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Frigate

Make sure not to overdo it:

cerone (Italian) excessive make-up applied on one’s face (literally, grease paint)

itoyewaton (Dakota, USA) to wear anything that makes one look frightful

age-otori (Japanese) formally styling one’s hair for a coming-of-age ceremony, but looking worse than before

Verschlimmerung (German) an improvement for the worse

die Fregatte (German) a heavily made-up old woman (literally, frigate)

yubisakibijin (Japanese) a woman who spends a lot of her salary tending to her fingernails

On reflection

Ugly beautiful

Though there are hundreds of poetic English words for different beautiful colours, there are very few for those at the less pleasant end of the spectrum. The Ojibway of North America say osawegisan, which means making something yellow with smoke, nicotine-stained. The Pali of India have a word for the bluish-black colour of a corpse – vinilaka – which literally means resembling neither father nor mother. The Amerindian Mingo words for the basic colours are just as evocative:

uiskwanyë’ta’ê’ the colour of rotten wood (brown)

unöwö’ta’ê’ the colour of limestone or plaster (white)

uyë’kwææ’ê’ the colour of smoke (grey)

tsitkwææ’ê’ the colour of bile (yellow)

Berlin backsides

Just because you can’t see your own backside doesn’t mean that others can’t. The Germans certainly notice these things:

Arschgeweih a large symmetrical tattoo on the lower back, just above the bottom, resembling the shape of antlers

Liebestoeter unattractive underwear (literally, love killer)

Maurerdekoltee a bricklayer’s cleavage (the part of a man’s backside you can see when he stoops deeply and his trouser waistband goes down a little bit)

Sails set

All over the world, people enjoy escaping from their intractable shape in a fine outfit:

kambabalegkasan (Maguindanaon, Philippines) the act of wearing new clothes

sich auftakeln (German) to get all dolled up (literally, with all sails set)

housunprässit (Finnish) trouser creases

fifi (Argentinian Spanish) a fashion-conscious man, dandy

kopezya (Mambwe, Zambia) tipping his hat down over his eyes

pagalong (Maranao, Philippines) to look at oneself in the mirror

Kangaroo teeth

Though what works in one place won’t necessarily work in another:

nastā (Hindi) a hole bored in the septum of the nose

wo-kûs’-i-ûk (Maliseet, Canada) a necklace of claws

kechchai (Tamil) little tinkling bells tied to the legs

wowoodteyadla (Kaurna Warra, Australia) two or four kangaroo teeth bound together with hair and covered with grease and red ochre, worn on the forehead by fully initiated men

okpukpu (Igbo, Nigeria) an ivory bangle worn by women with ten or more children, and sometimes by men to demonstrate their proven expertise

borsello (Italian) a man’s handbag

Hand-me-downs

‘Those who have fine clothes in their chests can wear rags,’ say the Italians, but in other parts of the world it’s not always true that the higher up you are in society the more likely you are to dress down:

s chuzhovo plecha (Russian) second-hand clothes (literally, from a stranger’s shoulder)

kamaeieia (Gilbertese, Oceania) to wear a garment until it is in tatters

xúng xính (Vietnamese) to be dressed in oversized clothes

mabelebele (Setswana, Botswana) the rags and tatters worn by a madman, a pauper or a traditional doctor

Designer knitwear

The two extremes of women’s intense relationship with clothes are chronicled by the Japanese. At one end there is nitto-onna, a woman so dedicated to her career that she has no time to iron blouses and so resorts to dressing only in knitted tops; and at the other there are ippaiyoku, women whose every garment and accessory are made by the same designer.

Fashionista

Most try to keep up with what everyone else is wearing, but there will always be some, thankfully, who remain gloriously independent:

cowichan (British Columbia, Canada) a vividly patterned sweater

buddi (Tamil) someone who wears thick glasses

lambung (Maguindanaon, Philippines) to wear very big clothes

agadagba (Igbo, Nigeria)