flame-hats.  Pairs of incarnations of the same soul tilt their hats towards one another across distances representing the gulfs of time which separate them.

snoffbongar - a disrespectful term which might be translated as "knowledge-junkie"; someone who is prone to, or undertakes, a snoffobong.

snoffobong - "knowledge-binge".  Intemperate wallowing in historical knowledge; succumbing to the temptation afforded by the immense span and richness of Uranian history.

snoobagog - a coarse blanket, convertible to a robe, woven from the leaves of a giant-grass forest.

sponnd - a laser hand-weapon which can resemble either a sword or a gun, depending on whether it is set to blade or bolt mode.  Since laser technology on Ooranye uses vheic-light, a fired sponnd-bolt travels not at the speed of photonic light but at the visible speed of a hurled spear.

sponndar - literally, a wielder of a sponnd; more generally, a title of respect like our "Mister/Sir/Madam".  The plural of sponndar is sponndarou.

starraflenk - "grip-trap" - the trap of trying to understand too much.  Avoiding the starraflenk is a fundamental Uranian survival skill, a defence against overwhelm on the intensely mysterious giant planet.

Starside - the hemisphere of Ooranye that faces away from the distant Sun.  (Ooranye, despite its distance from the Sun, is tidally locked to it, though this was not true of the planet's pre-Reality-Engineering mode, "Uranus".)  Starside is mostly Fyaym, but there are pockets of Syoom even there - for example isolated cities such as Olhoav, Nusun, Poleva and their environs.

Staunch Woman [kaparinvonv] - the woman-friend or supporter of the bridgegroom at a Uranian wedding.  To some extent an equivalent of the Terran "best man" idea.

stryegns - often referred to in tales transmitted to Terrans as "barnacle-stryegns"; a species of pliff, the class of ice-creatures who live in Ooranye's crust.  Stryegns are attracted by the foundations of cities, and cluster beneath them.

the Sun-Egg - an approximately globular mascon composed of semi-kolv or gvo, which surfaced due to crustal convection; its discovery marked the end of the Hydrogen Era and a quantum leap in the energy resources of Uranian mankind.  At the time of its discovery the Sun-Egg was an ovoid mountain; all through the major Lithium Era it was steadily dwindling but remained Uranians' chief source of power; by the Nitrogen Era it had all but disappeared (though Thebb Clarm in Basilisk had gvo-crystals in his workshop); during the brief Sodium Era its last fragments were used up. 

Sunnoad - the Sunnoad is the Noad of Noads; the focus of foci; the planetary warlord of Ooranye.  Not exactly a suzerain - for the city-states retain their sovereignty.  The Sunnoad's ascendancy is a matter of custom and prestige rather than due to any formal constitutional power.  Traditionally, the Sunnoad leads the forces of Syoom when that area of human civilization is threatened. 

The courtesy number following a Sunnoad's name is not a regnal number in the manner of Henry VIII or Louis XIV; rather, it is an administration number.  Thus, back in the dawn ages, Sunnoad Hyala Movoun 1 was succeeded by Sunnoad Lamiroth Eren 2.  By now there have been well over eighty thousand Sunnoads; the holder of the rank at the commencement of our Final Era was Iyen Noom 80525 (see Uranian Thule in Vintage Worlds 1).

sunnoadex - the office of Sunnoad.

the swaffr - the "signal-blocks and memoranda" which, in their constant re-arrangement, form the intermediate stage between, on the one hand, the raw data of Wayfarer survival on particular routes, and, on the other hand, the kinematic existential maps drawn up by the cartographers of Ooranye.  ('Swaffr' is plural; the singular, rarely used, is swaff.)  Some Wayfarers also use the unprocessed swaffr when choosing a route.  See the scene in the Pnurrm in The Nebulee.

Syoom - loosely speaking, the area of human civilization on Ooranye.  More precisely, and using the statistical definition which is the basis of Uranian cartography, Syoom comprises those lands where a lone Wayfarer has a better than even chance of surviving a thousand-mile journey.  Syoom covers an area of approximately 400,000,000 square miles; about one fifth of the planet.  It is surrounded by its antithesis, Fyaym.  This is only a general picture; there are many pockets of Syoom in the vastness of Fyaym, and vice-versa.  Moreover, as is inevitable, some patches of Syoom are "thin" like threadbare bits of carpet, where the sfy are close to being as low as 50.  Finally, there are some cities isolated in the midst of Fyaym - cities such as Olhoav, on Starside.

the taharen - the intelligent avian species to which Tjoren belonged (see Nalre Zitpoidl and the Great Winter).

Taquotal - an undertaking to obey an order.  The "Yessir" of Ooranye.

tgeb - a colloquial "thanks" in the three main Uranian languages.

Thremdu - or more fully Thremdu Ouran, "the Emergent One of Ooranye" - reputed name of the World Spirit, the planetary intelligence of Ooranye.

throom - the aerial micro-organisms which by their 30-hour glow-cycle bring day and night to Ooranye, in a simultaneous world-wide rhythm; there are no "time-zones" on the seventh planet.

thuzolyr - a device to mirror one's renl talent symbolically, on a hand-held screen.  In cases where no heir to a ruler has been named, the citizens must pair up and face each other with thuzolyrs, until one with winningly patterned screen-flashes emerges as the rightful Noad or Sunnoad.  Thuzolyrs are "cultivable" devices, grown from each other, descended from an original in a previous Cycle.  As a matter of fact the plural is misleading; they are really all 4-dimensional extensions of each other, so that what one of them "knows" or registers is "known" or registered by all. 

tnef - a metabolic invert who cannot enjoy either Digestion One or Digestion Two, as a result of these processes being the wrong way round.

torh - a crystal grove; that's to say, a grove of bushes or small trees of which the leaves are crystalline.  The torhou play a renowned part in Uranian history and society, paradoxically due to their reclusive nature.  This is especially true of the torhou of Opahej, where Hyala Movoun 1, the first Sunnoad, grew to maturity.  See also fobbrakna.

tyoyg - "collaborator with the darkness".  The closest Uranian equivalent to "one who has sold his soul to the Devil".  On Ooranye that means collaboration with Thremdu, the rejected fragment of the planetary intelligence or 'World Spirit'.

vellg - singular of velng.

velng - (singular, vellg) an ant-like race which builds artificial mountains on the plains, and which has been known, especially in the Vanadium Era, to hold humans captive.

the Vemorth Stazel - the Society of Forgetters.

vheic - the glowing plants which form the energy-source for skimmers and sponnds.

vigilee - chirr in Uranian - a city-employee who remains conscious at work, instead of getting through the day's tasks in the usual work-trance.  The chirr is a highly respected trouble-shooter who can deal with the occasional situation which demands wide-awake initiative.  Such situations are few, because over the aeons of time the economic workings of a State have become almost as automatic as the metabolic functions of a human body.  But just as a body may occasionally need conscious medical attention, so a Uranian urban economy may occasionally require the wakeful care of a vigilee.  See the episode, "The Lever of Power".

vlep - monorail car.

vlomboz - singular vlom (the -boz suffix is a rare plural  but when it is used, the word usually appears in the plural) - the "icing-sugar" toppings in Oso, fused architectural relics of the cataclysm of Era 50.

Vorratch - see Zedmaiol Vorratch.  The "Parity Tree".

vrar - the vrars are the childlike pirates of Ooranye; perhaps folk whose consciousness has buckled in some way under the strain of coping with life on the huge world.

vuocna - ground-crawling clouds (singular, "vuoc").

waon - a company of people whose individual consciousness is sunk into that of the group as it marches along in chevron formation; perhaps a blind attempt to have it both ways, as wirrip and forg; a phenomenon born of the status-confusion afflicting Olhoavan backgrounders as a consequence of revolutionary upheaval.

Wayfarer (dathraa in the three main Uranian languages) - a voyager whose fate is used by cartographers to compile statistics of peril.

wirrip - slang for "backgrounder", or "person with only one name", i.e. an ordinary member of the general public

World Spirit - the focus for the Uranians' "suspended religion".  The religious impulse of the Nenns stops part-way to transcendence during this cycle of their planet's history.  A sort of truncated reverence is thus aimed not at a universal Creator but at a mere planetary Intelligence, vaguely defined but definitely known to exist, and known to have intervened, though very rarely, in human history.  Nen's name is supposed to be Thremdu.  See also the entry on Xolchunnur.

xebbalsh - a submarine-shaped trading vehicle, owned by a merchant family, and which can crawl for long periods across the plains, laden with cargo.  The plural is xebbalshou; the crew are xebbalshar.

Xolchunnur - or "Xolch" in disrespectful parlance - the so-called "Uranian Satan"; actually a cast-off ego-fragment of the World Spirit.

Yr - "City of Mists" - an airborne city, manned by a rogue outlaw regime, which has haunted the skies of Ooranye since it was launched way back in the Zirconium Era.  (Some authorities incorrectly ascribe its launch to further back, to the Phosphorus.)

yyne - the middle period of night; the darkest five hours.  This is the time during which the aerial micro-organisms (the throom), which otherwise provide the planet's illumination, go dark.  Not only do they then provide no light of their own, but also their forms obscure the rays of the Sun and stars.

zamur - officer with 11 men under his command.  The 12 together form a nyr.

zarromzyr - a sort of "Grand Admiral" - a title occasionally used for the commander of an expedition involving the skyships of more than one city.

zatrar - a high rank of cartographer; one who not only draws the maps but sometimes also investigates the phenomena to be mapped

Zedmaiol Vorratch - the "Parity Tree".  A metal bladed structure like a tree with huge sickle-shaped leaves, on which were hung opponents or supposed opponents of Dempelath's regime.

zemmg - an exalted war effort, analogous to a crusade - see The Worm of Poleva.  A zemmg is like a drall, only the term "zemmg" is more purely military.

zoalsh (two syllables, zo-alsh) - a restaurant / hotel / social centre, where banquets are held at which important social and political announcements are sometimes made.

Zveggh-Yerrand - a penthouse shaped like a flying saucer that has come to rest on top of the dome of the Menestegon.  The interior of the Zveggh consists of central living quarters and peripheral study zones, the latter numbering twenty-six, one for each major Uranian era.  The haul of holocubes from Yr is housed in the Zveggh.  (See The Validator Rips.)

zynzyr - a military rank, an officer leading a nyzynzyr with 1463 men under his command, composed of eleven nyzyrs of 133 men each.

zyr - a military rank, an officer leading a nyzyr of 133 men.